I just don't know what to feed him. Please help, getting desperate.

[Memoo]

I have dd(12) ds(10) and dd(2).

Both of my girls will eat anything. I try to cook everything from fresh and they have lots of fruit and veg.

Ds however is a knightmare! I'm so tired of having to cook him different meals. I know people will say just give him what everyone else is having, he'll eat it if he is hungry but he actually won't.

Over the years we've had tears and tantrums ( from both of us) Ive tried ignoring, reward charts, threats, bribery. He eats no veg at all and tbe only fruit he will eat is apples.

Tonight we are having a rice and vegtable dish. There us no way on this earth he will touch it. He'll end up having oven chips again!

Please please does anyone have an ideas??

Knightmare?? Oops!

Poor you! Apart from chips, what will he eat? Can you get away with blitzing a pasta sauce with veg in so it just looks like tomato sauce?

Are smoothies/milkshakes any good?

Have you tried HV or GP?

Hope others will be along soon with more advice. Have you tried posting under 'Food' as well?

Have you cut out all the threats bribery etc? Calm it all down, enjoy eating with dds and let him get on with it himself. Does he get lots of control in other ways - choice of trousers etc?

If it was me I'd say from now on everyone gets bit of same main meal. Those who really hate it can have something vaguely healthy instead - cereal, ham sandwich, yoghurt etc. Oven chips and the like will be served to everyone every so often as part of a meal.

If he is losing weight you need to take more action but otherwise I think I would try to nip this seperate meals thing in the bud. Its hard enough to make one!

No personal experience I'm afraid but though you sounded desparate!

Any good getting him to cook with no strings attached - for the whole family, choose menu, buy the food, cook it - perhaps he'd be interested in trying it then - would have thought there's things he can do safely with you being ahelper?

have you tried putting the various components of the meal into serving dishes, and letting everyone help themselves? sort of gives a bit of control back to the dc in terms of what they put on their plates. try and make sure there's one thing, even if just bread/potatoes, that you know he likes, and leave the rest up to him.

I know it's not ideal in terms of nutrients, but when I was small I went about 5 years just eating meat, and peanut butter sandwiches, and I don't have rickets/obesity/anorexia. you can always give him a multivit to ease your conscience .

That kind of behaviour is either a power-struggle or aversion/phobia/eating disorder. The longer it goes on, and the more severe it becomes, the more I'd be concerned that it was the latter. If you're certain you've tried everything to counteract the power-struggle possibility and it hasn't worked then I'd say your next step would be to talk to the medical professionals. If he's showing any signs of malnutrition.... lack of weight-gain, frequent illnesses, aggression, fatigue... then see the GP sooner rather than later.

What does he eat?

My DS will not eat veg. Refuses point blank. I hide veg in soups and pasta sauces and give him the fruit that he likes.

I have also not made a fuss about it. He has to try everything on his plate - he HAS to. Even just one bite. If he doesn't like it, I don't make him eat it.

Recently he has started eating carrots we are eating a lot of carrots now

at knightmare.

I've tried really hard to be calm about it but we're very close and I suspect he may pick up on my anxieties any way. We have a deal that he at least tries everything on his plate which he does do.

A typical day would be as follows

Breakfast - weetabix
Lunch - ham or cheese sandwich ( won't eat any other filling bur does have wholemeal bread) yoghurt, apple, fruit juice.

Tea - ge will eat chips and occasionally a little mash. No jackets spuds, boiled, roast etc. No veg at all, he won't even eat beans!! He will eat most types of meat. Loves pizza and sausages. He won't eat egg or fish, no pasta or rice.

For supper he'll usually have some toast.

I rarely let him eat biscuits etc between meals, I even limit the squash he drinks. I just don't want to fill him up on rubbish.

I know I really need to just calm down and let it go but I worry about him. He hasn't lost weight but he is very slim for his age. He isn't lacking in energy either. He plays football a couple of times a week.

Sorry this is such a ramble. Just putting it all down as it comes to me.

I've tried hiding veg in pasta sauces but he won't touch them. He doesn't even like cheesy sauces. >

Teatimes are always power-struggles. He is the youngest of the family and when you are all sat around the table, he has the full attention of everyone and so he milks it for all it is worth!

My ds was just the same and I was really afraid that he was hardly eating a thing and would therefore starve to death.

