doctor made me feel a rubbish mum - diet

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im a bit upset tonight. i went to the docs today because dd (3) has been very very tired the last couple of months and i suspected anaemia - i just wanted to get her checked out. doc said they don't like doing bloods on young children, and thats fine with me i do agree and wouldn't want her to have to get it done unnecessarily.

doc said she was very active (because she was overtired and swinging round my neck- they hperness that comes with overtiredness)and because of this that she wasn't likely to be anaemic.

then she asked about her diet. i told her dd is very fussy, and she is. i literally have tried everything, tried blending vegetables into sauces to hide, everything and she won't eat it. she won't eat any fruit and veg, anything healthy for breakfast. so i have more times than i should resorted to stuff like chicken fillet burgers chips and beans, and eggs. thats about what she will eat at the minute (fish fillets too and sausages) she literally will not eat anything else, she just says, 'don't like that' pushes it away and there is no forcing her.

when i tried to explain this to the doctor, she gave me a lecture about how i am in charge of a 3 year olds diet, and was very patronising. when i told her i have tried to hide healthy things in but she won't eat them, and that i myself try to set a good example becaus im quite healthy and always have vegetables, she told me that dds health was as important as my health and i shouldn't be depriving her of healthy food while i am sitting having healthy food! basically saying that i was looking after myself and neglecting her needs.

of course i will put my dds health above my own, and of course i have tried countless ways to make her eat properly, but i just feel totally crap about this, about the way she spoke to me. she said to offer her the healthy food, and don't give an alternative, and keep doing that until she gets it. this is something i haven't tried yet, i usually give her something i know she will eat, if not at the meal she is refusing, i give it at the next meal. but now i will try this, try not giving her the things she likes at all, but keep offering healthy food. to be honest i do not think this will work. doc says she will eat she will not starve. i don't think its as simple as that. im not annoyed about the doctors suggestion, i am willing to try it, i am annoyed at the way she spoke to me, implying that i don't care about dd and am just feeding her junk because i can't be bothered. if you got this far thanks for reading

Slightly OP doesn't just have the odd fish finger. Obviously the odd fish finger won't create a fussy fishfinger eater but the child is only hooked on fish fingers because it's solid feature of OP's diet

I'm sorry op her diet sounds very high in sugar. I would start with the meal she tends to eat best at and substitute some of the high sugar highly processed stuff. But I would do it a bit at a time. I would cut out the crunchy nut cornflakes at breakfast and just offer an egg (if she likes eggs) with toast with orange juice (1 of her 5 a day and helps her absorb iron from the egg). If she has a good breakfast she shouldn't need a midmorning snack unless breakfast is very early. The idea is to have her really hungry for lunch. I don't think she needs 2 cooked meals, you could try some of the sandwich suggestions with cut up fruit or salad, let her help herself. Dinner is the last meal I'd try to change as dcs are.usually tired and need the familiarity of known foods at dinner time. Try fish instead of chicken sometimes and I definitely think there should be vegetables on her plate whether or not she chooses to eat them. If she is not eating the vegetable part of the meal are you making up for it with more chips? I think this is something you should avoid doing,she needs to need those calories before she will eat them IYSWIM

I really sympathise, I have a fussy one too. You can blend bananas in to pancake mix and you might find she would eat dried fruit if she likes fruit flakes? I do think your gp did not know what he/she was talking about though, you can't actually force a child to eat. We did manage to move slowly from chicken nuggets to home made breaded chicken to roast chicken and she will eat roast pork now too.

just a quick thought, when my DS went to school last year my mum was really worried, as he would be having school meals. I was a bit and dismissive, she remained worried.

We then finally had a proper chat about it....she said "but DS only eats jam sandwiches", double as he'd just eaten a veg stirfry I'd cooked him and was a very good eater as far as I was concerned.

It turned out that when she was with him she offered him something and if he refused gave him a jam sandwich, so he loved jam sandwiches continually refused and got the jam....

I just fed him what the rest of us ate and he got on and ate it...

The moral of this story is that you MAY have a very fussy eater in which case the doc is entirely wrong in her advice or you MAY have a child like my DS in which case the doc would be right....

