Help dinner time becoming unbearable

[Foxycleo]

Hi help.
I have 2 year old who screams and goes into meltdown everytime I bring his dinner up , he throws a fit and won’t even try it , he’s such a fussy eater he will hardly eat anything generally anyway, I find it hard as to what to feed him nosy says and I don’t know what do to at dinners times and why he screams and cries every evening . We try to eat At the table but I end up getting him down coz he’s so hysterical when i try to feed him or if I let him do it himself he just slaps it off the table or out of my hand .
I’ve tried to also feed him on the sofa and have the same issue it’s a meltdown every time .
I don’t know what’s wrong with him , he’s starting hitting the last few months also and even when we tell him no he still does it and tries to slap u In the face . I’m finding it all really hard work and due another baby in March next year! Help!

This is going to be a bit blunt but you need to choose which matters most - mess or healthy eating.

I had a plastic sheet under the seat at this age and just let them get on with it.

They'll never learn to use cutlery if you take away the chance to learn. I'm not surprised he's cross!!

Thank you for the advice and links I have been reading them and very useful .
He didn’t eat any lunch today at all , so we are going to try with dinner tonight And see how it goes.
I am going to try to be at one with the mess!

Just an update tonight we tried giving him a spoon with his dinner and letting him feed himself . He had some chicken rice and veg and didn’t eat one bit of it and just cried and screamed , he hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast so I’m surprised he didn’t want to try any of it . So wasn’t very successful unfortunately but will persevere.
Thanks for all your comments

he hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast.

That is usual I must admit. How is he normally with handling food and different textures like playdoh?

He’s never played with play dough before ?
We have a sand pit but he won’t go near it and wasn’t interested in it atall .
He used to eat well and a variety of finger food but now will only eat chips , potato waffles , and a Nutella sandwich , plus like biscuits or chocolate and sometimes crisps that’s it .

I feel like there could be something else going on OP. Has he had his 2 yr check yet. It might be worth pointing out all of this to the PHN

I'd carry on with what you did today OP, but add something he will eat to the plate. So half a slice of bread and butter, or half a waffle etc.

One dc lived the baby rice cakes so I would put a couple of those on the side when he went through a phase. Often it just starts them off, and then they seem.more likely to carry on.

It can be really tough, but it does help (I find) to remember that you can provide the foid, he can decide whether to eat it.

It does sound like he's having quite a lot of bedtime milk.

is he sat in a highchair or on a booster at the table? I found putting them at the table helped also agree just go with the mess.

Have you tried cutting right down on the crap food so he has an appetite at meal times? Sorry but I've seen a fair few parents who give their kids snacks throughout the day then when it's dinner time the kid's obviously not hungry so either messes about or eats an ant's portion, but the parent doesn't seem to understand why. It's because they've eaten unnaturally 'tasty' food high in calories even if it's what appears to an adult to be a small portion, and they're just not hungry! Either that or their taste buds only want that msg and sugary taste.

It won't happen overnight OP. Developing feeding skills usually starts below one when you give them a spoon, by the time they reach 2 most children will be feeding themselves. That's at least a year your child is behind so please don't place expectations on him that this will come quickly. Give him all the time he needs. I would make half the meal finger food and half something he can spoon initially, he needs to pick up the skills before going straight to fork and knife but also he really needs to eat so finger food will help there. You mentioned a high chair, he definitely doesn't need to be in a high chair still. Sit him at the table or get a toddler table and chair for him.

OP I have worked with children with behavioural feeding difficulties. What you are describing sounds extreme. There is fussy eating and there are specific difficulties with food. 'They'll eat when they are hungry' doesn't work for all children. PPs have suggested some good strategies but I would go easy on yourself. Write a list of what he does like and then try to introduce new, similar foods.

It’s so hard to work out what’s going on sometimes. With my granddaughter she barely wanted to eat anything apart from breakfast when she was teething. It made her so fussy and specifically dinner times seemed like a huge struggle. We bought a fun dinner plate that had separate compartments and chopped up finger foods which we put alongside things that we knew she liked. We made faces on plates with food too and would say things like ‘can you eat all the hair’. It didn’t matter if she didn’t want to, we just tried to make it fun. What she didn’t eat just got calmly removed. She’s now got all her teeth and is eating pretty much everything we eat.
I would do what previous posters suggest. Add a multivitamin to the milk and just relax with it. If you don’t see an improvement within the next month or so then I guess you’d need to see a doctor just in case there is something else going on.