Food Inspiration for 2-4yos

[Flatpacker]

My two are just hopeless at eating.

Love: anything salty and meaty + chocolate/cakes/sweet foods

Will eat: a little pasta/rice, processed cheese, yoghurt, fruits and dried fruits

Do not eat: egg-based food, pizza/lasagne, nearly all veg incl chips, soup

Which leaves me with no ideas. All the things we eat (roasts, homemade pizzas, pasta dishes, omelets, fishnchips, grilled meats, soups, potatoes...) they just don't eat.

How can I break this bad eating cycle?

Apparently they eat well enough outside the home (CM and preschool) but I'm thinking peer imitation is great for that. SO they are probably getting vitamins...but evening meals are so miserable I can't be bothered to make them anything special anymore. Same old pasta and cheese, sausage/ham + yoghurt. I love food and make a lot of homemade but I've avoid having the "battle" with them over it. We eat at the table, it's always an event.

I've just had years of food rejection....and I've had enough. I need new ideas. A fresh perspective. :) Please help!

DDs are 6 and 7 and v fussy. I've just bought "Getting the Little Blighters to Eat" and wish I'd had it years ago and had started as I meant to go on. Really interesting and easy to absorb set of rules, not recipes, about how to go forward with your kids and hopefully all enjoy food together. We're at v early days but I need to break the cycle we've got in and I feel optomistic for the future (whilst not underestimating the time and effort it might take to get there).

Good luck!

Thanks for the book recommendation. Am just putting an order in.

Thing is, I've always rather taken the relaxed approach. I know kids don't like certain foods, they are naturally wary and so on. I've seen mums bargaining with their kids at the dinner table. I've never done that.

But still. There is only so long my enthusiasm for cooking nice stuff that duly gets slung can last.

I stopped cooking nice stuff ages ago, and am really trying now to get back on track. I think it's really easy to slip into bad habits but actually last night I cooked pasta with creamy pesto and chicken (which I imagines they wouldn't like) and garlic bread (which I knew they would). They both tried a tiny bit of pasta (unprompted) and ate garlic bread, and we all had a nice chat and nobody cried. This is a vast improvement on recently where the minute they ask 'what's for dinner?" and I tell them, DD1 starts crying and shouting "but you know I'm not going to eat that, you don't care about me etc etc..."

Keep me posted would be really interested to see how you get on

Granted it may add to the stress, but you could try getting the 4yo involved with the cooking?

I love The Great Big Book of recipes for babies, toddlers and children. It's got everything and the recipes are amazing. Best buy ever. Can't get a link to work but it's white and yellow, long and slim and has a picture of a little girl on the front covered in food x