I had a fussy eater and my advice would be to reduce the 'bad' foods, cut out all snacks and to offer loads of options. Never fuss just offer it. Mine hated mashed potatoe, how can anyone not like mash? After two years he ate it and said I like it.

Hunger will override the fussiness. You just need to hold your nerve and trust it will work out. Children feed off our stress, your making it a big issue, you are offering snacks and alternatives. It needs to be "it's pasta tonight, there's nothing else."
I did always offer the veg that he would eat, same veg every night.

You could replace the crunchy nut cornflakes with plain ones by mixing them together and then gradually changing the ratio so she doesn't notice.

I have no advice about the fussy eating that hasn't already been said, other than my fussy eater started to eat almost everything at about age 4. But with regard to the possible anaemia, my dd's iron has been low many times and when not on medication for it, I give her sachets of spatone (iron rich water). I think since she was about 8. I don't know if they are suitable for a younger child or not but pharmacist would know. Might help until her diet improves.

No advice as you are already trying hard- Luckliy I have a DGS who isn't fussy, but he does like cake- So instead of always giving him some, I started making savoury vegetable muffins, and courgette brownies which he adores. ( and so does everyone else!) Its just a case of trial and error . Good luck :)

PS If you want recipes- let me know :)

I had two hours of screaming tears tonight (mostly after school tiredness) because ds didn't like the pie tonight, despite it being the same pie (chicken, carrot, mushroom, spinach and ricotta) as he had wolfed down last night (I made 2 of them).

Totally agree about fussy eating being a modern problem if we didn't eat what we were given, we didn't eat. But I do sympathise OP it must feel like your GP doesn't give a damn. Do you really give her eggs every day? This could lead to constipation as some have mentioned. I suffered from this as a child and it did affect my appetite.

I don't think fussiness is a modern problem, there have always been super tasting children, children with tt (the problems my ds ha with meat etc stem from his posterior tt I think), children with undiagnosed allergies, children who are just deeply suspicious of food. My elderly MIL was a very fussy child who was forced to eat food she hated. There are lots of stories of people being made to sit in front of plates of food until they ate it.

I agree that in countries where there is not enough to eat fussiness may not be a problem

Arrgh I feel your pain! I had similar conversation with my HV, although she was rather kinder than your GP!

Ds would eat fruit and veg but hardly anything else other than chicken nuggets.

He grew out of it in the end but can still be a bit unwilling to try new foods - he's 12.

Your HV might be more helpful than the GP...

OP - that diet doesn't sound bad at all.

Agreed it's rubbish that there wasn't fussiness 50 years ago. My dad (64ish) had lots of medical issues as a child, combination of illness and hospital food made him incredibly fussy. My DGM did what she could to sneak nutrition into him, same as any mother would now.

Figgie, I don't care if you're opinionated about diet, but there's not need to be rude about other people's children.

I was in exactly the same situation with my 3yo. Doctor v patronising. 18 months later a different (lovely) doctor put the symptoms (incl anaemia and fussy eating) together and sent him for a coeliac test. Bingo! All the problems disappeared once we knew what we were dealing with. Is coeliac a possibility?

Yeah, the "no fussy eaters 60 years ago" thing is bollocks. A relative of mine hosted evacuee children from London during WW2 and they refused to eat anything but jam sandwiches.

My mum also has memories of sitting for hours in front of plates of cold food, after being told she couldn't leave the table until she'd finished. She used to wait until my granny turned her back then hide the food in her pockets and flush it down the toilet later!

My nearly 4 YO is a fussy little beggar. Along with My Child Won't Eat (which is back in print) there's another good book I got here in the US called Give Peas A Chance: A Guide to Feeding Your Picky Toddler. The most reassuring point that both books make (IMO) is that small children don't need as much food as we think they do, especially all in one go! So snacks are fine as long as they're reasonably healthy, and a peanut butter sandwich with an apple and a cup of milk is a perfectly adequate meal. A revelation for me who used to stress because friends' toddlers were wolfing down huge plates of home-cooked stew while mine would only nibble some cheese on toast and grapes.

