How to encourage my 3 children to eat more varied foods...

[huginamugwankinapacket]

Every day I make food and every day it's wasted and uneaten. I'm so sick of it.

DD1 has been like it since she was 1, she is now 5.5. My boys are 3 and 2 though and have picked up on it. She doesn't eat most things and doesn't eat anything with a sauce. She eats plain rice and pasta, sandwiches with soft cheese, dried fruit, fruit, yoghurts, sausage rolls, pork pies, cocktail sausages, wraps, and sometimes garlic bread and chips. Making lunch for her is fine but dinner is just an absolute nightmare as she won't eat sauce, doesn't like chicken or fish etc.

So tonight for tea she has just had plain rice then was still hungry so went to the fridge and got a sausage roll.

This just can't continue, she needs to learn to eat an evening meal. I got stuck in a rut of giving her plain pasta and garlic bread one night and chips the other because they're all she'll eat. If there's a night where I want to give my boys something else she'll eat cereal. She used to eat all fruit but now mostly just likes berries, she won't eat bananas or oranges at all anymore.

Before you say it, I've tried the 'eat it or starve' method and she doesn't eat it so please don't suggest that as it drives me batty. She also says 'that's disgusting' etc at the boys food which we are trying to discourage.

Ds1 has sensory issues so a bit different perhaps, but we make sure he has a carb he likes and can fill up on (this might be different from the rest of us) and then where he doesn't like the main part of a meal we still require him to have around a teaspoon of the bits he doesn't like. I tend to separate things out for him so a chicken casserole is served as chicken, a piece of veg and a small bit of sauce on the side if possible rather than a big dollop of food swimming in sauce. I also don't make him have the one or two things he really loathes. It strikes a balance between the eat it or starve approach and pandering to every whim I think.

Reward charts could work alongside this?
I also think making one clear rule and then ignoring the food issues is a good idea rather than nagging or making each meal a battleground.

... just to make it relevant I guess in your example I wouldn't let her have a sausage roll but I would say she needed to have a teaspoon of whatever else was on offer and then she could have a second helping of rice (the part of the meal she did like). If she has to stay at table until she's tried a tiny bit that works better than letting her get down.
This broadly works for us although I know each dc will respond to a different approach quite often so might need a bit of trial and error!

She has made progress in that now she will lick something or try a small spoon of something, but that is literally it. She won't eat more of it and says it's disgusting. This has been a development made in the last 6 months, before then we couldn't even get her to go near anything new at all.

I get so happy that she's licked it then she won't have any more of it! It's so frustrating. She has a divider plate and I always put something she will eat on it and something that she likely won't. Tonights tea was a bit weird and I put sausages, plain rice and some raisins in the divider bits (I put the raisins there because apparently its kinder on teeth to eat them as part of a meal haha). She ate the raisins and the rice happily, which I was glad of as she never used to eat rice either.

I feel like if I could crack her I might stand a chance with my sons but I think I'm living in a dream world hoping she will stop this anytime soon!

Thank you @gruffalocake2 x

Licking new foods sounds like a really good start and the divider plate sounds great.
I know it's stressful but I've found it better since I relaxed a bit about it and appreciated the small bits of progress. Sounds like licking as many new things as possible and banning the negative comments might be the best you can do right now. carry on feeding them all a normal healthy mix and there's no reason the boys will copy dd and hopefully she can then move on to mouthfuls of things she doesn't like.
My ds2 is generally a great eater who prefers fruit and veg to most other food so it's not necessarily catching and, clearly it's not all about parenting, so don't feel too bad!

Can't offer any advice but mine are the same. My eldest is 5 and he's the same will only have plain food no sauce in sight. Since starting school he's been saying yuck so he now knows I don't like him saying that so will say 'that is not to my taste' although still hear yuck sometimes.
Breakfast and lunch are ok but dinner is a nightmare. My 3 year old is copying a bit as well now, luckily my daughter 14 months eats everything still. He used to eat sausages but the in laws brought those awful beige sausages in a ton and now they are the only sausages he'll eat. Meat wise I've bought turkey dinosaurs and will eat them.
I've been serving plain rice/pasta/chips what ever we have then bread if it works with our meal like a curry I'll give naan that he'll eat. Then some plain veg that they might eat (babycorn and sugar snap peas are a fav although pick the peas out and only eat them).
He'll eat a bit of it not even everything of what he likes. Then minutes after dinner I hear I'm hungry then will want lots of yogurt or fruit instead.
It's wearing me down. Hubby works away all week so only here late Fri to sun morning.

