I am sick of constantly cooking

[WinkyWinkola]

and then when I put the food in front of them, it's to a chorus of yucks, urghs and "I'm not eating THAT!"

We are talking chicken stew and rice, roast chicken, spag bol, Lancashire hotpot, sausages and mash.

Even the 2 year old sneers at the food I make. I follow recipes religiously and dh days it tastes good.

They can live on fish fingers, pizza and tinned ravioli from now on. They can get obese for all I care. I'm sick of making the effort for nothing.

OP the getting them to help thing is complete bollocks, it doesn't work. I feel your pain.

We often have the same problems in our house. A couple of tips:

Try to include a PART of the meal you know they like, eg spaghetti if you've made spaghetti Bol. Just give a tiny portion of the Bol.

Alternate between the fish fingers type meals and home cooked meals. If they don't eat much of the home cooked stuff don't stress, you know they'll eat more the next day. You can gradually lean more towards home cooked as they get older.

I wouldn't go overboard on the praise for eating or trying something new. You want to normalise food and eating, not make a big song and dance about it.

If they miss the odd meal here and there it's not the end of the world.

Remember how ever fussy children are, most of them turn into good eaters as adults. There are loads of foods I eat now that I wouldn't have even contemplated as a child because I naturally became more adventurous in adulthood. So change your goal: you aim is that they grow up to enjoy food and eat well but this may take a lot longer than you think.

Don't think it's pointless making lovely home cooked meals, it's not. Even if they turn their noses up, they are absorbing all sorts of things subconsciously, from seeing you prepare food from scratch to the lovely smells. These are good messages to give your children.

I was a very fussy eater myself and tried to bring up my DDs differently. DD1, aged 1, would eat the same food as we did, suitably cut up. DD2 loved my lovingly hand-made spag bol with good meat and fresh veg. At 2 or thereabouts both DDs thrust aside my home cooking, or at least anything that was 'mixed up' like spag bol, while plain roast meat remained ok. Mystifying.

This seems to be common in the UK but not in all other countries? Did my own little blighters somehow know they were English and destiny was calling them to chicken nuggets?

From an article about Engish children Growing up in France:

"French children staying for supper will discuss and ask questions about the meal, then clear their plates. Anglophone children will glance anxiously at their parents if the meal deviates in even the slightest way from what they expect; what they expect is often "children's food", an alien concept in France..... British mothers will tell me in all seriousness what children "can't" eat, whereas the concept of "hidden vegetables" in France would be a true eyebrow raiser."

Why is it so different? Is it really so different? Maybe Bonsoir or autre French MNer has some insight - ?

I set some ground rules yesterday afterNearlyHavingABreakdown

One meal will be made. There will be something that everyone likes on the plate and you have to try everything.

I am no longer cooking from scratch on weekdays AsIWillActuallyBreakDown

Tonight we had a MENU Waitrose cottage pie which was reduced from £4.99 to £1.50 with peas for DH and I. A lasagne with garlic bread (all reduced to less than £1) was served to the boys.

Everyone ate it and declared it delicious!

And I have banned TV.

AmQuiteMenstrualAndBootCampishATM