Toddler will not eat at home!

[larrythelizard]

I'm at my wits end.

DS is 16mo and always been a fan of doing things on his own terms.

He's at nursery 3 days a week and eats everything given there, sometimes even has seconds. It's some quite grown up sounding stuff some days with chillis, curry's, fish, meat etc (I wish I could eat there!)

But at home it's a different story. There are no 'reliable' foods he will always eat (other than pudding and bananas). He's refused milk since about 11mo.

Dinner time tonight was giving him some Dahl and rice I'd cooked, he ate a bit of rice but refused the Dahl and then we had a procession of things offered which he either refused or took one bite of then refused.

We end up filling him up with pudding and malt loaf cake just before bed - without it he is up for hours at night as he's clearly hungry. I'm very aware this is not good for him but not sure what else to do!

Any advice please?!

Hi
I think possibly he may think there's no point in eating my proper food as i will get filled up with yummy puddings and malt loaf!! I think if you knocked them on the head for a few days he will soon learn that he's hungry and he needs to eat although that may result in a few difficult nights maybe xx

I agree with the above, he has already learned that if he refuses long enough you will eventually give in. At Nursery there are no other options, plus they probably give him less attention, as there are other children there. My son was very stubborn at that age as well (potty training was a no go until the day he decided to take himself off and use the toilet!)

DS went through a stage similar to this. What worked for us:

Putting all the food we were going to give him for the meal out at once. So ‘dessert’ out too. This meant relaxing about the order he ate it in, and it was really effective because he wasn’t looking for what was ‘next’ all the time. He could eat his yoghurt first- but once it was gone, it was gone- and he could eat the main if he chose too.

Your little one is perhaps a bit young- I think DS was about 2 when he started with this- but we also let him ‘self serve’ some items- like putting his own rice on the plate. Gave him a bit of control instead of just being faced with a big plate of food to refuse.

I agree with others though- your DS has learnt to hang on for the ‘nice stuff’, so you’ve probably got to commit to a few days of breaking the habit I think.

Oh- and no cajoling, offering alternatives, etc. Don’t make food a power struggle, just put it in front of him and talk to him about other things.

With ds I have a 'take it or leave it' rule with the exception being tea - if he doesn't eat his tea it's plain old toast and butter just so that he sleeps at night. Malt loaf and pudding sounds lovely and if I were in your ds' shoes I wouldn't want to eat my proper food ever either!

As the others have said, stop giving him the malt loaf and puddings.

Sit with him and eat the same thing you give him. Something that worked with my DDs at that age, I put their food on their plates and I had salad/vegetable on my plate. That made them curious as what Mummy is eating and they wanted to taste it.

Take it or leave it, no fuss, no reward. Why would he not be fussy it meant he got an endless choice?

Well that was quite unanimous...!

We only do cake and pudding at dinner time and he does similar at lunch but I think you're probably all right. Have tried giving him everything at once and also eating with him. It's all hit and miss, some days it's fine, some days he won't eat more than a couple of mouthfuls!

Think we need to get tougher and just deal with less sleep. Hard though, id do anything to make him sleep!

God this is hard! Beans and cheese on toast for lunch. He ate all the cheese and two bites of toast, that's it!

Didn't cave though and didn't offer him anything else...

Already dreading dinner!

Hopefully he will eat his dinner, because he didn't fill up at lunch time. Try not to worry too much.

I have a similar 18mo OP. Do you give snacks? I have found my daughter eats a lot more at meals when she’s missed a snack for whatever reason. I’m gradually trying to reduce these. I originally introduced them because she didn’t eat much at meals and now I think it’s become a self fulfilling prophecy!