Hi my little boy is 4 and I havnt really had any problems with his eating he will eat most things so ignore if this is not helpful but could you try increasing the variety of things she likes( obviously not all at the same time) so she likes bread what about trying pittas, flatbread, mini nan breads, ECT, if she likes chips can you try wedges, sweet potato fries, jacket potatoes.She likes pasta could you try ravioli, noodles , cous -cous . I would also try pretty much every type of fruit and veg so try all salad type veg as maybe she would prefer raw to cooked. I think out of all the types of veg we can get they will hopefully be something she can manage. Lastly and obviously it's harder as she won't have sauce but you can get stuff like broccoli rice could you try mixing some in with her rice for example. Does she like cakes as you could do homemade and get some fruit and veg in the cakes. You could make fruit lollies, smoothies ect. Does she like dairy at all ? if she has milk , cheese, yoghurt tbats all good . Hope this helps and sorry if you have tried all of this.

Is she at school for lunch, and the small 2 at home?
If so, I'd switch the day round, have a big meal at lunch time, with a wide range of textures and flavours when she isn't about.
Then in the evening, have stuff that is based round her likes.

She seems to eat pork in various forms. Would she eat bits of sausage, veg and mash (or alternative carbs).
Can you get chicken or beef sausages locally?
Rice for her, with a small (tiny) amount of whatever else you are having. More balanced for the rest of you.
I agree with Gruffalo - if sausage rolls arent part of dinner, she cant have them, but she can have more of the part she does like.

Good luck.

If it makes you feel any better my 5.5 year old is similar. Will eat plain pasta and rice with cheese, some vegetables but not much else. Most of our meals involve some of those things so I don't make too much of a fuss. She gets served all the foods on her plate but always including eg plain pasta. I'm working on the basis that any fuss will make it worse, and it'll get better over time. She does eat better at school I believe, interestingly, peer influence perhaps!

I do, however, not allow saying yuck or disgusting, and she has to sit at the table with us and behave.

Thankfully 3 year old who does like copying his sister in other matters loves his food and ignores this aspect of her behaviour. Always asking for more sauce!

Good luck

There is a huge psychological element to food preferences and people can get in the habit of disliking certain foods just because they 'know they don't like them'.

One tip can be to get your children to regularly eat with other children who eat a wider variety of food types.

Preferably the other children's parent will prepare and serve the food, cheerfully ignoring any requests from your children.

The theory is that your children copy the other children in order to fit in.

Whatever happens at the mealtime (whether your children try new foods or not) needs to be seen to be ignored, so you don't draw attention to it.

Worth a try?

I can relate and the starve or nothing doesn't work here either.

Currently going through a phase of meal planning for all and teaching her that we have to each take it in turns for our favourite meal. Seems to be working a bit. Although she still doesn't each much if it's not her favourite but now she's more willing to try a taste and doesn't have a complete meltdown. I think it's because she understands about taking turns. We've also been doing the, just try one bite, of the things that are knew or aren't her favourites and always make sure there's something on the plate she likes. We're going on holiday in a couple of months and I'm determined to make some progress before then so she's not restricting herself.

My friend suggested an entirely new approach which I've not done yet. She said to give her her favourite meal every single night for the foreseeable future, but always the same meal. Her theory was that she'd get so sick of it she'd start to want to eat other things. I'm not convinced and am sticking to my current approach which has seen some progress.

Another fussy eater in our house. DD1(7) eats most things, has a good appetite and always has. DD2 (4) is shockingly picky and would live on pasta and crisps and cocktail sausages if allowed. It is very slowly getting better and she starting to eat more, but she won't touch a single piece of fruit, not even the dried stuff.
I would stick with the suggestions so far of giving her the main carb that she will eat and put small amounts of other food on the plate to try. Even if that just means putting a tiny bit on her tongue.

I would work on her behaviour at the table. Declaring food yuck or disgusting isn't acceptable.
My monotone mantra at the dining table is nobody has to eat anything they don't like but we sit nicely and keep dislikes to ourselves.
I generally put everything in serving dishes, the children put whatever they want on their plates and the only comments about food are ones saying "this is nice".

