Toddler refusing food arghgh (a rant)

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Hi all,

DC1 has always been a great eater, as was DC2 until about 18 months, then she got fussy and will now only eat cereal. She eats perfectly at nursery so it's just a toddler thing but it's so irritating. She's very wilful in other ways too

I play it cool and unbothered what she eats, have tried reverse psychology and can sometimes get her to eat off my plate but she refuses to eat.

She's always had a light appetite and is more petite (under 25 centile but above 15) and I try multi vitamins too.

When did your fussy toddler finally give in and eat something???

Nursery was the game changer for us!
I started making similar meals to what he has at nursery and eventually added different meals in.
Even though he ate everything at nursery it took him awhile to eat a hot meal off me.
My downfall at first was if he didn't eat it I offered something else 🤦🏼‍♀️ so I stopped doing that and he soon learnt if he didn't eat it he wouldn't get anything else.
It's frustrating but they get there!

When ds said he didn't want to eat, I backed off, put some snacky things in bowls on the coffee table and left him to it.

A small plate of cheese cubes, cherry tomatoes and bread sticks usually disappeared when he realised I wasn't going to argue about it.

@Mintjulia

When ds said he didn't want to eat, I backed off, put some snacky things in bowls on the coffee table and left him to it.

A small plate of cheese cubes, cherry tomatoes and bread sticks usually disappeared when he realised I wasn't going to argue about it.

You obviously haven't got dogs....

Couldn't possibly put anything on our coffee table and expect DS to be able to pick

(yes the beggars will eat pretty much anything if it's human food, e.g. a part eaten cherry bakewell)

My 2 year old has recently started being a bit fussy with food, not sure if it's teething as she's usually very good but it's been a little while now. I just keep trying to remember that it's my job to provide her with a balanced meal and her job to decide how much or what of it to eat. I know it's hard though when you worry that they will go to bed hungry. I usually offer her a banana or some yoghurt alongside her dinner so at least she eats something but I'm hoping it's a phase and I'll just keep offering her the meals with no pressure.

My DD often eats better if we leave her main meal on the table while she eats something else. So, the other day I made curry which she wouldn’t touch. Fine, left it on the table and gave her a banana. She ate a few bites, then had some spoonfuls of curry, then back to the banana, back to the curry etc.
I don’t know why she does this, and it has sometimes resulted in her eating her main meal with a spoon covered in yoghurt but she definitely eats better.

Last week I served exactly the same meal to my toddler two nights running (grilled chicken and vegetable couscous). The first night, he wolfed couscous and wouldn't even look at the chicken. The second night, he was picking grains of couscous off the chicken and then just eating the meat. Heaven forbid he ate a grain of couscous! I've basically stopped trying to even understand his logic around food at the moment. Toddlers are just a PITA but eventually he'll get to the age when he can wash the yoghurt off his own banana rather than making me do it (because yoghurt = fine and banana = fine but banana that has got a bit of yoghurt on it = definitely not fine).

Thanks all! Some good ideas