How to increase the type of food ds will eat

[Flynn999]

Ds is 3 (4 next month) and is allergic to dairy, soya and eggs. So he already has a limited diet. He also has a habit of being incredibly fussy. He’s fine with breakfast and lunch (tends to want sandwich (always ham)/bagel with plenty of fruit; grapes, strawberry, raspberry, cucumber, apple etc) but what he eats for his tea is very limited. So meals he will eat; meatballs and pasta, pasta (plain), jacket potato with beans (has to be in a separate bowl and is rare he will eat this), beans on toast (beans must be separate), spaghetti Bol with pasta, hot dogs (no buns, they have to be separate) sausage and mash. Needless to say it’s a pretty poor list. I’m relatively good at cooking and me and dp eat pretty well and eat a good variety of stuff but ds won’t eat anything new or that’s not on the above list. He used to love peas but he seemed to go off them, so stopped making them for a while, did him sausage and mash the other night and decided to put some peas on as well, but he just mixed them in with the mash then refused to eat the mash. We’ve had the same with other foods, he used to love stuff like carrots, now he won’t touch them. No amount of encouragement helps.

Things he categorically will not touch includes; chips, chicken (of any sort - he used to love fresh chicken of the bone, now it’s a massive big nope) anything breaded, fish, veg (used to love carrots refused them now), roast dinner, Shepard’s pie, Beef unless it’s in spag Bol or meatballs, pork, fish, any form of casserole, stew etc.

I try to put something ‘new’ on his plate so stuff like peas, carrots, green beans things that I know he has liked in the past alongside food he will eat, but he just ignores either the whole meal or the new food.

He doesn’t have a pudding (he doesn’t like them anyway) and he isn’t allowed to eat anything after 3pm (his tea is normally 5pm so I know he’s not full), we don’t like to give him something if he’s not eaten tea, we tried this before and we felt it was becoming well I won’t eat tea because I just get toast/weetabix IYSWIM.

We’ve tried being strict so you can’t leave the table unless you eat X Y Z and that just ends in tears, we’ve tried bribery if you eat your peas you can play on your tablet etc, we’ve even let him watch his tablet while he eats in the hope he equates eating everything means more tv time etc. he couldn’t give a shit about reward charts. This has all been happening since he was about 1.5 years old, so it’s not like we have done all this over the past few weeks.

He weights about 14.3 kg so 2.2 stone and is skinny as a rake. He starts school soon and I’ve just realised he literally won’t eat anything on any of the menus. it’s not that he will pick at something he just refuses to eat it and it means he won’t eat anything till he gets home. Does anyone have any experience of this or decent suggestions. I’ve tried everything that normally gets mentioned and from other threads on here that I’ve seen re fussy eaters.

Apologies if this is long, figured it’s easier to have everything then half a story.

I remember mine all going through fussy stages at that age, and then you add on a dc who has fussy tendencies and It makes things much more exhausting.

I wouldnt worry too much about school dinners, they seem to just get on and eat bits, peer pressure works in your favour with that.

At home, have a think about the textures of things he likes and things he doesnt like, he also sounds like he doesnt like different textures together. Try him on things with similar textures to stuff he already likes and keep all the food items in separate places on his plate, or have a side bowl for veg etc

You can play games with the food to get him eating, I used to pretend with my DS that the food was screaming and trying to run away from the big chompy teeth...a bit gruesome but it played into what they thought funny. Then as they eat it, make dying and gurgling sounds and “oh no, Ill never be the same again”.

Try frozen peas and corn...tastes more like dessert than vegies

Deploy the ketchup, allow him to squirt

Can he help you cook, chop, spread, portion etc

I think the best way to approach it is that its a phase to get through with as many food choices intact.

If you really think he is getting too skinny, double check with a doctor that there isnt anything wrong with him

Something I did with my 3 and 6 year old recently was ‘food experiments’. I said we were doing a science experiment with food and hoped it would get my daughter to try some new foods.

We got lots of different foods. It was not for a meal just to play, although it ended up being a snack. Then I asked them to say what they looked like, smelt like, felt like and wrote that all down. Then they had the choice to choose to taste it and do a tick or a cross to say if they liked it. They both tried foods they don’t normally.

Obviously this won’t sort major food issues but might be a good activity to try.

I read your post carefully and my two thoughts are - you're trying very hard and his diet isn't that bad.

Is he underweight or significantly lower centile than he used to be? Does he appear to be deficient in anything?

I honestly would suggest trying to let it go and instead of trying to persuade him to eat, just try to enjoy food and meals.

I wouldn't make him his own tea, would give him the same as you, but give him control. Don't put food on his plate. Don't talk him into trying.

Can you get him to grow any food and cook more?

Things liking wanting beans and potato separate is totally normal, I would worry about that if it was causing drama at age 10 but not at 3. At 3 I would still expect total irrationality at times!

Am sure I read somewhere about a hundred years ago that your job is to provide a balanced healthy diet, their job is to decide whether to eat it.

Oh yes, I also wouldn't worry about school dinners as it is quite common for them to eat much better at school, because no one is paying any attention and all the other kids are eating it.

His diet doesn’t sound too terrible, especially considering the restrictions you’re working under.

My DD was under a dietician last year (her tonsils were so big she couldn’t eat solid food for nearly a year before she had an operation, and she is VERY picky since we reintroduced solid food), she has a lot of similar “pickynesses” to your DS (foods have to separate etc). You’re doing exactly what I was advised to do - just keep putting other foods on the plate, even if they are never touched. Don’t force the issue AT ALL, just have them always on offer and you eat them yourself. She said it honestly doesn’t matter if a child has a fairly restricted diet at this age as long as they are getting what they need (carbohydrate, protein, fat, fibre every day, if they have little variation give them a vitamin supplement).

My DD is at preschool. Check with your school, but mine always has the option of a sandwich for little ones if they don’t like/can’t eat the hot option. Mine started off with a daily cheese sandwich (I know yours can’t have dairy), but her teacher says she has tried mouthfuls of other foods (they don’t ever make a fuss as I asked them not to, but they keep an eye), which she NEVER did at her nursery - they had only one option each day, and to their amazement (they had said, “oh, all kids will eat if they’re hungry and if everyone else is) she would just go without food all day long. I guess what I’m saying is, if there’s one option available that your DS will eat, even if it’s the same every day, if there’s no pressure he might try other things, and if he doesn’t, it’s not a major crisis.

Helping out with food preparation might help. It has helped a little bit with my DD. She LOVES cheese and rice, so we make little balls of rice/grated cheese and broccoli and then stick them in the oven. She rarely eats much of them, but she’ll eat the mixture from the bowl.... which still has the broccoli in, so I count that as a success! We make courgette muffins too, and similar situation - she won’t eat the muffins yet, but she now licks the spoon every time. Dietician said this was really great progress.

She did actually mention to me that stew/things in sauce are the most common things for picky kids to reject. It’s a total utter faff, but what we were advised it to give her all the ingredients separately without the gravy, but in small portions, and also put a little bit of the actual stew in a pot on one side with a breadstick for dipping. After nearly a year, DD will occasionally dip the breadstick. Dietician says this is a big step towards just eating the stew.

Don’t stress. It takes a long time to get through these things sometimes, but as long as your child is healthy they will get through it. There are huge numbers of picky 3 year olds, and very few truly picky adults.