Toddler wants to live off cream cheese sandwiches

[Whathefisgoingon]

My 2.5 year old has become fussy with his food.

He mostly refuses every meal I make unless it is fish fingers/nuggets, bean and chips.

When he refused, he doesn’t tantrum or anything like that, he just won’t touch it. I weaned him with a huge variety of foods and have always offered different things but he just isn’t interested anymore despite being a great eater to start with.

This eve he has asked for another cream cheese sandwich and when I said he had pots, burger and veg he got upset and asked again for a cream cheese sandwich.

My question is - what am I actually supposed to do? Until now, if some time has passed since I’ve served his dinner and he’s not touched it, I just make him something I know he will eat - but that means he is eating the same crap every day and it’s not very nutritious.

He’s a slim boy, so I do worry.

I don’t think it’s recommended but at that age I started with the bribery 😂 but it has worked for us, DS will try anything at all as long as I promise him a desert of some kind. The rule is that you have to try everything, not that you have to finish your plate or anything like that. He’s learned to like lots of foods and doesn’t always remember or bother about having anything afterwards now. Sometimes he’ll come out with ‘but I don’t want my peas…’ and I call bullshit because I’ve seen him eat them hundreds of times. So if he doesn’t eat a decent amount of them, that’s it. I leave meals on the table if they’re uneaten so he can go back and change his mind.
So if your DC is being resistant, I’d say if you eat this and this you can have this.

Have you tried giving him a very small sandwich with his meal?

I'd give him the sandwich tbh, some cucumber / tomatoes / carrot on the side or bribe him if he try's some of the other food at least then he can have the sandwich. It's likely just a phase. Mine would only eat yogurt when they had teeth coming in especially the molars.

I just made my kids what I knew they would eat at 2YO. I had one that ate anything put in front of him and one who would eat literally nothing. The one who ate practically nothing has always eaten little. I think he thinks eating meals are boring. He's 7 now and it's only been the last year or so he's eaten anything like the amounts he's sibling does.

Don't listen to the people who tell you your child won't starve themselves BTW. Because mine did.

Don't make him anything else. He'll eat what you've given him after a while.
He isn't having meltdowns or acting like he's got sensory issues so he's just refusing the food because he knows you'll give him something else.

My daughter would only eat pesto pasta for months & months. And cottage cheese & marmite sandwiches! I just let her. She grew out of it. When toddlers brains are growing they need a lot of fat as brains are mostly fat! My son craved butter at this stage & I think he just needed it for his brain. I’d try with healthy snacks, fruit etc but let him have his cream cheese 😁

All advice is the same - do not worry about it, it is a phase.

One thing I did do was buy an ice cube tray and put very small amounts of different things in there, like a tiny graze tray - this way they sometimes tried new things. I left it available for them to try whenever they wanted.

A cream cheese sandwich is not so bad if you buy or make proper bread. Stop offering nuggets and other crap, just keep offering very small portions of good food and see how it goes, if they demand a cream cheese sandwich make a small one.

He has learnt that if he doesn't eat what he is given he gets a preferable alternative. Don't offer an alternative. I remember my son refusing dinner and I think I sent him to bed hungry twice, (no alternatives offered) needless to say he would always (well nearly always eat his dinner). And he would look forward to a dessert or biscuit after.
Stand your ground, it will put you in good stead for when your son is bigger than you and making demands!

Bribery! Also if cream cheese is his thing- would he dip his dinner into cream cheese?

Relax. Dd1 ate nothing but punches for 6 weeks when she was 2. She moved past it. It's normal for toddlers

My toddler is the same. I just mostly give her what she likes (same types of things as your son) plus lots of fruit, cucumber/broccoli/peas (the main vegetables she'll eat), eggs and peanut butter.

We do make other meals but we allow her to serve herself from the middle of the table and there have been times she has gone to bed only having eaten broccoli 😅 once she just didn't eat..... Occasionally she'll try something she's always refused before.

I try to make sure she gets a lot of variety within what she will eat, and often she'll try new things if we take the pressure off and don't talk about food at dinner (I heard once that mealtimes should be about connecting with your family, not about food, and we try to follow that but not always easy...).

To be honest, when she tries new food via bribery or whatever, she rarely likes it anyway. She knows what she likes, and I'm sure this is a phase and she'll eat more as she gets older.

Honestly it’s non negotiable that he eats the same thing as us, I watched my little brother eat everything as a baby but as soon as he was a toddler he refused everything but beige food and he’s the same 20 years later because everyone just only ever gave him what he wanted. Ours is offered the same as us almost every day and there’s 0 pressure to eat and we sit round a little table he can get up and down from. I usually give him a very plain supper before bed like a piece of toast and cup of milk incase he’s still hungry.

I do let him usually choose breakfast and lunch but always bulk it out with other stuff like fruit veg hummus cheese etc. so he has a variety.

I just think offering them alternatives (obviously different if they’re ill etc) can be a slippery slope.

Alternate things you know he will eat with things you want him try. So one day do a cream cheese sandwich for lunch (with cucumber and carrot on the side perhaps) and then spaghetti bolonaise/chile con carne/potatoes and salmon or whatever you feel like eating for tea. The next day try omelette and toast for lunch with some cut up fruit for dessert, then fish fingers for tea. Keep presenting him with a balanced selection of foods, including some things you know he will eat every day.
Ignore people saying never to feed him nuggets and fish fingers because they are ´crap’ and ´not nutritious’. A diet composed entirely of those types of foods is not well balanced, but fish fingers and nuggets absolutely do contain important macronutritional elements - calories (fats, carbs, protein) and a small amount of micronutrients mostly from the fish/chicken they contain.

Yes, I was going to suggest this.