We had years of DC3 and DC4 only eating one element of a meal or occasionally nothing at all. I just carried on with cooking whatever I was cooking for everyone else, I did try to make sure there was one thing that would be eaten sometimes just bread and butter and if there was pudding they got it, but it's not a daily thing.
We just kept on not mentioning what they were eating, didn't coax or cajole or insist on trying stuff and ever so gradually they started adding a bit of something new.
Now DS3 age 5 the boy who only ever wanted to eat fish fingers, yoghurt and ham sandwich had a spicy lamb tagine, with cous cous and a fattoush salad for his dinner on Saturday. He ate the lot and finished off the leftover salad.
DS2 age 7 ate a roast dinner yesterday, previously his most hated meal. He told me afterwards that his 'way' is to eat first the worst then save his best bits until last.
They still both have foods they won't eat at all but obviously it's ok to have dislikes, I have loads.

Does she eat blended soup?
My dd was like that but thankfully, she’d eat blended soup. She’d also rather starve than eat anything with a sauce.
Licking the spoon and the divider plate are really good ideas.
Carry on with that and just keep varying the things in the divider plate.
I agree with working on her to stop saying things are disgusting and putting her brothers off.

Also we were careful not to reinforce their dislikes by letting them hear us discuss their fussiness or saying to other " DS doesn't like/won't eat/hates xyz" instead we would focus on what they did like so when DS3 was faced with a curry at friends house for example I knew he would eat the curry but he would eat plain rice a maybe a bit of poppadum so I said "DS loves rice and he can decide if he wants some curry"

Echoing others but I didn't allow negative comments or sound effects. And I spoke about the food in a boring way - emotionless.

My kids hated sauces too. One only started eating uncoated fish at about age 11! He'd have a boiled egg instead and finally after the last couple of years tring a tiny piece of fish, he cracked and said he preferred the fish to lousy egg!

It's a long term project so try not to get too downhearted. You sound like you are doing well in trying circumstances.

I'd try sausage roll on the plate next week.

Would a plate of food in the middle to serve from pique her interest? Or having an indoor picnic on a blanket? Just to break the routine a bit. Don't even worry too much about what gets eaten at any individual event. (I know that can be hard!)

Getting them involved in buying and cooking the ingredients sometimes helps - dcbecome familiar with what is being served on the plate ie it's not a "mystery" object, the DC know where it has come from, and what has been done to prepare it - helps them feel more in control.

Thoroughly recommend googling Dorking Kindersley children's cook books.

Oh and start by cooking something fun like biscuits ..

I have 2 DSC who I see EOW. My mum is a chief so i like to cook from scratch and cook new things.

Their mum is an extremely fussy eater and asks the kids what they want. She cooks 3 meals a night and it tends to be oven food.

I don’t cook oven food and I don’t run a restaurant. I cook 1 dinner (child appropriate) and that’s it. There’s no other choice. The younger 9 has become a very adventurous eater and will eat anything. The oldest 12 is extremely fussy (to the point she will only eat orange cheese, will only eat chips when out).

When I cook dinner that’s it. Everyone had to try. There’s no other choice, there’s no saying you don’t like it (as it’s rude to the chief), there’s no dessert and there’s no helping yourself to other foods (so the getting a sausage roll from the fridge would be a no no from me).

It’s worked for me. You have to preserve. It’s a control tactic by kids.

This might be helpful op ...food phobia so different to your circs ... but contains some useful tips.

She doesn't eat soup no unfortunately! I wish haha.

Thank you for the suggestions.

I've done serving dishes quite a few times in the last few months and she just picks the things I know she will eat and not eat the rest.

I feel totally lost with her. I was a bit mean and put her on school dinners at the start of school this year because I was told that there was access to sandwiches every day, and it was only after two weeks of her not eating her dinners did the teacher remember to tell me that the dinner ladies had been complaining about her not eating. She was taken to see the school nurse because one dinner option made her feel so sick

Sorry @shiny but I think that video is bollocks. The boy was gipping eating it and I think it's just edited to make it look like he's going to eat normally now forever.

I do hate Jo Frost though so maybe I'm bias

Ok, whatever. I found it helpful so thought you might too.

Btw, if you look at the whole episode, they do a lot more exercises with the lad around food and he ends up eating quite a variety.

I think the serving dishes will usually have them choosing their familiar foods for a while.

Just having the option to pick those other bits rather than have them presented on their own plate means ime that they are more likely to have a go in the long run. It's a long game.

No need to feel lost. I'd be less bothered right now about what variety she's eating and work on getting her relaxed around food and mealtimes. The licking new stuff and spoonfuls is really good. I'd say great that you tried it but I'd tell her firmly she to say " it's not my favourite" or similar and not disgusting etc. That's the first but to crack imo. Less heat, less drama.