How to get you 2 1/2 year old to eat!

[Ash2021xo]

So a bit of detail about my son.

He has never been a big eater. He's smaller for his age 12kgs and around 90cm height maybe 89cm , always been a small child. However our doctor is not worried as he is always sitting around the 9th percentile and not dropping. When he turned 2 he had a huge appetite. Eating 3 decent meals a day and snacking in between , but he started kindergarten and got sick so many times with gastro bugs and other illness' he started having food aversions and basically he's turning his nose up at everything for weeks. He's nearly eating anything.

He seems healthy , he's very smart, observant and alert. But it worries me that not getting the nutrients he needs will only slow his growth down more.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Have you tried making food into shapes? My niece wasn’t great with veg so when she was with me I’d use ginger bread men cutters, make faces or fancy designs. Took a few minutes longer to serve and takes some thought, but it worked - her dad started doing the same and after a few months she was eating her veg without a fuss.

No advise as such only to say my son is the same age and opposite end of the size spectrum, 110cm tall not chunky he is quite slim but also doesn’t eat much. As an example each meal he will eat 1/3 if that. I give him smaller meals now throughout the day and he seems to eat more that way. So I will do him a breakfast then instead of snack I’ll do him a hefty snack like pitta and houmous, then pasta lunch as normal, then mid afternoon I’ll do him a snack, sometimes peanut butter toast, or something like that then his normal meal for dinner. Not sure if this is a recommend way of eating and he doesn’t eat all of it either but eats much better when little and often x

Thanks @GallowwayGirl88 I will give it a go.

And @Postwhisk also thank you. I'm not to worried about what is recommended as long as he's getting enough of what he needs. He does sometimes have good days and will eat heaps but the. For 3-4 days after that he will barely eat a sandwich and a couple slices of fruit.

Appreciate all your advice.

@Ash2021xo my dd is 8yo, 128cm and just a smudge over 24kg, she is precariously on about the 15th percentile and as soon as she is poorly drops massively. For various reasons also has food aversion and doesn't eat so much as picks at food on her plate.

Having tried everything from shapes to food colouring mash to her favour colour that day I can assure you nothing has worked.

My honest advice is don't sweat it. He is still very young, most kids go through the beige stage. Don't make my mistake and make food a battle ground, there are some hills not worth dying on.

Until the last maybe 4-6 months dd lived on mini cheddar, jam sandwiches, 6" value pizza (the 50p ones with naff all on them) chicken nuggets, French fries and sausages. She would starve herself for days rather than eat something she didn't want. And I so mean days.

I spend hours reasoning with her that a chicken beast chunk was basically a naked chicken nugget, pork meatballs were just sausages rolled into a ball, mash is just the inside of a chip etc etc and nothing worked.

I have no idea why something suddenly clicked with her, but earlier this year we made a deal that she would try 1 new thing a week. We have for the most part kept it up and VERY slowly her repertoire is expanding.

She has eaten shepherd's pie topped with sweet potato mash tonight for the first time ever without any battle, fuss, tears, tantrums or deliberately making herself throw up in her plate so she so she have to eat it.

Her diet is still very limited but she will now eat pasta bolognase (asda smooth sauce with hidden veg is genius), fish fingers, fish cakes, roast chicken, beefburgers, peas...

As long as he is gaining height etc in proportion then my experience with dd is that they aren't bothered. I begged her specialist for help and a referral to a dietary specialist and basically got told she is healthy (blood levels wise) and is growing so she is fine in their books. It is frustrating but they do grow out of it. Show hi. Foods are safe, offer and don't make a fuss if he refuses. As he gets older and can understand reason and logic it should start to get easier

Currently going through this same hell with my DS. He has a ridiculously limited diet. I'm honestly at the end of my rope and could cry each meal time with worry as to whether he will eat "proper" food.
After seeking advice from our health visitor we are:

1. Not stressing. He's healthy and putting on weight.
2. Letting him eat what he wants and not worrying about a varied diet.
3. Offering new foods but not making a big deal out of it when he moves it away.

Like a PP, my son would starve himself rather than eat an "unsafe" food.

Thanks @Terminallysleepdeprived everytime I also beg for a paediatrician I got told he's so healthy. But I have finally been able to get them to atleast do a blood test , we have to wait for him to get 100% better after a nasty bug he had. We have been told that he was born 39 weeks and 6.23 pounds and for his birth weight and birth issues he's doing exceedingly well. They also looked into both sides of our family and we are all fairly small people. His dad is 6ft and grandad 6 ft 1 but all the rest of us are rather short and slim, so the odds of being a tall chunky boy is very small. They're just putting it down to genetics.

@Lifeandlemons

Thanks for your message, I appreciate everyone's time!
I'm the same. I have been in tears wondering what's wrong ? Why me ? And then I start thinking his tummy must be shrinking as he barely eats. He always have checks at the doctors and seem to be slowly and gradually putting weight on, surprisingly.

I became very worried because he started kindergarten and had so many bugs within 5 months and less eating through that duration of time I started to think there was an underlying health condition. But they say "he's far to healthy and smart for them to be worried, that he's very advanced for his age" but finally I have been able to insist a blood test to just rule out anything far more serious for my own worries I guess!

@Ash2021xo it's interesting that you mention he started at kindergarten and picked up lots of bugs before this started. This also happened to my boy. He started nursery just before he was two and has picked up virus after virus and been hospitalised twice. I'm wondering if this has something to do with it? Or maybe he's just being fussy. I doubt I'll ever know!

