If your child says they are hungry

[pookamoo]

After their bedtime, what do you give them?

Would your answer be different if you had earlier had to throw away an uneaten plate of dinner?

For the avoidance of dripfeeding, here is the reason behind the question:

DD1 (6) is a terrible eater and always has been. I have always taken the attitude of offering the food, if she doesn't eat it, I don't make something else, she goes without. I never serve anything she actually doesn't like, and I never force her to clear her place. Dessert is not withheld for an unfinished main course.

People say to me "just let her go hungry, she'll soon learn" but she doesn't "learn" and I don't think it is fair. She usually doesn't complain of being hungry.

This evening she refused to eat two thirds of her meal. She just ate the plain pasta, but left the sauce, veg and chicken. At bedtime she had a glass of milk and an apple. After lights out, she complained she was hungry and I refused to get her a snack.

I do feel like a terrible person, she got very upset and I have no doubt she actually was hungry.

We had a chat about choosing to eat your meal or not and the consequences of that choice and she had a drink of water and went off to sleep fine. I am anticipating two bowls of porridge tomorrow morning!

I have been thinking about it and wondering if we should change our evening routine so that I can get an extra "supper" type meal in. We usually eat around 5, the DC go in the bath about 6 (or upstairs for teeth etc) and in bed by 7. It's flexible.

Just wondering if I should bring the DCs' dinner forward to 4.30 ish, and squeeze in something extra before bedtime. If so, what?

i think she may prefer smaller meals more often. small snack when first in from school, tea about 5, then healthy snack before teeth and bed at 7.30.
if she is a fussy eater and you are worried then better she has something when she fancies than not

Have you had her checked over by a dr?
Tested for coeliacs of anaemia?

I moved my DC teatime to 4.30 so that they could have "supper" at 6.30. Supper is something like toast and fruit or beans on toast...or a sort of platter with cut up fruit and some cheese and crackers. I find it works much better.

Actually, I had this problem with DS when he started school this september after being a bit of a reformed fussy eater. I have taken the decision to stop snacks after school and bring dinner forward. If you can serve dinner at 4:30 but having given nothing after school, she's more likely to eat it if it's food you know she'll actually like.

Otherwise, it looks more and more like you're moving from the bulk of her calories coming from meals to from the snacks - after school snack replaces rejected lunch, bedtime snack replaces rejected dinner. Long term, that's teaching her very bad eating habbits, she wouldn't be the first person who was fussy and underweight as a child then end up being overweight as an adult because their parents focussed on just making sure htey ate something not teaching to eat the right sorts of foods at the right sorts of intervals.

I also save uneaten dinner and reheat, or at a push, toast with butter, but nothing 'fun' on it at bedtime.

Good luck!

Mine could always have a slice of plain granary bread or toast. A good wqy of telling if they were really hungry or not!

The more active she is, the more she is likely to eat more.

Therefore I would encourage her to join sports clubs

I would also either stop the after school snack and serve tea at 430 or give her the snack and have tea at a later time.

I would return to the GP if she continues to lack energy and look ill. This isn't right.

Some children do have minor problems with food. For example - they don't eat everything cheerfully, they don't want seconds, they worry about new foods, they want snacks but are overwhelmed by dinners, etc. I know someone well, who was exactly like that. That someone was once found crying in the school cloakroom because she was upset about school dinner and feeling she had to eat it. The thing she found most distressing about school, was school food.

I was going to ask if anyone else in your family had food concerns: but I can see they have, from a later post. Sometimes things like this are, not really inherited, but linked by family.

In your shoes I would keep an eye on her health, and note down some of the problems and limitations you're experiencing with her, in case further medical advice will help. But it's quite possible she is just a non typical eater and will adapt as time goes on. Sorry not to give better advice, it's just that if it was a simple training thing, I think you would have had more success before now,

OP did you say you'd left a msg for the school nurse, or spoken to her? Let us know how you get on, if you wouldn't mind? I'd be really interested to know what help she gives you.

I've just spend 30mins getting a shepherds pie together - which I know DS won't touch! It will be put in front of him, he'll fuss and want to get straight down. I'll give him a car to play with on the table and hope he stays with us for the meal. But he'll probably get down. Until pudding time when I'll give him a homemade banana milkshake and some pancakes (he might not eat the pancakes.

For lunch we all had soup and sandwiches, ham and cheese also on the table. Ds ate 2 bits of french stick.

For breakfast he had two toddler sized bowls of rice crispies (not normally in the house), a weetabix and half a bowl of cornflakes.

He doesn't know there's pancakes for pudding - obviously he's not stupid but neither am I

I always just give a banana. They're mean to help you sleep too.

Pudding not always available - apart from the milkshake. There is every possibility that I'm being 'had'. What can I do? I'd rather he slept all night and didn't wake me every hour asking asking for milk!!

TBH I wouldn't offer "puddings" to a poor eater. They will never be motivated to eat the more nutritional main course.

Lack of energy can be down to a diet that is mainly sugar/carbs and not enough protein.

lightNC Nobody else has food issues.

In the first week of reception, she was terrified of lunch times, but seems to have got over that real fear, although I think she would say they are not her favourite part of the day.

