Nearly four year old is so so fussy 😩

[Dinosaurhearmeroar]

Hi eveeyone

ive posted about this before a few years ago and nothing much has changed. I have a preschooler (four in may) who is an incredibly fussy eater. She will eat porridge in the morning but I have to sit with her and read her stories while trying to eat my breakfast too (is this common? I know some children like it etc).

lunch is hit and miss and dinner is too - she will eat cheese sandwiches, cream cheese sandwiches and sometimes cheese on toast. She will have beans and hoops but leaves the bread. She eats no veg or meat with us at all and won’t eat scrambled eggs. Nursery tells us she does okay there but often she will just pick at the food eg burger she will eat the bun.

she has never eaten a proper “meal” with us iynwim eg a stew or things combined. It’s always all separate. She won’t have nuggets, chips - sometimes has oizza but only homemade. Won’t eat any of the typical food for kids - I know people dismiss it as junk but I pray for the day when she eats even that!

we’ve jus come back from a party and she refused the lunch (pizza, chicken tenders, chips) and only ate ice cream. She has an emotional reaction to things offered - it’s all “yuck!” Or physically recoils very dramatically 😂.

I had to leave the room at the party as I was so worried and had tears in my eyes. For the last few years it has dominated my life - we can’t go out to eat, and holidays (and weekends) fill me with dread. On holiday last year she barely ate - it was very upsetting and Makes me not want to go away.

we have resorted to using a screen as this sometimes seems to distract her and eat her dinner but that is not a sustainable solution.

she is on the slight side but I think a healthy bmi. All these insta posts and recipes for “fussy eaters” do not apply to my daughter. She doesn’t rly seem to look fwd to food and I look enviously at other children who just tuck in to food.

I have tried ignoring/ letting her not eat the main and then offering her dessert (yoghurt and dried mango/a little biscuit) as have read not to use dessert as a reward/ punishment. I also have done all the things you shouldn’t - bribe with a choc button, tell her she needs to eat it etc.

at weekends we don’t rly eat dinner together as she eats earlier than us. We do HelloFresh which she would refuse anyway. We are going to continue HelloFresh as we have a newborn, my partner has just started a new difficult job and it’s a lot easier. We’re also not very good cooks! Something to address when we have more time.

i just worry so much about her. I don’t know why I’m posting really - for solidarity? Horribly it makes me start to resent her - why can’t you eat normally?

honestly her limited food breaks my heart. I know she’s not doing it on purpose but it is so hard. She won’t eat when she’s hungry - she would rather starve.

is anyone in a similar position or has been? I feel so alone. My partner doesn’t think it’s as big a worry as me (he has a nephew who only ate pasta for years) but he is also a glass half full type.

sorry for the length - I’m just so worried.

Mine was like this. Then he got to about 11 and really improved. When he went to college he turned vegetarian. Then he started doing all the cooking for himself and GF. Now he eats everything except fruit and asks me to share recipes if I happen to cook something nice. Your child may very well grow out of this. I made a point of not forcing things as that can make them worse. Best of luck 🍀 🤞

Honestly OP I could have written this post myself. Have a nearly 4 year old boy (May born) who eats a limited list of 'safe' foods. He was also a bum shuffler and late walker. I found myself getting so overwhelmed around mealtimes that I would dread it every single day, I am now just going with the flow and have decided that it won't like this forever. We were referred to a dietitian who discharged us because he is growing and not underweight and haven't been able to find any other help. Feel free to message me anytime. Here with you in solidarity. x

My son is 4 and has some of these tendencies.

The way I have solved this - to some degree - is to put him in charge of the shopping (within reason).

We are lucky to have a good supermarket, fishmonger, bakery and butchers nearby, which helps. This rule applies only to raw ingredients and not ultra-processed products, and he has to help cook them too.

We started with a live lobster from the tank, which delighted him, and have worked our way down to more cost conscious ingredients.

