3yo fussy eater

[AmieB]

Hi guys,

I know this is a common phase that kids go through but I'm really struggling with getting my 3yo to eat an evening meal. I'm hoping you can give me some tips/advice on how to improve this.
Basically - breakfast and lunch are not a problem at all, my little girl eats all sorts of things like toast, fruit, yoghurt, crisps, snacks etc etc. But when it comes to an evening meal she will eat :

Pesto or cheesy pasta
Yorkshire puddings
Fish fingers
Garlic bread
Smoked salmon

LITERALLY these things only. It's gradually got worse and worse and now I majorly struggle at getting a hot evening meal into her. She will not eat pasta if its in a sauce, no form of potato, no veg, no meat. I am at my wits end. I have tried to give her what we are eating but she simply will look at the plate and refuse and go to bed quite happily without dinner. I can't keep sending her to bed with no dinner.

Please can I have any tips/advice on how to improve this, I'm worried that soon the above list will get even smaller!
Thank you ! Xx

Hi - I had to rinse the sauce off DD 2.5s 'red pasta' the other week 🤦‍♀️ it's hard but she's been in a better place the last few days!

Could you try giving the main meal at lunch if that's a better time of day for her?

I keep meaning to do messy play with food to reduce any sensory aversions - it's a good idea but in reality I don't get organised for this often enough, you might do better than me 😉

When mealtimes get stressful/regular meltdowns we stop eating with DD. We get to enjoy our meal after bedtime without a child hanging off our legs. That helps me with the old division of labour trick - you give her food that you're happy for her to eat, she gets to choose what and how much she eats. She might choose to eat nothing and that's fine. Giving one 'safe food' alongside other things is a good idea to help you feel comfortable with this approach.

Then wait it out. It's a phase, she won't starve and it will get better... at least that's what I tell myself!

@CorpusCallosum
I've thought of all of these things, I've done messy play, I've tried letting her cook with me and she's not interested. I've also done the whole giving a 'safe food' along with bits we want her to eat but she can't have plain pasta or garlic bread with every meal :(

Me and hubby tend to eat without the kids one night a week which is lovely but I enjoy eating together as a family, cooking two separate meals every time though or just watching her push her plate away is starting to grind on me! I'm just super worried that she's not having any form of veg, meat or much else
She does take a multivitamin each day but it's not the same as a proper meal
It's also horrible when we go to other peoples for dinner/out to a restaurant as she just won't eat anything other than bread.

X

My 4 year old will only eat:

Chips that are "dry"
Potato waffles
Alphabites
Chicken nuggets (not any different shaped chicken though"
Sausages without specks in them
Fishfingers
Crisps and crackers
Yoghurts
Cheese and tomato pizza
Cereal
Toast
Pretzels

And that's it....
I've been in tears for about 2 years because you literally can't do anything.
He has basic freezer food everyday. No fruit. No vegetables except those I can throughly hide in pizza sauce. He will drink a banana smoothie or orange juice but other than that NOTHING.

My only advice is try not to comment or make a big deal. It's control to them. I should have just carried on giving him what we have and let him go without dinner if he chose not to eat - but I made every mistake a worried mum makes. I gave in, made a second dinner, let him pick what he wanted and now I don't know how to reverse it except to wait and keep offering the new foods...

It's so upsetting but she won't starve even if she has plain pasta and garlic bread for a year. Good luck though.

Ii have a child who eats dry cereal, dry rice cakes, dry cooked pasta, chicken nuggets, chocolate, and innocent fruit smoothies (of course has to be the most expensive brand). So I feel your pain. But your daughter does seem to have food from all the food groups (smoked salmon= protein, toast= carbs etc) and is eating fruit even if light on the veg.
Our Dietitian advised to focus on that, to give a multivitamin, and to keep offering food, not to make it a battleground or punish for not eating, just keep offering new food alongside what they like.
This has worked for us as (took months) he now eats some pistachios, and sometimes sausages.

I know it might not be practical but if you do the main meal at lunch time does it make any difference? Only reason I ask my 3.5 year old has never been as good at eating his tea but if I do a main meal at lunchtime seems to go better.

Thanks everyone. Like you @EmmaJR1 I started off offering toast etc if she wouldn't eat a meal and I think doing that has made it worse. I'm trying to be alot stricter now but sometimes I put her to bed and can hear her tummy rumbling and it breaks my heart. I'm all for giving the main meal at lunchtime but I'd still have the same problem in that it would have to be something from the list above. We all have lovely meals, alot of the time we cook hello fresh meals and our little boy just demolishes everything (he's only 1 so hasn't reached the fussy stage yet) and our little girl just pushes her plate away. I give her things I KNOW she would love if she just tried them and she outright refuses.
Just don't know what to do or how to improve it. For now I'm just going to cook a family meal but serve something something hers that she will eat, even if she eats the same 4 items night after night. So frustrating:( xx

Feed her what she will eat, don’t make it a battle of wills. Have new foods available but don’t make a fuss.

It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t have hot foods ar tea time

We’re in a very similar place but more like @MistyFrequencies in terms of what DS eats. We’ve also had consultations with a dietician who gave similar advice to what Misty has said. It’s so hard not to worry when his diet is so limited - and it’s also hard to keep persevering with offering new things when they’re never eaten but I think that’s what I need to keep coming back to. The other thing we need to try to do is not to fill him up on less nutritious snacks to ensure he’s hungry at each meal.

Just this week I’ve brought back the idea of a ‘no thank you plate’ so he picks everything up and transfers it to another plate. It’s hard to think of that as progress but at least he’s touching it and I got him to squish the peas one day. Advice we’ve been given is to see it as progression from looking, smelling, touching, kissing, licking to putting it in the mouth then eating but to do it all without pressure and just as a relaxed choice he can choose to make. So seeing if he’ll make a tower out of courgette slices or poking holes in cucumber of squishing peas is all progress.