Toddler only wants fish fingers and chips

[Lizbiz89]

My 2.5 toddler only wants fish fingers and chips for dinner. She's good at lunch, usually eats a cheese sandwich, tomatoes and cucumber. But every night for dinner she wants f f and chips. I always cook a healthy meal but she goes in the freezer and points at the chips. I still try and encourage her to eat the meals I cook but she never does. I'm not sure whether to let her eat the ff and chips and just wait for the phase to pass or try to be more forceful in eating my meals. Has anyone experienced this with their lo's?

Bin those chips on the freezer for a start!

So night 1 fish fingers and something else (mash perhaps)
Night 2 fish fingers in pasta
Night 3 fish fingers In a wrap
Night 4 - no fish fingers and no fries

My eldest did this and so I fed her what she wanted. When DD2 came along I was determined things would be different and refused to pander to her. DD1 is now a really good eater who will try anything and eats most things (she’s not a fan of shellfish) whereas DD2 refuses to eat most of the time and it’s harder to imagine a child who is more fussy.

I wouldn't give it to her. If you do that, you just teach your child that she can eat whatever she pleases. She only knows what she wants, but she doesn't know what she needs, so it's your responsibility at a parent to make sure she gets what she needs.

But you don't need to be forceful with dinner - she either eats it, or she doesn't. Her choice. Just don't give her something else if she doesn't eat it.

Or you could have fish fingers and chips (much less than usual) and peas or salad too.

Fish fingers and sweet potato chips
Breaded chicken nuggets (make your own?) with chips
Fish cakes and chips and sweet corn
Fish fingers (home made) and mash and peas
Bread crumbed fish and sweet potato wedges
Etc

I’d start by giving her one of the two with something different - so she gets half what she wants - you can tell her fish fingers OR chips for a week or so while you choose the other thing. I’d keep the other thing similar - so breaded chicken is a good swap for fish fingers and mash or sweet potato chips are a good alternative to normal chips. Keep swapping things in and out so she gets something familiar with something slightly different each time so she extends her repertoire of familiar foods while you gradually phase them out.

You say she eats lunch well? What about breakfast? Does she snack? Assuming she eats a good breakfast and lunch then just keep serving up the meals you cook and do fish fingers and chips maybe once a week.

There's no need to be forceful. Just serve it without comment. If she eats great, if not don't offer anything else, but do keep the dinner back just in case. I always then offer the refused dinner just before bed, and usually it gets eaten.

Sounds familiar! Does she eat peas with her fish fingers and chips? A fresh, raw tomato goes down well with it too. Kids have phases and food fads, they don't last forever.

I love what AllFourofThem said.

Thanks for the replies. Yes she does eat it with peas as well. She's not a big breakfast eater but she does tuck into fruit for snacks. Tbh her diet is pretty good apart from this new ff and chips dinner trend. Tomorrow I'm going to do homemade chips and see where it goes from there. Hopefully the phase passes soon and she starts wanting to eat some of my homemade dinners 😭.

Sorry but I wouldn't serve her fish fingers and chips every night! If she has a good lunch and snacks etc it's not the end of the world if she doesn't have much dinner. I would serve a range of food, with fish fingers and chips maybe twice a week, and don't fret too much if she sometimes doesn't eat a lot.

Hide the fishfingers and chips under things in the freezer so she can't open and point to them. Tell her from this morning that "we've run out of fish fingers and chips.

Make your own equivalents?

Hmmm. One of the signs of autism is a routine that includes the same meal for months or years. My DD2 has ASD. For two years she had pancakes for breakfast every morning. I mean every morning we were up making pancakes from scratch. Then she had cereal, for another two years. Currently she has a ham and cheese toastie.
Anyway, imho, so long as her overall diet is healthy, there is nothing wrong with FF and chips (plus a veg) for dinner every night for months or years.
DD2 is 15 now and compared to our NT kids, she is slower to try new things but she does try them. I think if we had forced her to eat things she didn’t like or want, she would not even be willing to try. She just discovered she likes polish sausage for example and we’d been offering her that for ten years (she ate her preferred kosher hot dog while we had polish sausage).
ASD isn’t usually spotted until 2-4 and often much later in girls.

Oh pleeeeaaaase .... in this forum every little, completely normal, shit is a sign for autism or anything else that can be diagnosed.

My mum's friend once took her son to the GP as he'd refused to eat anything but baked beans on toast for dinner for several weeks. The GP's advice was "don't share a tent with him."

It was just a phase which ended as suddenly as it started. He just really liked baked beans.

but she goes in the freezer and points at the chips.

^

Lizbiz89, yum yum, real chips! May I come round?

@SmartPlay and for many children, patterns of behaviour like this are a sign that leads to a diagnosis of ASD, as it did for my DD. Sometimes it’s just a phase, sometimes it can mean something more. Either way, @AngelasAshes point is valid and not something you should sneer at.

@CarrieBlu The behaviour described by PP is completely normal for children that age! And she hasn't written about any other behaviour that concerns her.

I constantly get the feeling that many users on MN are very extreme about anything that might be diagnosed. Every little sadness is a full on depression, every antisocial behaviour displayed by a mother is excused with anxiety, every child not behaving as the parents wish probably has AHDH, every child that doesn't develop exactly like another child of that age the mother happened to come across is developmentally delayed and every child that displays behaviour that the mother can't understand is autistic.

Many users here actively try to find something wrong in themselves, their children and other users and their children. According to the posts in this forum basically every human in the UK must have some sort of diagnose because there is something seriously wrong with every single one of them.
It's ridiculous!