Are fussy children the product of a change in parenting style?

[Raz1564]

I shouldn't be casting any judgement on parents who have kids who eat just 5 types of food ... But I am and maybe I need convincing otherwise.

Growing up, we ate the same thing for lunch and dinner. Nobody could be fussy, we didn't have a choice. We either ate what we were given or didn't eat. Some of my siblings were "fussy", but the most that was tolerated from my mum was them moving some green foods to the side.

Fast forward to present day and I have fully gone old school with my approach to feeding my kids. They either eat what I give them or they don't. They now eat really well and the fussiest one eats better than every kid I know.

I decided to take this approach after seeing how much my older sister struggled with her DS. I love cooking and really wanted my children to enjoy wholesome meals.

So ... What do mum's think? Is this approach too strict for you or does it also work for you?

It’s a balance. For instance I know my children’s likes and dislikes I would try to adapt meals slightly to accommodate them. However I started at a young age of serving meals we all ate the same or they went hungry. A pattern emerged about some foods they couldn’t bear, these meals became less often. Then perhaps I’d start to offer choices, sandwich fillings, what fruit or vegetables they wanted. Having them help out with the shop and letting them pick things to try they’d not had before. Now eldest two are year 5&6 and sometimes make their own breakfast and sandwiches etc.
I think at a young age kids need firm boundaries, I think most like them as they are comforting as they start to grow up and mature and reason with you, you can give them more control over things.

My son has literally burst into tears when offered a Shepard's pie at a grandparents house. He struggles with food mixed in together and he got overwhelmed at the prospect of being forced to eat it - which I would never do. Food is to be enjoyed, it's a time when families can come together and share their day and I won't jeopardise that to prove a point about 'eating what you're given'. I offer what I know my kids like, and if they can't eat it that day they get offered a bagel or cereal with fruit. Which is exactly what I did the day he cried over Shepard's pie to the disapproving looks of the grandparents. I don't think you're a better parent than me because your kids eat what you perceive to be better food.. food can be emotional, it is for me at times, and I meet that need with my kids too.

Mine ate everything offered to him at 18mo and now at 3yo eats about six things. My cooking and the way we eat has not changed.I assume he’ll grow back out of it. I’m worried all the time that he must be hungry.

I haven't read the thread, so someone may have said this already

fussy eating is genetic

some people have far more sensitive taste buds, and tastes are a lot stronger to them

This is nothing to do with upbringing, so if none of your children are fussy, it is just luck, like if all of your children sleep through the night from an early age, it is just luck, not anything you have done

It's a bit like the sleep thing isn't it? People with babies who who sleep well insist is because of their special routine/their strictness/etc. But some people with poorly sleeping babies have tried all that.

I also feed my kids what we're having and that's the end of their options. They're great eaters, and eat a wide range of foods. But maybe I can follow this method because they're great eaters rather than the other way round?

I think this is one of those things that people often either stress over unnecessarily or congratulate themselves smugly about.

A lot of children will be 'fussy' until their mid teens and then gradually start eating a wider range of food. There are good biological/evolutionary reasons for 'fussiness' in children, including more sensitive taste buds.

Forcing the issue often seems unnecessary stress to me, unless children aren't eating a nutritious overall diet (and then plenty of milk if they'll drink it and a multivitamin is an easy way forward). Children can eat a diet which is very limited, but also balanced. For instance, my eldest DC has a range of around 15-20 foods he will eat and isn't very fond of anything else. But amongst those foods, he still manages to get his 5-7 a day and a good mix of protein and carbohydrate. He's bang in the centre of a healthy BMI for his age/height. I cook and offer more exciting options, and occasionally, very occasionally, he'll try something and like it. Melon and egg fried rice are recent additions to his list when previously he wouldn't touch them.

The way I see it, my responsibilities are to keep offering a varied range of food and get him to his mid teens as a relatively healthy and active child. This doesn't require me to force feed him anything, and I can't see that doing so would be anything but counterproductive. Hopefully at that point curiosity and peer pressure will take over and he'll try a wider range of food (as I did, having been a very fussy child!).

We've offered our daughter the same thing as us since day dot, we don't often make her a separate meal, only if we want to get a takeaway later etc. we sit down as a family to eat at meal times and she sits at the table with us, no running round etc allowed.