Is there one meal he does eat? For instance, does he have a good breakfast? My ds would eat porridge (still does) consistently but his lunchbox from school would come back untouched and he would turn his nose up at the tea I'd make. So a growing boy would often be eating no more than a bowl of porridge, perhaps a carrot stick and a piece of fruit at lunch and one spoonful of tea and a yoghurt. Yet that seemed to be enough, he certainly didn't lose weight.

I would strongly recommend that you offer some bread with his tea and then just leave him to it. Praise him as much as you can. So even if he is not eating, if he is sat quietly in his chair, praise him for that. If he asks for something nicely; if he takes a bite out of the bread etc etc. When he moans and messes with his food ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore.

He has learnt that by refusing food he is suddenly the centre of attention and you all plead with him to eat something. So change tactics. Don't be bothered if he refuses everything. Don't deny him his dessert, just don't be tempted to give him anything else. Praise everything you can that is good, even if he isn't being good on purpose. Then he'll learn that attention comes from being good and trying and that by being naughty and/or demanding he gets completely ignored.

It's only a battle if you allow it to be. Rest assured he will be eating enough for what his body needs right now. Give this method a week therefore and then note down the changes. Best of luck!

(Cut out the supper, he can refuse tea knowing that he'll get toast later on. Frozen spinach is great for hiding in pasta sauces and from what you have written, he eats more than my ds did when he was 5).

Getting him cooking is a good idea.

I'm a bit crap really, I find tea time quite stressful as Dh isn't home til late and my 2 yo is usually in a bad mood by then. Between the hours of 3 and 7 I have 3 kids who all want a piece of me at the same time.

right, so he'll eat protein, carbs, fruit and dairy.
sounds fine to me. Ok, so it's not a particularly varied diet, and it would be good if he ate some veg, but given that he eats fruit he'll manage.

That is not actually too bad. Ok, I would struggle with no pasta, but aside from that he is eating bread, cheese, yogurt, some fruit, weetabix, meat and cheese.

Not that dissimilar to my DS.

I agree with no alternatives - if he won't eat pasta or potatoes, he gets a sandwich. How about these savoury muffins - they are a good potato ersatz.

You can make a batch and freeze them.

DS also likes to make up his own food, eg. fajitas (which they call fat-eaters in our house) where you put everythign on the table and they help themselves.

My ds (4yo) is just the same. I really sympathise. We spend most meal times trying to ignore him yet also repeatedly reminding him to eat. Otherwise he just messes about or talks and sings and does anything except eat. I do think he's fussy but I also think he loves the attention. It's so annoying and tbh we're going to have to step up out efforts to ignore to try and nip this in the bud.

Or what it's worth I don't think your ds's diet is that bad. He at least eats a variety of things

It's not easy to stay strong about it and not worry when they're slim. Problem is, when we show we're stressed and beg them to eat we just make it worse. A lot easier said than done to just leave them to it when they seem to eat next to nothing!

The hidden veg pasta sauces could be used as pizza sauce if you make your own pizza (or buy ready made bases). Try a variation on 'pizza' using ready-rolled puff pastry as a base (top as usual).

Will he eat burgers? You can include very finely chopped veg in with the mince (delicious with onion). Same with meatballs. You could see if he'll eat the meat balls in a hidden veg sauce, or just serve with chips and gravy.

Plonk one small portion of something you know he won't eat on his plate alongside things you know he likes. Don't force him to eat it, but leave it there. Keep doing this at every meal and eventually he might decide to try some.

Get him to help you cook everything. That doesn't mean he has to eat it (he can choose to have something else), but he can get used to handling and preparing different types of food. Over his might (in the longer term) make him more inclined to try to eat things. It's amazing how just being more comfortable around food can help.

I agree with Suckit. So long as he is happy to eat something from each of the major food groups every day, it doesn't matter what it is. Take all the pressure off all of you.

DS2 was a very fussy eater from birth until about two months ago. He's now nine and is only just this year trying new foods out of curiosity. Until this term he had the same lunch every single day for 5 years. Cheese sandwich, yoghurt, juice and fruit. (I'd have been jealous of your DS's ability to eat ham too! ) One day as I was making his billionth cheese sandwich for packed lunch he announced he wanted school dinners. Since then he's come home saying weird things like 'We had cauliflower. It was quite nice.'

Don't listen to people who say they'll do this and that if you make them. Truly fussy children won't. Just let him be. Make food for your family and always offer him a portion but put very simple healthy food on the table for him too. Keep a supply of ham and cheese, apples and decent bread.
I sneaked lots of veg into spag bol by pureeing them, and did the same with veg mixed into burgers, then smothered the burgers in ketchup and hid them in a big white roll so they couldn't see the green colour of the burger. But you've not mentioned that he'll eat minced beef, so that might not help.