So today I did a roast chicken for early dinner (4.30) and as a treat served it with chips and peas instead of usual "roast" trimmings. She chose two pieces of meat, chewed on the breast piece a bit and then left it anyway, ate about 1 inch square piece of the dark meat. She put some ketchup on, ate only the crispy little tiny pieces of her chips, leaving the "fat chips", and ate none of the peas.

She had half an apple before dinner and is now eating the other half. I have told her that there will be a small snack before bedtime. Maybe I shouldn't have told her.

I have left a message for the county school nurse, and will let you know the outcome, cookie. baddz the GP was not concerned about her at all when I took her in for a checkup on Friday. He looked at me as if I was bonkers, taking a perfectly healthy child in to waste his time.

My 6yo is quite fussy but is fine with for it.
DC ask for food to procrastinate actually going to sleep, so there is a ban on food an hour before bedtime, and ban for 1 hour before teatime because otherwise they won't eat enough tea. We adjust portions down if they aren't eaten the night before. Otherwise they can graze all the time to hearts content although I'm fussy about quality. If they beg I sometimes relent to allow something small like a half cup of milk or piece of bread.

6yr old twins here. One is a huge eater. The other one will eat almost anything but not a lot of it.
Breakfast = slice of toast with peanut butter and 1/2 banana, hot cross bun, cereal, 1 1/2 weetabix or croissant with choc spread. They get a mug of milk unless they are having weetabix because they put the lot on and make soup. They still get a piece of fruit from the school.
LUnch = school dinner but used to be 1 round of ham and mayo sandwich (forever), 1 piece fruit, water, treat type cheese thing or crisps or bar.
from school = juice or squash and more fruit or 'a boring biscuit'
dinner = Piece of breaded fish ( about the size of 2 fish fingers), the equivalent of a small potion of mc d's fries, 2 tbsp baked beans and small glass of juice. (don't judge me - cubs night ). DT1 finished of DT2's fish.
Nothing after dinner.
They get up at 7, break fast by 8, lunch at 12 dinner at 5-6 and bed by 7.30 8ish.
It's a bugger having two different eaters. We do have favourites which we troll out on a regular basis which is lazy food like stew that can be shovelled in.
Good luck. I don't think our diet is good but it's not too crap either. Look at the intake over the week and not daily. Tonight was a 'junk' night but tomorrow we are having veg curry and rice.

We're having chicken (and veg) curry with rice tomorrow, merly

Of course your child wasn't hungry eating at 4.30 after first having a snack!

Really snacks are just extras, the essential thing is the healthy main meal. If a child eats snacks and little of the main meal, it's time to stop the snacking!!

It's totally normal for kids to be shattered at times. Pale skin, dark eyes would signal that she needed more sleep/rest to me.

I'd make your evening meal a bit later. And keep the snack light and healthy - eg a drink and a piece of fruit.

Nobody's going to be hungry for a roast dinner at 4.30pm of they've had lunch at lunch time and a snack at 3.45pm. No reason not to eat at 6pm and still have kids off to bed by around 7pm. And that leaves no time for bedtime snacking

One of mine sounds very similar. tiny, underweight and pretty fussy. He often leaves evening meal but that rarely complains of hunger at bedtime. when he does I give milk bananas and rice cakes (trying to supress my annoyance!) considering he needs every calorie he can get.

trying to balance the'it's so unfair' complaints of the other sturdier 2 is hard.

Oh and all advice about 'no snacks' 'no puddings' is not very useful with an underweight child with a tiny appetite who really just needs to take on calories.

Just to make you parents with lovely little children feel better about what they give them when they say they are hungry at bed time.

I have two girls, 21 and 17.....when they have been for a night out they usually 'treat' themselves to a takeaway and eat it in bed. They disgust me, they have strict instructions to get rid of the wrappers before I get up the next day

Pookamoo other than the extreme tiredness and tiny appetite, does she have any other issues that might give you cause for concern? For example, does she poo regularly and if so, are her stools 'normal' (ie not too firm, not loose...)? (Apologies for the intrusive questions!) Does she ever complain of tummy ache when she doesn't eat her meals? Does she eat breakfast? What does she have?

The reason I ask is that when DD1 was much younger, we thought we had a very fussy eater on our hands. She would generally eat a hearty breakfast - shreddies or toast, fruit for a snack mid-morning and then hardly any lunch or dinner. She started exhibiting other symptoms, such as either extreme constipation or awful diarrhoea and started being sick quite regularly. She had no energy and slept 12 hours a night and napped for at least 2 hours a day.

When I finally got a doctor to agree that all of these together didn't just mean she was a fussy eater, but that there was something wrong with her, she hadn't gained any weight in a year - she was tiny. She was eventually diagnosed with coeliac disease and within two weeks of cutting out gluten, she was eating her meals with gusto! She didn't lose the fussiness overnight, but at least she was eating what she did like in quantity, she started to grow at a reasonable rate and she had bags more energy.

I'm not saying that your DD has coeliac disease, but your description of her fussiness rang bells with me and I felt that I should at least mention my experience, if only so that you can discount it completely (or check the coeliac uk website for more information). I hope you don't mind . And if you have any questions about it, please ask!