2.5 yr old fussy eating

[SecondhandTable]

Aaaaaaargh. She's suddenly gotten even worse over the last couple of weeks and getting worse by the week. I have no idea why she's behaving like this and DH and I are both getting very frustrated! Trying not to show her that obviously.

This morning I gave her three options for breakfast - Weetabix, which until about two weeks ago she loved, Cornflakes which she used to like and then went off a bit about a month or two ago but would still eat and eats it at nursery sometimes, and porridge which I can't remember the last time she had so she probably forgot what it is, but used to like it. After 30 mins or so of "I don't want breakfast" "I want a snack" "I don't want cornflakes/Weetabix/porridge" "I don't like cornflakes/Weetabix/porridge"...she suddenly changed her mind when she saw me making my porridge and said she wanted porridge. Fab.

Gave her the porridge, she looked at it and immediately started going "eurghhhh, blehhhhh, I don't like it". She didn't try it.

One hour later, only because I wanted to take her to playgroup and didn't think that would be fun for anyone with her having an empty stomach, I made a final offer of if she wanted Weetabix or cornflakes instead, she said cornflakes, v quickly ate a bowl of it as was obviously starving.

And that was just breakfast!!! Don't get me started on lunch and dinner.

I just need to stay calm and ride it out, right? She eats absolutely everything they give her at nursery btw and always has. We had lasagne for tea which she refused to even try - "I don't like it" - she eats it at nursery.

It's a bit unusual to give them so many choices at this age. Have you tried just giving her breakfast, porridge if that's what you're eating, and ignoring any comments?

I feel ya! We are down to 3 things my 2 year old
Will eat. It’s infuriating at best....!!!!

I’be not idea what to do so was thinking of buying a book.!!

Mike won’t even eat at nursery!

I meant mine not mike

If you're after a book, have a look at this one.

We are having major issues with fussy eating too. This is the advice the health visitor gave us:

Offer 1 thing (it's good to give her a choice of what that thing is - 'family style' meals with bowls on the table are good for that) and that's it. If they don't eat it, take it away without a fuss but don't offer anything else until the next time they would usually eat. They might miss a few meals but will soon learn not to mess you about.

Offer 3 meals and 2 snacks a day. Eat together as a family at set times. Don't pressure them to eat, you can make encouraging remarks like 'i think you might like it' or 'you enjoyed that last time we ate' but also show that you are enjoying your own food. You could try involving them in cooking.

We are still having issues and there aren't that many foods he will eat, but it is slowly improving and at least every mealtime isn't a battle.

Ooh thanks!

Yes, maybe I should be stricter and go back to no choices. I could try that. I did that to start with but then we always have more than one cereal option and they are in view of her so eventually she started insisting she wanted say Weetabix when I was having cornflakes or whatever. And I didn't think there was a good reason to deny her it so would let her have it. And she would eat it in those days! She does get a choice of cereals at nursery too, she doesn't always want any but often she does pick one and eat it (they offer Weetabix, rice crispies and cornflakes). I could try removing the choice and see if it makes any difference I suppose not got much to lose right now!

I have that book it is good, but to be honest we have always done most of the things the author recommends. I'm also slightly sceptical about the 'kids will always eat when hungry' thing. I think that's probably generally true, but for example this morning both me and DH could see that she was clearly hungry and yet she was point blank refusing to eat. If I'd not re-offered her the cornflakes later I have no doubt she wouldn't have eaten anything and off we'd have gone to playgroup at 9am with her having not eaten since 6.30pm the night before.

Also, we follow your HV's approach, and she's always been fussy and goes through nightmarish periods. I'm thinking this is probs just one of those horrid phases which will improve a bit again in time but it really is infuriating hah.

Sorry for all my ranting I think I just needed to vent!

www.swft.nhs.uk/application/files/4314/7929/4203/Recommended_intake_and_portion_sizes_for_children_-_all_appendices_2016_FINAL.pdf

This makes me feel better; I often expect him to eat more than what’s considered a portion, as his brother had a much bigger appetite.

I love that! So helpful thank you! I can see of some things she eats around the recommended portion size and other things less, a few things probably s bit more (e.g. fruit, she has a terrible sweet tooth and loves to eat fruit). I might print that out and stick it on my fridge honestly.

Last time we weighed and measured her a few months ago she was roughly tracking her curves for weight and height (around 25th centiles for both). So she's pretty dinky but she was born dinky.

I've got one of those 2 year olds too! Solidarity, sister!