I’m also here with my 3yo DS. He’s been getting progressively worse from about 18 months old.

Goes through phases with what he will and won’t eat but generally it’s a very small diet.

Things that are working for us are taking the pressure off him, making sure there’s always a ‘safe’ food that we know he will eat on the plate and we’ve also introduced a reward chart if he eats his dinner

@Lifeandlemons

Same for us hospital twice. Both times was fever 39.6, spewing and lethargic! He used to love a roast chicken and homemade buttermilk chicken if anything. One of the nights he was extremely bad we had roast chicken and he vomited it all up. Hasn't touched chicken since. Sadly that was two meals we use to make him and he would eat happily. Also he thinks pork is chicken so that has also been taken off the menu.

@Willow4987
His dad has been doing a reward if he eats. His dad is a big sweet tooth so he's been offering his a very small bowl of ice cream if he eats! What we ended up finding is he wanted to skip dinner and go straight for the ice cream. 😂 so now I have asked him not to offer him a treat, as he now just wants the treat.

Plate faces - slices of ham with cucumber slice eyes, curly red pepper lips, tomato nose etc.

My ds liked home made twisted cheese straws with chopped olives in. Lots of finger foods and dippy foods.

Just as an extra chip 8n, please remember that at the ages the kids you are describing have little to no control over their lives. The only thing they can take control of is their food.

Dd gets far worse with food when her routine is out of whack, when we have to have lots of hospital appointments, if o have to go away for work without plenty of time to help her adjust etc.

It might well be worth allowing them some control over other things, what they wear for example.

We have had a sort of yes day today (where they get to pick what they want to do and within limits you say yes to it all) and dd has been so much better at trying her new food today and has eaten a good 50% of her portion of dinner which is about 75% more than she would normally eat.

Yeah we’ve done it slightly differently…so initially he had to get 3 stickers on his chart to get a new small toy car ( like a £1 one)

We started on a couple of easy meals we knew he liked so he’d get the concept.

Once he started regularly getting 3 stickers easily, we’ve increased it to 5 before he gets the car

I have a 3 1/2 year old who weighs 15kg he is a very poor eater. He does have pediasure shakes as prescribed by dietician but these are some other tips she gave us.

Add additional calories to anything possible extra butter/ full fat milk in mash potatoes, offer milkshakes made with icecream etc.

Offer snacks or mini meals between meals but at set times and must be 1 1/2 hours before a meal so we offer a snack everyday at 10.30am and 3pm to prevent constant grazing.

Don't give drinks with meals or only offer sips as they will fill up on drinks.

Offer a calorie laden pudding after tea such as ice cream, yoghurt but not straight after so it's not seen as a reward.

Give a vitamin supplement such as wellkid my DS has been anaemic twice.

My DS will eat almost anything but very little of it. Hopefully so of these will be some use to you. I think doctors only start worrying when growth centile drop rather than weight ones or at least that's what I've found.

Oh and yes! My ds will eat dessert over the main meal. So now I serve it at the same time if possible so he understands that everything in front of him is available to eat but there isn’t anything else

*14kg not 15kg

Keep food diary for a week record every portion eaten and offered and ask for referral to community dietician to review it.
Also there are specialist speech h and language therapists who look at feeding and eating aversion often working with the dietician. Ask.after keeping diary for week or so

I follow @feedinglittles on Instagram - they're a dietitian and an occupational therapist who have lots of useful tips about eating. They're American but I think they offer lots of sensible advice and they do online courses too for babies and toddlers (I've not done those)

Thanks all for your kind suggestions and help. Today we tried a few suggestions and he has actually eaten quite a bit. We have cut little shapes into his food , let him help prepare food and offered different foods. And he has had probably double what he would normally eat. Still not a lot but it has made me feel a lot better.

I'm glad you've had some success OP.

Other things you could try:
Calling food a funny name ("bubble and squeak" instead of fried leftovers, for example, or "flies on a log" for raisins on peanut butter crackers)
Or
Arranging the food into a face shape on the plate
Or
Having a colour meal "it's green food day! (Peas and an apple and a green cupcake or whatever)

Letting children be in control from an early age is key, so no spoon feeding.

Make sure you have a physically active day so as much running about as possible, chasing games if you are space restricted.
When it's time to eat ( let them indicate hunger if possible as there is nothing worse than being overfaced with food if you are not hungry)

Then put a small selection in front of them so for example a thin slice of cheese, a torn piece of baguette with both crust and soft inside, a half cut cherry tomato, carrot and cucumber batons, destoned olives, a few peas, sweetcorn and soft chick peas and easily grabbable fruit portions ( whole raspberries, blueberries, half peeled banana etc) and other easily grabbable food such as pieces of sushi with slices of smoked salmon, Tuna mayo or avocado inside, a chicken drumstick, a whole well grilled fish finger so it doesn't fall apart if it is held and so on are all fantastic for being interesting to look at and taste and can be stored easily.

You can add dollops of tomato sauce or mayo for them to dunk their food in too if that helps.

It all helps to bring back enjoying tasting and eating with no pressure and no antagonism.

It might take a while but it works. If this method is done when babies are just starting to feed themselves and taste a lot of the angst around food would be eliminated.

Vary what is put out daily. Don't force feed, don't draw attention and no need to hover over , just keep an eye. Even better, eat with your child and make it a fun experience.

Give only water to drink or milk.

Don't be alarmed if nothing is touched to start with, ideally you want them to touch and taste with no pressure to get their interest in food back.