We are at the point that she literally will just eat the carb on the plate and maybe the head of some broccoli and that's it. Thankfully she likes peanut butter and has it regularly with breakfast/snacks/lunch because unless it's processed meat or sometimes beans and scrambled eggs she won't eat protein. I'm totally fed up with it, she won't touch anything in a sauce, plain meat, sausages etc. it's exhausting and worrying for me esp with her allergies as the milk alternatives, cheeses etc have no protein in because she can't have soya too. I've often thought about giving her nuggets every night so she's getting protein but I can't do it. I'm clinging onto the fact that she's 3 so I feel like we are peak fussiness now and in a few years hopefully she'll be eating more things.

It didn't help us that my husband is veggie and wanted her to be veggie too but we stopped that around 21 months because her dairy and soya allergy were too much on top. My next child will be meat eater from weaning so we'll see how that goes.

It's a minefield and I wouldn't be so quick to judge parents if I were you.

Pure luck I’m afraid OP.

Forget children for one moment… I have one dog that will eat absolutely anything - including celery, chicken feet and toilet paper. I have another dog that is extremely fussy and eats one brand of wet dog food and will literally starve to the point of bones sticking out horribly if this is not available. I offered both the same foods from puppyhood and really can’t see how my “parenting” is responsible.

I know plenty of fussy older people. People who won't eat 'spicy' or 'foreign' foods, or milky sauces, certain meats, veg cooked a certain way etc.

My grandparents on one side were both fussy eaters, my parent from them was an extremely fussy eater as a child, had 2 extremely fussy kids (and me, not fussy!) but then I had 2 very fussy kids. I do think it's hereditary to a certain degree.

Indeed, one explanation for there being more 'fussy' children nowadays is that we eat a much wider and more varied range of food. It was arguably easier for many children when it was meat, two veg and no sauces most of the time.

@Raz1564 I don’t know if you use Instagram but there’s a mum on there (Dietician Lottie) who is a paediatric dietician...I started following her as we each had DC1 at the same time and she started sharing her weaning journey which I found interesting. Surely if anyone was going to nail the whole children’s food situation, it would be her?! She had an experience very similar to @Scarzo - to the point where she was having to add double cream to his nightly cup of milk and feed him chocolate before meals! I was very much of the “parents make fussy eaters” opinion until I watched that.

Personally, I grew up in a house where we were served freezer “kids food” every day, we didn’t have a dining table so ate on the floor infront of the tv as young children and each ate in our bedrooms as we got older. We never ate meals as a family. We never went out to eat. We had absolutely no choice over what we ate And all plates had to be empty before they went back to the kitchen. My parents are also both massive over eaters - and over feeders as a result. I have had weight issues since I was a young child. While I’m now in my 30s and obviously I’m responsible for my own weight issues now, I really struggle around food portions, not knowing when I’m full etc and I do believe that has a lot to do with my upbringing.

As a result, I have a completely different attitude to food for my child (age 2.5):

• Everyone is served the same thing
• We eat every meal at the table together
• I serve a small portion and there is always more available if he wants it.
• I don’t allow screen time at all anyway at this age but when he’s older there will be no tv on when meals are served
• He helps everyday with food choices eg, “should we have salmon with noodles or salmon with sweet potato mash tonight?” and he helps prep the food
• I do not allow sweets/chocolate/kids freezer food etc at this age. Of course there will be a time where I can’t control this but he currently has no idea what it is so I don’t I don’t give him it. We do make homemade low sugar biscuits/cakes etc from time to time as an activity so he does eat those when we bake.
• He eats what he wants off of his plate. I don’t believe in bribery etc. Luckily for me hes been a great eater since day 1 of weaning so I know that he will try anything and everything put down infront of him. Occasionally I’ll serve something new or cook something differently and he’ll taste it and say “that broccolis not nice Mumma!” - I have no issue with that, he’s tried it, he can leave what he wants.
• Food is fun and social. We go out to eat. We try different restaurants (don’t even start me on “kids menu” choices 😡). Again, out to eat he gets choices over what he wants. He’s also welcome to ask to try anything off mine and DHs plates.

Please Google ARFID @Raz1564. It might open your views up a bit. And not every child with ARFID has ASD so it can be difficult for a smug or judgemental outsider to spot this.

I was a fussy child and I went to bed hungry. No snacks in those days just your three square meals.

