Overwhelmed with toddler food issues - advice needed

[Willow4987]

Hi

My toddler is 3.5 and has become progressively worse with picky eating since he was 1.

At that point I thought we had issues as he wouldn’t eat veg. God how wrong was I

He initially eat a variety of meals but in the last year it’s dramatically dropped. Before he’d eat things like spag bol, chilli, chicken curry, cottage pie etc.

Now he’ll eat the rice, plain pasta etc from those meals. Won’t eat any potatoes etc

I’m struggling with what to feed him as his list of safe foods is dropping by the day. He’s now refusing the plain rice and pasta. Has recently stopped eating safe things like pizza

His safe food lists is now cereal, fruit, sausages and fish fingers. They are literally the only things I can give him that he’s guaranteed to eat. Everything else is almost virtually impossible to get him to eat

I’ve tried all of the advice online about staying calm, respect his boundaries around full vs hungry, role model eating meals together, present it differently, make it fun, etc

I’ve literally tried all of the advice and it’s getting worse not better

We implemented a reward chart at one stage that did initially work but that’s not working either anymore

I’m just at a complete loss and don’t know what to do. I’m seriously considering trying to speak to the GP or health visitors about it but I just don’t know what use they’ll be

I’m really after some advice from other mums as I just can’t take this anymore.

Tonight I gave him chicken curry which he loves (and I know he does if he’d only just put it in his mouth) which of course he refused. He ate literally one grain of rice and then said he wasn’t hungry (which isn’t true as he said he was 5 mins before I served dinner)

@thatsallineed that's bloody awful 😞

My boy was picky, when young, then realised he didn't like his food touching. So if say, the curry touched his rice, he would pick and eat only the food that the sauce hadn't touched and only the curry away from his rice, but only pick at it. I bought him a bigger version of a baby plate with sections, but metal, so nothing touched anything else. Kids go by instinct, they won't starve themselves, survival instincts take over. You can also get a protein shakes in various flavours that gets all he needs in him, if he likes milkshakes.

I also started getting him to help with the dinner. Pizza base dough and let him choose what he wanted on it, baking a cake, build your own tacos etc, it was dead messy and always took forever, but he enjoyed it and as he made it, he was more inclined to try it. He would only ever drink milk, and his go too was only ever fruit, so I knew he would be ok, but it was stressful and worrying.

My boy is now eight and helps me in the kitchen, is my taste tester, dab hand with a knife and helps me prep and always the stirrer of any sauce.

He will try anything now, never thought I would see the day at the time. But I have always had the mantra, how do you know you don't like it if you ain't tried it. So he will give it a go now. And has opened his tastebuds up no end.

So just pretend it ain't an issue, if he like sausages, take the skin off and then turn it into a patty for a burger or a finger size meatball, so he can physically see it's the same thing, just a different shape, but I would say, get him in the kitchen with you.

Have you tried sensory play with him then? Away from food but gets used to different textures and things. Sensory bags are a great starting point as they are mess free www.thechaosandtheclutter.com/sensory-bags

I’ve got a picky eater but not as picky as yours. The divided plates, special plates (a plate with whatever they like glazed on it, current favourite here is a frozen plate, we have a range of plates to choose from), don’t get stressed (some days I fail st this), sprinkles on yogurt, custard, anything really is working for us atm.

I have been there. My first 3 children ate anything and everything. Then we had our 4th.
She ate exactly as you describe. At nursery she would only eat couscous. Not flavoured. Just couscous. At home, plain rice, plain toast and plain pasta.
There is hope at the end of the tunnel. At 5 she progressively ate more and more again.
We just ignored her not eating. And if she asked to try something, we let her and didn't make a fuss if she didn't go on to eat it. Eventually she has quite a range now, covering all the food groups. She is just 9 so it was a long ol' haul but there is hope.

Forgot to say that we gave her a vitamin chew thing every day.
We had the milkshakes-paedisure (?) but she said they were disgusting!

