two year old won't eat

[mariiinaa]

hey there,

my two year old refuses to eat any meals served to him, whenever i try to give him either lunch or dinner he points to the cupboards wanting snacks like biscuits and cakes. i've made the mistake of giving him sweets mixed with his food in order for him to eat at least something now he won't eat unless something sweet is put with each spoonful.

this afternoon he refused all of his lunch, not even offering him haribos with his food would make him eat it he just screamed and cried and wanting cupboard food.

i put him down for a nap and will attempt to give him a meal when he wakes up. but i'm really struggling and don't know what to do.

advice?

Get rid of the biscuits/cakes/sweets.

Offer him healthy snacks and healthy meals and let him eat what he wants from that.

If he's more of a snacker than a meal eater that's fine, but the snacks need to be healthy and nutritious.

Clear out the snacks, then show him the bare cupboard.
You will have to persevere for the next few days until he drops the habit.
And don't worry if he isnt eating too much for a couple days as long as he is having fluids.

a very simple fix would be to do away with all the junk completely, bribing him with Haribo’s is never going to work. Tell him and show him that they are all gone, no more. Make yourself a plate of nice healthy snacks and sit down and eat it, he will be raiding mums plate as soon as he gets hungry enough. He doesn’t want to eat his dinner then fine but that is all that’s on offer. You have a small window to nip this really bad habit in the bud, so do it and mean it.

^ Exactly that.

Great idea show him the empty snack cupboard and to make a tempting plate of healthy snacks for yourself. He'll soon be hungry and a colourful variety of snacks will be especially tempting.

Ideas for healthy snacks could be:

Carrot batons, cherry tomatoes (halved), peas, green beans, broccoli florets, cubes of beetroot - basically any vegetable can make a healthy snack.
Marmite on toast soldiers
Peanut butter on toast soldiers
Plain yoghurt

Only re-introduce sweet things once he's eating again.
Start with blueberries and banana then move to sweeter things like cut up melon, apple, strawberries and raspberries.

No Haribos again, at least till he's old enough to buy them himself.

Chuck out all the crap and offer no alternatives to the healthy stuff. He will get it eventually.

Stop trading with him. Of course he won't eat. He is waiting for Haribo. No more sweets. He won't die of a missed meal. Just carry on and offer the next one. And only offer healthy snacks and keep it simple.

Give him less milk , if he has a lot he won't be hungry

Also get rid of snacks altogether .

I wouldn't give in

Remove all the sweet snacks. He’ll soon get used to it and won’t miss them in the end.

I’ve never given my 3 year old anything like Haribos. As a result he never asks for them and when they are available at other places such as friends houses or parties he is totally disinterested in them.

Creating good eating habits can be hard but once your manage to achieve it maintaining them is pretty easy.

As above. Also Haribo is quite a choking risk for little ones so I'd do away with those completely.

I wouldn’t give a two year old Haribo sweets at all. Choking hazard and terrible for their teeth. Even offering things like biscuits regularly would be a big no from me but you’re said in your OP that you’ve given them so your child eats something.

It’s hard to know the cause really, but it could be textural or the way the food looks? Are you trying to force it by focusing on your child and offering a spoon or forkful and expecting them to eat what you’ve put in front of them?

My method is usually to place the plate of food in front of my DC and let them have control over it. Sometimes even just eating my own food and ignoring them a bit as it’s sometimes the attention they are looking for, and then they want your reaction to their refusal.

Get rid of the sugary foods for now.

I agree you cannot keep mixing sweet things into food as it's not healthy and not sustainable.
I have a 2.5 year old who since a few weeks now doesn't want to eat hardly anything that she used to like. I never played any kind of funny games with food as she was happy to eat next to us at meal times. Today I started playing random 'this piece of chicken looks like xx' and she was happy to eat as long as I just invented what the chicken looked like. Maybe you could try some silly game to see if it gets him eating.