Another thing that helped us, (goes against all normal advice) is to encourage experimentation with any food at all, even fast food. So if he's happy to try Mc Donald's, that's good. Then maybe you can make a bland burger for him in a white bun and over the years turn that into a spinach, red onion and pepper beef burger in a wholemeal bun. We did a lot of sampling different ice creams and juices which gradually built up his interest in different fruits, though he'll still usually just want apple.

it's not a vary varied diet, but it's okay - try getting him to have fruit for supper rather than toast and stop worrying about it. Remove all the stress and carry on with the rest of you eating your meal as normal. If he'll eat pizza then bung all sorts of veg in the tomato sauce and whizz it up

Love 'fat-eaters' I think he'd actually really like to do something like that. I'll definitely give it a go.

You're right it doesn't look too bad writtern down. I think it just looks even worse next to dd's who will honestly eat anything I give them.

How did I manage to have children with such different appetites?!

I am definitely going to get him more involved in tbe cooking. He'd love that.

I face similar with DD (DS eats anything and everything).

I think it is worth reflecting on what he will eat, and if it does cover basic nutritional needs, to just go with it.

No magic bullets, but I do the 'things in serving dishes', and agree to her requests for everything 'plain'. So plain pasta (no sauce), plain rice (no sauce, nothing mixed in) etc.

She seems to prefer very easily identifiable foods - no mixtures - and has an issue with textures. So prefers similarity of texture through a mouthful.

Potato cakes are a hit with her - just smooth mash with flour to make a dough, then made into patties and fried.

I did end up saying that I felt so sorry for her last teatime though, as we ate our pasta with bright veggies and pesto and cheese, and she nibbled some plain, dry spirals...

Lots of x posts but some really good ideas! Blending veg in tomato sauce for pizza is a fab idea and the burgers too. He will always eat burgers or meatballs. I don't know why I didn't think of hiding stuff in there before.

Everyone has said to relax and let it go and I'm really going to try.

Really appreciate your replies, lots of really good ideas.

Nightlark, texture is a huge thing for ds too!

It was my dad who put me on to that - said I should see the expression on her face when she was chewing and hit something unexpected... So now I dissect fish fingers for her to separate crispy coating from fish (she's only 2.7, but I think this is a personality thing not an age thing) and restrain my natural (long term veggie) inclination to mix bits of veg into everything.

Try the let everyone help themselves thing but also let him finger feed so he can investigate the texture with his hands first and can nibble food. Try playing games with licking foods or smelling and guessing what they are, away from meal times.

At dinner time eat together, at the table, no TV, no talking about food, no nagging or attention on him. Give everyone a warning 5 mins before the end of the meal (after 15 mins or so) then stick to it. Clear up and no pudding or snacks.

He'll have the freedom to investigate and self feed without feeling watched but also know that he has to get on with it a bit if he's hungry, it's not just extended play.

Good luck.

I was just thinking about the attention thing.

Up until a couple of years ago I worked as a TA in ds's school. I had put him on school dinners in the hope that eating with his friends would improve things. He would never eat it though and so most days one of the mid day assistants would come and find me and ask me to talk to him. All that attention he got for not eating! It's no wonder he's like this really. I just didn't see it at the time.

I feel your pain. DS is 6 and I had hoped he would just grow out of the fussiness but he hasn't really. Despite my best intentions I sometimes find myself nagging and focussing on all the negatives at mealtimes. He has appalling table manners and has started using that as a way to derail mealtimes, I suppose because I have become quite good at ignoring the lack of eating.

Things we do that might help. I buy or (if feeling particularly virtuous) make pizza bases then make a tomato sauce with hidden red lentils, vege's in. I do a lot of breaded chicken to make sure he is getting protein. Roast dinners are good as he can pick and choose - he eats the meat, yorkshire, maybe a bite of a roast potato, raw carrot.

One thing that was great in terms of getting him to at least try new foods was science week at school. He loves science and that week his homework was to try different foods and note whether sweet/sour/sallty/bitter. He really enjoyed it and forgot to think about the food. He tried pickled onions! Sardines! Goats cheese! I'm not suggesting that this will in any way expand his daily food repertoire but it was fun and that can only be a good thing.

It's so hard...my DD eats like a horse - she is only 2 and probably eats twice as much as him each day.