Does your DD like bread OP? Toast, sandwiches and homemade pizza are staples in this house. DS is a lot more accepting if something is served between 2 slices of wholemeal or as a pizza topping.

Please give me your GPs phone number so I can call him a "fucking insensitive useless wanker"

I have had 13 years of DD2's stubbornness about food and my blood is boiling on your behalf.

It really isn't so bad. Fish fingers, chicken nuggets and sausages are not the work of the devil.
The big issue is the lack of any fruit or veg so that is where I would start.

My DD was a fussy eater . She had a dairy allergy as a baby and before it was diagnosed she was getting rashes, sickness, diarrhoea. No wonder it was hard to wean her and she was fussy. Food I was giving her was causing her pain and discomfort.

A cycle starts where a child is fussy, you start to get desperate that they must eat something so you give in to whatever they like and in the end they eat less and less. I know because I've been there. DD had dropped off the centile charts I just wanted her to eat something but I made a rod for my own back.

I also had the 'helpful' GP suggesting we feed her a nice meat stew at a point where that was so far from realistic I wanted to scream. We saw a dietician in the end and she was so helpful.

She helped me have confidence that DD would not starve but also that we could not force her to eat. She recommended having 2 safe meals and one where we did not expect her to eat a lot but to try new things. No fuss, no bribery or cajoling or blackmail just calmly offer the food we were eating, talk about other stuff ignore tears and tantrums and remove anything not eaten ( I hated the waste though). We could suggest she tried a bite of something but no heavy pressure. No pudding except yoghurt or fruit but this was not contingent on eating main course. Often she just had a banana and a yoghurt for tea. No snacks except fruit and veg.

She's 7 now. She did not starve and she eats a reasonable range of stuff. She can manage school dinners, play dates and meals out which were a major headache for a long time.

We have a younger DS now and are much more relaxed with him. Neither of my kids will 'eat anything'. They do like nuggets and chips but at least they'll have a bit of broccoli with it and that is good enough for me. We eat what is planned, there are no other choices if you don't want it it's no big deal but you'll have to wait till next meal.

It's a long term strategy and there will be tears on the way but it did work for us

You've probably already tried it, but will your DD eat soup? If pasta sauce wasn't a problem she may go for it. You can tell her anything is or isn't in it, and if texture is an issue for her (it was for me as a child) then blitzing to oblivion should help.

Your dds diet doesn't sound that different to what mine ate at that age tbh. The only veg my eldest would eat for ages was cucumber and tomatoes - I veered between trying to get them to eat what I wanted them to eat and thinking lets just give them something that won't cause a horrendous fuss.

And mine weren't particularly fussy - there were 2 kids in my antenatal group that were way more fussy and (at that age) had very limited diets - I think your GP is a bit clueless.

The thing I would do is cut out the sugary puds and just offer fruits for dessert, no snacks, and as others have said keep getting her to try things.

Was going to do much longer post but I've lost it. Don't worry op. And don't turn meals into a battle ground it won't do any one any good. My ds2 eats a very limited diet, no fruit or veg ever. It is very inconvenient and annoying especially when trying to eat it socially. His diet is chicken steak pasta cheese oven chips. How ever he's happy, is 17 now all A* and A's at GCSE slim and good at his sport and over 6 foot. So his physical development is fine.
And no fruit or veg since he was a toddler. His other siblings have always eaten healthily, so nothing to do with parenting.

Read this. www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/carlos-gonzalos-my-child-wont-eat

Considering the doctor doesn't seem to have presented any strategies other than making mealtimes a battleground, I wouldn't be happy with her approach. I'm sorry she made you feel like a bad mum.

I don't have a fussy eater and I know I'm very lucky in that respect. However, even our good eaters have points when they suddenly decide they don't want to eat. I've found two techniques help.

The first is making the food look like superheroes/cartoon characters/animals/houses, etc. It takes a little extra effort but seems to overcome any initial reluctance to the food being placed in front of them.

I also let the DCs pick fruit/veg from the shop that they like to look at (even if it's not something I'd normally buy) then they can help prepare it and eat it.

I don't know if that's any help with a fussy eater but I thought I'd share just in case.