Four year old who barely eats

[YukoandHiro]

My 4yo has always been useless with food. She has multiple allergies so that's obviously a factor but they are known and managed well. She gets hungry but only eats bread and fruit out of choice - we offer a range off foods and some days are better than others. I end up spoon feeding her quite a lot which obviously she's way too old for but she just will refuse the food and go hungry. Most days I don't give lots of alternatives but maybe once or twice a week I let her have cereal before bed as she's moaning about being hungry. Hate her going to bed hungry but also know giving her cereal makes her resolve to refuse all the main dinner even stronger.
I'm most worried that she doesn't eat enough protein - she's not keen at all.
Anywha she's at school now and the offer is limited for lunch due to her allergies but if i send a packed lunch she literally doesn't eat anything - it's better for there to be a tiny bit of peer pressure eating with friends. I don't think she eat much there -/ shes starving when I pick her up every day.
She's dropping down the centile lines a little now, from about 30th in the toddler years to 9th now.
She has bags of energy, but I just worry about her whole negative attitude to food. She seems to hate everything. It also makes mealtimes tedious because it's just a daily exercise in her testing boundaries.
I also have a one year old who has even a more allergies but will try anything offered.
I'm out or ideas. Not really asking a question - just needed a place to vent.
Is anyone else going through this?

Can she have something like pediasure?

I’m sure it’s really hard

Smoothies / juices can be a good way to get vitamins into them? Something like a Nutribullet might be a good investment?

I put all sorts into the Nutribullet (apples, carrots, fruit, spinach) then freeze the juice into iceypoles. They think it's dessert :)

Does she like yoghurt? You can get some high protein yoghurts that are made of quark but they're super nice, very filling though

Do you give her multi vitamins? has HV (or another health care professional) expressed any concerns?

My now 7 year has been fussy since day dot. And we have similar battles luckily we have no allergies to contend with. He has only just started eating school dinners in the last few weeks. The meals they serve he would actually eat at home but he will only eat a plain jacket potato at school.

He would definitely prefer it if i fed him too, and it has taken many years to get him to fed himself. And at 4 i was still feeding him just to get him to eat.

One of the things that work for Ds1 is bribing we did a sticker chart for trying new foods. Offering new foods lots of times to see if he liked them, somethings he now eats (chicken nuggets fish fingers he only just started eating this year) and other things he has tried but just won't eat them (bread/sandwiches/wraps but does eat toast)

We continue to work on this every day. You are not alone xx

@cookielove

My now 7 year has been fussy since day dot. And we have similar battles luckily we have no allergies to contend with. He has only just started eating school dinners in the last few weeks. The meals they serve he would actually eat at home but he will only eat a plain jacket potato at school.

He would definitely prefer it if i fed him too, and it has taken many years to get him to fed himself. And at 4 i was still feeding him just to get him to eat.

One of the things that work for Ds1 is bribing we did a sticker chart for trying new foods. Offering new foods lots of times to see if he liked them, somethings he now eats (chicken nuggets fish fingers he only just started eating this year) and other things he has tried but just won't eat them (bread/sandwiches/wraps but does eat toast)

We continue to work on this every day. You are not alone xx

Completely disagree with bribing children!

It's not quite a pediasure situation. We are quite small as a family (I'm only 5ft) so although she's slim she's also quite short so nobody seems worried. She has an NHS dietician due to her allergies but we haven't seen them face to face for ages due to the pandemic. They seem happy with the limited range she has because we do manage to get enough variety in each day but we only manage that through spoon feeding and often a bit of bribery about puddings etc.
She's allergic to milk so loading up with cream and cheese etc doesn't work. We have alternatives and they're fortified but they're not quite as good for you and some of them are packed with sugar - not that I fuss too much about sugar tbh, as long as she's eating something.
My worry is actually less for her physical health than the mental side - the fact that I'm spoon feeding as she has no motivation and that hunger doesn't seem to over ride her refusal with a lot of foods.
She was really truly awful til about 2.5, then improved for about a year, then the last year has been bad again and it seems to have got worse since school for some reason. At nursery she ate quite well during the day, I think because they all ate the same thing but now she has a different menu at school due to allergies.
Anyone else had a child who just got better with age?
We see her allergy team and dietician F2F again in Feb so will ask them to assess her weight then and talk more about diet options

Nutribullet is a good idea. She likes smoothies so I could stick a load of avocado and coconut milk in for fats

@cookielove it's really good to hear that others are going through this. I can't believe how easily my youngest has taken to food. It's made me realise how much the eldest's food intake has come to dominate our family life. Obviously the allergies make it more stressful on top of the fussiness too.