I think kids are dying to be given some agency, and choosing between a sea bass or a red mullet, mozzarella vs gorgonzola, or whatever it may be - might not seem much to an adult but is a bigger deal to a child. The flipside to the deal is that if he chooses it, he has to eat it...

If your son is eating lobster 🦞 hats off to you! Yes I totally see the agency point - my daughter is very “no I want to do it on my own!” So I can understand being given food she doesn’t want (at first) can be hard. It’s tricky though as I don’t want her to think she calls the shots - we are quite relaxed parents otherwise and if she wants to wear a princess dress to the park/ farm/ nursery then I’ll go with it. (Not best example but couldn’t think of others - tired!)

Lobsters are now reserved for when he has friends round - but he loves the fishmongers with all of the things on display and the staff are very kind to him.

He has never been as difficult as yours sounds, but he is very willing to harvest ingredients during the cooking process - if we are making pasta for example, I’ll cut thin slices of the Parmesan and he hoovers it up - and yet when the final meal is presented it can be a nightmare to get him to consume it.

Fish are great because they have eyes, tongues, gills etc. - he likes me to fillet them in front of him which requires a bit of separation so he’s not in range of the knife.

It’s not a perfect solution, it’s very messy and we’ve had a couple of minor burns on hot things when I haven’t noticed in time, and one time (when he was younger) he helped himself to a spoon of table salt and was sick, but I think it has helped broaden his repertoire.

Might be worth trying anyway?

Yep - I think cooking with her is a good shout. Thanks 🙏

May I pm you? Solidarity!!!

Hello, I know this was a while back. But my son is exactly the same. Hes 3 and can count on 1 hand what he will eat. Have you had any improvement and have any tips for me? Im so overwhelmed with meal times and worrying about when hes in morning nursery and then wraparound nursery in the afternoon a few days a week :(

Hi 👋

oh I’m so sorry you’re in a similar situation! She isn’t brilliant - we have to really cajole her to eat still. She just isn’t hugely interested in food unless of course it’s sweets etc. I’m really trying to be more relaxed about it - if she doesn’t eat her dinner at all then I will offer weetabix or peanut butter on toast at bedtime. I’ve lost so much sleep over this!

I have a 7 year old in this situation. Solidarity also. She is now dropping certain foods but also picking up new more complex things I never thought she would eat - she will now eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger plus homemade pancakes. That’s a huge win for me. I worry about this daily. A couple of weeks ago she voluntarily ate an apple. It felt like an amazing breakthrough. I’m starting to see some signs of progress but it’s slow. She eats about 15 items I couldn’t really say they’re proper meals. I have to take food everywhere for her but I try not to make it an issue and gloss over it as much as I can. I do believe she will grow out of it - like I say I’m seeing signs of very slow progress.

try not to let this dominate your lives. Give her what she is happy eating and allow food to be enjoyable for her and keep offering new things with no pressure. As long as she’s eating and happy try not to worry too much about variety. Good luck it seems there are more of us out there than I thought. I struggle with judgment from friends and family who have no idea how much I care and that I’m not a lazy parent - I’m doing everything I can in a very sensitive and challenging situation as I can tell you are. My daughter is not ND and thriving in every other way.

The thing that worked for me was getting my son involved in the cooking.

If I sit him at the kitchen counter, when he is hungry (before supper), and lay out edible ingredients in front of him - things like parmesan cheese, smoked salmon, cooked prawns, rotisserie chicken, avocado, nectarines, etc. - ensuring there are bite sized pieces, he finds it impossible to resist trying them.

It has also helped involving him in shopping - we are lucky to have a good butcher, baker, deli & fishmonger etc. locally, who are all very kind and patient.

Good luck!

My dd is 13. She hasn't been diagnosed buy i am utterly convinced she has food avoidance disorder. She is also diagnosed as autistic.

I have tried to seek medical help but they dismiss me as she is a healthy weight.

The advice is largely don't make meal times a battle or an issue.

Offer what you know she will eat, place a small amount of something new on the plate and make nothing of whether she eats it or not.

It is hard. But you need to take the emotion out of it for you