[quote RandomMess]@thatsallineed that's bloody awful 😞 [/quote]
I was absolutely livid. Especially since we'd been into the school, discussed it with the head and the lunchtime supervisor and they had both understood and agreed to the instructions we'd been given by the clinic, which was that she should not be badgered or persuaded to eat anything, and that she should be left to eat unmolested, in the hope that after a few weeks it would do the trick and she'd start expanding her repertoire on her own. We'd primed dd for weeks, reassuring her that she wouldn't be made to eat stuff she didn't like, but she was a big girl now and big girls had school dinners. This teacher waded into the fray and when we collected dd at the end of the day, instead of quietly saying there'd been a slight hiccup, she loudly proclaimed in front of dd that she shouldn't have school dinners but should bring a packed lunch in instead. Months of priming wrecked and after that, there was no going back. I could have decked her to be honest.

@Willow4987 Hello I know this post is quite old now but my 17 month is sounds exactly like your little one. Can I ask if and when things improved? And if it did, was there anything else that helped?

Even if health visitors, GPs etc aren't great, I would flag it up in case your child becomes underweight or their diet means they are at risk of later health problems.

Maybe the enriched milk drinks would actually help, in the sense that you would be less worried about him not getting enough nourishment.

There can be a feeling of shame. (What have I done wrong etc?) But I think it is better to share the struggle, as it shows you are being a concerned parent.

He does seem to be at the extreme end of normal 'pickiness'. so any decent health professionals will listen to your concerns.

@BananaHammock34

DS is now almost 5.5 and I’d say things started to improve from when he approached 4

i think his brain matured and I could start actually explaining things to him and him understanding me a bit more. Since then it’s been better. there was a definite big leap in maturing in that final 6 months.

I just kept trying all the same advice online - family meals, getting him involved, no pressure etc. I also deconstructed some meals so he would be more likely to eat it

its taken a long time but it’s eventually working. He still doesn’t like certain things like mash (which I suspect is the texture) and I still have to coax him to eat or try a lot of foods but he now understands that if he tries and genuinely doesn’t like it, then that’s fine. I just want him to try it. 9 times out of 10 he does like it and then eats it all

he even eats veg now which I never thought we’d get to

on the flip side of that my eats anything and everything child has hit the picky stage. He’s almost 4 so hoping he grows out of it soon

@Willow4987 Thanks for taking the time to reply 😊 4 seems like such a long way away right now but I’ll keep doing all the same things you did, which I’ve also been doing since weaning and hope that he grows out of it in his own time too.

It’s hard to not get anxious that he’ll end up on those shakes, like you wondered about. It just seems to get worse all the time and we lose safe foods every few weeks. He only eats 15-20 things now, including things like crisps that have no nutritional value 😣 I find it so stressful but I try hard to not let him see that.

Did your LO show any other signs of having any sensory texture issues? My boy has recently started seeming bothered by having dirty hands too.

@BananaHammock34 My now-adult son was like this. He had a tiny range of safe foods.

He has ARFID. He was also diagnosed as autistic (eventually).

DS lives on Huel now.
Oh, and chips.

You have my sympathies.
My other three children eat anything, so it wasn't anything I did IYSWIM.

@TheShellBeach Yes I’ve read about ARFID too but as my LO is still so young, I find it hard to know whether it’s typical toddler (but maybe more extreme end) of picky eating phase or whether it’s something like ARFID. How did it get diagnosed?

He doesn’t currently show any other signs of autism but I’m keeping an eye out.

It was diagnosed when he carried on just eating fish fingers, even at secondary school. The GP was dismissive and just said he was fussy so we paid for an autism assessment.

@TheShellBeach GP’s are useless. That must have been so hard having to struggle like that for all those years. Hopefully having a diagnosis helps understand his struggles now.

@BananaHammock34 hes never been a massive fan of messy play so that could be linked

however my previous good eater is a fan of messy play but hates having dirty hands so he asks to clean them all the time so I don’t think it always means they will or won’t have issues

How he’s doing now ? ❤️

@Vittoria123 DS1 is much better now!! We are slowly getting him to eat more things. There’s been a big development leap between 5-6 and he now understands me more when I ask him to try things and why I’m asking him

he still hates mashed potatoes though!