I think if you are looking at what other parents do you just have no idea of any of the context, nor have you ever tried to look after their child from their life.

That actually doesn't mean not judging as in having no opinion, but it means understanding how little you know.

Child eating plate of processed crap or only eating 5 foods ISN'T great and that's an objective fact. OK to have that opinion. But almost certainly the parents would completely agree with you. They've done five or ten or fifteen years of daily parenting of this child already. You have done 30 seconds' observation. Defer to the more experienced parent in that situation.

I have one DC that eats most things, and one that has a limited diet, he is autistic. I’ve learned very quickly that food should never be a battle, that tends to make the “fussiness” worse as it becomes a control issue. If I’m making something he won’t eat, I have a few meals I’ve made and frozen for him, so I just give him that. This is a child that will starve himself if he cannot eat what’s on offer, so the “he’ll eat it when he’s hungry” brigade are totally wrong on that one.

interestingly, he’s now 9, and has started asking to try a bit of the different things we have, probably because there’s no pressure. He still hates a lot of it, but the fact he’s trying is a big step for him. He can tell the difference between brands of foods, and will often tell me tea club food tastes different to mine.

I didn’t do anything different with them during weaning. This is just how they are.

It's not a new thing. I always accepted my children's extreme fussiness, never made them eat anything they didn't like. They are now 33 and 36 and both eat a normal diet, which has evolved over time for both of them. My nephew who is 32, has lived on sausages and Marmite sandwiches , all his life. He told me that his mother tried to make him " eat healthy" and this was his rebellion! I think there have always been fussy kids.

I lost control of my kids diet when lockdown hit.
I concentrated on healthy, home cooked, limited sugar and processed.
Lockdown meant me going out to work 50-60 exhausting hours per week.
DH was in charge then.
He doesn’t eat fruit or veg at all, in any shape or form ever. Grew up on processed crap. Nothing foreign or spicy.
And so that is how he fed our kids. Would dream of cooking a carrot.
My youngest became very overweight.
Now it’s irreversible.
They just won’t touch anything even slightly healthy and would live on takeaway every day for every meal.
I despair and worry constantly.
I blame parenting.

One of my siblings was majorly fussy and that was 40 years ago.

My uncle was apparently very fussy growing up in the 1950s.

My mum is a great cook who made a wide variety of different meals and wouldn't ever have made different versions to suit fussy children.

My two sisters eat pretty much anything. I am extremely fussy with various food issues. I don't like being fussy but I can't help it. I think it's wildly over simplistic to say that if your children know they eat what they're given or they don't eat, then they won't be fussy. I just chose not to eat.

my mum still has foods she can’t eat now due to the “eat it or go hungry” approach.

Some children will starve before they eat an unsafe food. It’s not as simple as just serve what you’re eating.

In our house food is served in the middle of the table, not ready served on plates. That way you take as much/little as you want. You have to try everything but if there is one thing you aren’t keen on you don’t have to have more. We also plan meals for the week on Sundays. NO alternatives are offered ever and no freezer crap is ever served.

Children are humans too and forcing them to eat something they don't like is shocking. When I weaned my children I did BLW and they ate EVERYTHING, curries, fish, veggies, pasta, everything.

As they have gotten older (4 & 6 now) they have become fussier. I tried the you eat what we eat approach but that doesn't mean they eat it it just leaves them hungry 🤷🏻‍♀️ and I'm not purposefully starving my kids for not liking something so I ended up making loads of extra food anyway.

So now I do alter meals a bit for us and the kids, I try to encourage they try what we are eating too but don't fuss if they don't eat it. Constantly going on at kids about food gives them a bad relationship with it, as does forcing a child to eat something they don't like. So I refuse to do it

I was a fussy eater and if I didn't like the food, I would just not eat. No phobia or mental health issues, just didn't enjoy a lot of foods and didn't mind hunger. I was extremely underweight until I hit my 20s and started enjoying food a bit more. At my lowest in my teenage years, I had a BMI of 14. Hated being underweight but also hated a lot of foods.

My child seems fussy like I was and is happy to go to bed hungry if she doesn't like her food. I don't think your approach works on an actual fussy eater.

I r been the same with my DC's and it's worked. They eat a massive range of food however they are neurotypical and do not have any sensory issues. No amount of strict parenting will change that in dc who restrict food because they do