Ours also likes things one day, then the next week claims to despise the exact same meal...

One thing we've found that kinda works (sometimes...), is if we all sit and eat together, ignoring the fact he's not eating a bite of his, then we finish, clear our plates, start tidying up, put some music on... we are all still in the room (kitchen diner), but not sat with him, and he'll often then start to eat. I think the distraction of other things going on, and music to listen to makes him forget he's trying to be stubborn and difficult?!

It's not ideal, but at least he's eating the damn food.

I am also now queen of the food game. Ideas include:

Can you catch this forkfull as it whizzes past your mouth?

Pleading with them not to eat what's on the fork (helps if you have an older sibling to demonstrate this) "please do not eat this fork of potatoes, I'm saving it for grandad next week" (then look away, and they gobble it up, then you turn back and act massively surprised "WOAH! Did grandad just come and eat it?! Where did it go?!!")

Make your mouth really tiny and try fitting a spoon of food into your mouth. Declare your mouth to be far too small, and set if it'll fit into their mouth. "Oh my goodness!! It fits!! Your mouth is ENORMOUS! Let's see if we can fit this bigger piece into your mouth! Wow! And how about this small pea, will that also fit?!" Etc etc...

And then there is "baby bird", where you hold the handle of the fork in your mouth and dangle it into their mouth to feed them... (then after a few "worms" have gone in, say something like "oh, I'm just going to fill up my glass of water, can you put the next worm in your mouth?" To get back to them feeding themself...)

Honestly our mealtimes are a joke, and often these ideas won't work and I'll cave and give toast or fruit or yoghurt to avoid an empty tummy overnight (if it's lunch or breakfast, I'm more willing to leave him hungry till snack time, but overnight I feel like it's a punishment for us, as we're the ones woken at 5am by a starving cranky toddler!).

You're not alone. And i can say with certainty it's nothing you're doing wrong, as we've got an older child who is an AMAZING eater, and never fussed about anything, and we've done exactly the same with both. It's just how they're made ;)

www.nhsaaa.net/media/1857/20170301portres.pdf

This also shows other types of food and portion size

I also have one of these 2.5 year olds, it drives me bat shit. Especially as nursery tell me he eats absolutely everything there and sometimes asks for seconds.
He refused pretty much everything yesterday but quite happily gobbled up my smoked salmon i had with my lunch 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thanks so much for those links with portion sizes. I really wish I had seen them when DD was 1! For a while we were definitely feeding her too much in snacks resulting in less eaten at mealtimes as I had no idea what a good portion was and she used to shout "more!" all the time! We are a lot 'stricter' with snacks now and we did see some improvement with meal times as a result but the last couple of weeks she's just gone on one again

Yes mine eats everything at nursery and occasionally has seconds too!! It is annoying but I am so grateful that at least I know 3 days a week she's getting a good intake of nutritious food.

I always wanted to avoid meal time bribery and games but find occasionally going down these routes now myself too. We have some success with who can do the biggest bites/crunches but really lucky if we can get a few mouthfuls out of that. Likewise with daddy/dolly/teddy will eat that if you don't eat it ('no! It's mine!"). But I worry about stuff like this as I don't want to encourage her to eat if she genuinely isn't hungry but it's hard to know when she is and when she isn't. As she would never ever turn down a cake or biscuit for example. She once ate so much cake she vomited and once ate so much gingerbread she got an upset stomach (both lessons well learnt which we felt awful about, both about a year ago).

Thanks for listening to me rant! Greatest sympathies to all of you going through similar! Me and DH are both people who eat almost everything and really enjoy food and eating out and trying new things etc so it really gets under our skin tbh as it's so alien to us! We were both always good esters as kids too apparently.

There are some tips that work on my kids.

1. Offer her food that her favourite character would eat.
2. Act funny when you are having your meal. Try your best to let her know the food inside the bowl is tasty.
3. Take snacks as rewards when she finish up her meal. The snacks only appear after regular meals.

The most important of all, parents should strictly follow the principles you make for your children. Don't compromise in any condition just to let children know the importance of eating balanced.

I feel like my Ds is too young to try any games/ fab characters food etc, he’ll be 2 in a few months.

It’s just a daily battle, which I try not to get stressed about.

Today he had dried cornflakes for breakfast, handfuls of raisins, 1/4 of a small pitta bread, 1/10 of a scrambled egg, a yogurt and ummmm that’s it!! All quite a battle. Better than nothing I guess