Finally flipped. Threw ds dinner on the floor - now what do I do?

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

Ds is a awkward sod when it comes to dinner - has a limited range of foods he will eat and dinner time can be a trial of cajoling threatening etc. to get a meal down him.

I feel particularly tired and grumpy today and so when ds started his usual whinging and moaning and not eating (a very boring meal of beans and vegetable fingers) - I lost it and chucked the plate on the floor. We have both calmed down now and I feel very guilty but do I make more food or what? Poor ds

Feeling like a very poor parent right now!

Well that was gross had to hose dd down in the bathtub and clean her chair - could start a whole new thread entitled 'the night my daughters bottom exploded!' - Ugh!

Ah...virtually every meal time this week has turned me into a combustible jibbering psycho. Am also pregnant and my fuse is unbelievably short this week. And it's almost as if DS knows this...

Now ds is ignoring the soup and playing with his helicopter - I give up -

We try to get a decent meal down them and they do not appreciate it and moan they are hungry 10 mins later and cry if you refuse teats and arrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I've been having to take a lot of "time outs" this week. As soon as DH gets in, I leg it off to the safety of MN to escape the hellishness.

Bohemian bint - I too long for the return of the dh - he is working late today though - but I have gone and burnt my dinner now - so I should really stop mn'ing and get on with salvaging dinner.

Thank you for responses last night it helped

I fell asleep when getting ds and dd to bed and woke up this morning a bit more refreshed. Staying up late is so over-rated!

Will try not to take ds extreme fussiness to heart today. Heres to peaceful weekends for everyone.

good luck

I have been there and actually broke one of DS1's plastic plates once becuase I slammed it down on the worktop in frustration

Really try not to worry about it too much - easier said than done I know - but eating habits round here didn't get any better if I got stressed about it so now I try to save my sanity.

He won't starve

Our ds went through and still at 5 yrs goes through fussiness, it was doing dh and my head in because we never remember being so bloody fussy as kids, so we adopted this approach:

Make the meal, whatever it is, that's lunch or dinner, when ds sits down and turns his nose up we tell him this is dinner, eat what you want but DON'T complain of hunger later, we give him a pudding no matter how much or little he eats of the main, and then we cut out snacks (bar the apple bowl) and we found with this approach (i.e not getting het up about it, he started to (a) eat more and (b) prepared with time to try new foods.

It requires being disciplined about, but was very worth while in the end... if he eats EVERYTHING which these days he tends to as I think he is growing madly at the mo, then yes we relax on the treats, but we don't verbally make a big deal about it.

Other thing involving them in cooking has finally kicked in too with ours.. other day ds decided he wanted to cook a courgette with carrots (fried off) with egg mixed in and a hashbrown! (his recipe idea and I went with it, he devoured the lot, and wasn't something I would have thought of giving him!!)

Grrr yesterday dinner alltogether - he eats - not a bloody thing - so he has no dessert - and we have ice cream - I hated doing it but I just could not give hima pud when he doesn't seemhungry enough to eat dinner.

Then today I make a big lunch for fil (his birthday this week) - curry and loads of breads side dishes - ds eats a few samosas and some Naan. So at dinner time the rest of us are not at all hungry but I am sitting with ds and ask him if he wants some food and he says yes please - Beans on toast - so it is duly made I sit next to him at dining table ready for him to wolf it down. He starts moaning about not wanting dinner - not being hungry! I could cheerfully have strangled him at that point so we are at another - no food till breakfast scenario - when will this madness end!?

I hate hate hate food waste - it makes me so mad.

Sorry to ressurrect this thread but I honstly need to vent somewhare. I am a good cook as well so being reduced to offering beans on toast in the vague hope they might be eaten is disheartening. [sag]

Bigmouth, it's the food waste that really annoys me. For me, I don't think it's food=love like Franny suggests. I can get as het up inside over baked beans or something I have spent hours preparing.

What works for me is serving the food in 'serving dishes' (little plastic Ikea bowls if it is just the DCs eating) so that they only put what they want on their plates. Then whatever is untouched can be often be recycled - eg left over veg into a pasta bake.

DS got way hungrier after the age of four and now tends to finish off whatever is on DDs plate if her eyes have been bigger than her stomach.