My ds almost 3 is like this. Also allergies, which he thankfully has mostly outgrown - he can't have cow milk, but can have paediasure in oat milk as long as it's a half dose. He hovers at the 9th-25th for weight 75th-91st for height.

For me, it's also the willingness. He gets hungry but doesn't care. He mostly eats when food is put directly into his mouth, while distracted. He still has bottles of oat milk/paediasure overnight because he can't sleep through. He has an extremely limited pallet, excluding a lot of very useful and non exotic foods like bread, all vegetables, even things like cake, sweets, etc, he won't touch. Feeding him dominates my life :(

We're under dietician, paediatrician, and were under dysphagia for ages too as he wouldn't willingly take milk until 8 months old. They all just say to keep doing what we're doing...

@Motherofplants Really hope it turns a corner for you. I do think CMPA makes it so hard to just load up with fats as so many easy fats are dairy based

Thanks. It's hard isn't it. Ds eats a largely sausage and pasta (not mixed, naturally) based diet so I'm lucky we haven't had to deal with tummy issues again and his fat/protein levels are OK really!

I just wanted to sympathise OP.

My son was 4 in August and we have regular troubles with getting him to eat.

He was diagnosed as CMPA when he was 9 weeks old which was fine….but then when it came to weaning it was so, so difficult. He would react to various types of food, I had severe anxiety around him eating and all that tension turned eating into a very negative experience.

Fast forward 4 years and he’s on the 15th percentile and we have maybe 10 meals he will eat (with lots of encouragement) but trying to get him to try anything new has pretty much always been futile. He’s really sensitive to different textures to and can sometimes gags on his food which then exacerbates the stress he associates with eating.

His childminder raised concerns last week as she’s concerned that if we can’t find a way to get a more varied diet into him than it may start causing him problems - especially relating to his calorie intake.

It’s been unbelievably hard since weaning began and people struggle to understand just how worrying, fraught and anxiety ridden the experience is of trying to get a reluctant child to eat.

It feels like worrying about my child’s diet has been the focus of my life for four years.

I remember when he was about 12-18 months and he would be in his high chair just refusing to eat or maybe having one bite of something and I would be sat there crying in frustration pleading with him to just eat something. It was awful.

My son will start school next September and I’m trying to not think about what will happen when it comes to lunch time and nobody is there to make sure he eats.

My first son ate anything and everything so to then deal with a difficult eater the second time round has been a huge challenge for me.

@DontWantTheRivalry Oh my goodness, your post is like reading my own diary. My DD was 4 in august also and weaning was just so hard - so many reactions, so much refusal. She lived on Ella's pouches and toast til she was well over 2. We also have a very small range of meals that she will eat bits of (with encouragement and some spooning in). She still has CMPA and egg allergy but we're ready to work on both ladders to achieve some tolerance but she hates loads of textures so it's really hard. The allergists are irritated with me for not getting enough baked egg in her diet but she just won't eat muffins or cake or whatever.

My youngest has more IGE allergies and Carries an epi pen and yet I'm much less stressed with her because she'll eat anything I offer. Which is astonishing to me!

My mental health around parenting has been really affected by both allergies and food refusal. It's so upsetting.

Hope things turn a corner for you. I'm definitely going to ask for a proper review of her weight and growth at the allergy appt in Feb

I can sympathise. My 6 year old has serious allergies and has always had a complicated relationship with food. There is still a long way to go but I feel we are doing baby steps in the right direction now. Reading Ellyn Satter’s work on the division of responsibility in feeding has been transformational for us. Mealtimes are no longer fraught occasions and my son is slowly expanding what he will eat. In the meantime I hide veg abs protein in shakes, pancakes, cornbread, muffins…

Thanks for replying @Verybookish - it's so good to hear we're not alone in facing this. Your post gives me some hope. I try really hard to stick to DoR but find it emotionally challenging to be ok with her eating so little on some days.

Annoyingly the old favourites seem to losing their power too. Pasta used to be a staple that I could sneak things into the sauce but out of nowhere she's started refusing it

@YukoandHiro it’s super tough - but you just need to think of the long game. Easier said than done: I know. What’s really helped me is that my son’s little brother who devours everything is on the same (tiny) percentile. So my fussy eater’s size is not due to his eating…

Perhaps we need a support thread

Perhaps we should! It's just so all consuming (or not, LOL!)