At my wits end with my 5-year-old’s eating

[mumofboysinlondon]

I’m not sure what I’m looking for here, perhaps just reassurance?

I am at my wits end with my 5-year-old whose eating is becoming more and more restricted.

We generally eat well as a family, I’m lucky enough to be a SAHM and so I cook every night, most family-friendly foods like lasagne, chicken curries, risotto, jacket potatoes, tacos etc.

I always serve one thing I know they’ll all eat, and we try really hard not to nag them at the table and try to create a low pressure eating environment.

My DS has always been slightly picky with food but it’s now completely awful. The only meals he’ll now eat without a fuss are homemade pizza and pasta (plain) with cheese. Anything else he kicks up a huge fuss and won’t eat anything. Then of course he complains of hunger come bedtime (at which point he’s offered his dinner again, or some plain Greek yogurt, or a piece of fruit).

Tell me it gets better? I am genuinely worried about both his nutritional intake and his growth - he is as skinny as a rake as it is.

Does anyone have any winning formulas? What am I doing wrong??

Stop making it a battle, feed him what he wants to eat. His tastes will likely expand with age but take the pressure off for all and just roll with it especially if he’s really skinny. Honestly it’s not worth the stress, perhaps place something new or different on a side plate so he can try if he fancies but don’t make a fuss simply state it’s there if he wants to try it. Ignore people saying you should push or force, have you looked into ARFID this sounds like he might be in that area. Good luck.

Write a list of what he will eat in each food group- carbs/ protein/ fruit/ veg/ dairy

so will he eat breakfast cereal, bread and butter etc
mince beef, burgers, nuggets, fishfingers, baked beans
mashed banana/ blueberries
carrot sticks cucumber slices corn
yoghurt cream cheese etc

then ask, is he getting something from each group? If it is you can work on it. Chill for a while with no pressure, make snack plates. It’s annoying not eating the same as the rest of the family but his nutrition and health will be fine.

if he had major deficits, then you’ll need to see a doctor and get supplements/ eating disorder support.

is it just dinner he struggles with or are breakfast, lunch and snacks also a problem?

Make sure he’s getting enough protein and fat to stave off hunger so plenty of cheese with the pasta and yogurt after. Is there anything else he likes, like a boiled egg?

Does he get given food between meals??
My nephew is quite fussy and I think he was genuinely always going to be that way. BUT, historically he has always been constantly fed snacks. Any time he whines or appears grumpy someone says ‘are you hungry?’ And brings out the crackers. Weirdly he’s never all that hungry at dinner time and struggles to eat even things we know he loves. I hate watching him being cajoled into eating every bite of nugget. He is growing out of it and improving.

It gets better. My ds was the same, he lived off margarita pizza, plain pasta (no cheese or butter), and crisps from the age of 3 up to about 8yo 🫠. He's 10yo now and will happily at least try anything, some things he loves! He discovered prawn gyoza and calamari recently.

I'd stick to what you know he'll eat for know, but with a little bit of something new on the side to try. It's a long game, but food battles were not battles I wanted to take on.

Edit - give him a daily multi vitamin (Haliborange are acceptable in my house)

Feed him what he will eat, a fed child is better than a hungry child. NHS guidelines for a fussy child are to feed them bread, milk, cheese and yoghurt as these foods are high in calories and filling. If he doesn’t eat his dinner the first time, does he eat it before bed when you offer it a second time? If not I would offer toast or cereal instead.

Thank you, this is really encouraging.

I am really trying to be relaxed about it, I really don’t want mealtimes to be a battle. We generally don’t push him to eat, and he’s allowed to leave stuff on his plate etc.

He sometimes eats it later, and we always offer yogurt and/ or fruit too as an alternative, and he’ll almost always eat that.

We have set snack times, so he doesn’t ‘graze’ as such. The afternoon snack is generally fruit/ veg based (he will eat cucumber sticks and sometimes celery) so not too filling ahead of dinner.

Thank you, this is good advice.

He does have things from all the main groups, just not very many. I think the thing I’m struggling with is variety.

He always has porridge for breakfast, which is fine by me. Lunch is also tricky as he will really only eat cheese (won’t eat, for example, ham, egg, tuna, hummus, baked beans, so it’s a bit limited).

Let him make something with your supervision
I had this with my 3, all healthy adults now
Every Saturday they would choose something, pasta, pizza, simple stuff and they'd make it. We'd all eat at the table and say how delicious etc it was, gradually the taste buds grew and they ate almost everything.
My eldest in particular will make the most out there combinations of food and eat it much to the other two's disgust 🤣🤣

We went through hell with my six year old who completely stopped eating food of any description for months. Had to get all sorts of support with him. The thing I learned was the more you push the worse they get. At this age they can be stubborn and sense desperation. If mine had been eating what yours is I would have been over the moon,sounds like he’s getting protein, calcium and some fruit in, I wouldn’t worry. Give him a multi vitamin and leave him be. You’ll just stress him out

My son lived on chicken nuggets,bananas,marmite toast ,cheese and milk aged 3-6 ish. He is now an extremely healthy varied eater aged mid 20s . I just realised that battling with him was making the situation worse.

Thanks so much @Nuffpillllls and @Pyjamatimenow - this gives me some hope!

I am trying soooo hard not to push him. We are very relaxed and say “you don’t have to eat it, but this is what’s for dinner” and crack on with eating our own food and chatting normally. I pretty much always do him some plain pasta or bread on the side so there’s always something he’ll eat, but I’d love to encourage him to try new things.

Over the last year or so it’s got worse, rather than better, which is disheartening! A year ago he’d have eaten chicken, mince, rice, and a few vegetables, all of which he currently refuses.

Hi op

I don't know what advice I can give but it does get better. My DD was quite fussy and she even limited her food which drove me mad! I cracked on with it as she's getting a good healthy lunch at school so I wasn't too stressed and she does eat her veg (she tried to say she doesn't like it then next minute she's scoffing it down so definitely pushing boundaries). Recently for the past week, she's been trying some of our foods and telling us if she liked it or not. Massive bonus!
Imo I think they'll get bored of their food then try something else.

Does he get involved with making/serving up the food? DD has always done better when we let her serve herself, she loves a buffet and will choose the grotty hotel buffet every time over a nice restaurant with better food. Something about selecting for herself what and how much goes on her plate seems to lessen her anxiety and make her more comfortable eating it. She doesn’t get to choose what we have for dinner but she doesn’t get to choose what parts of the meal she eats, so she might just serve up sweetcorn and chicken and none of the rice and broccoli for example.

Tbh his diet doesn't sound so bad, it's restricted but it sounds like he's getting the nutrients he needs. I would cook whatever you want for the other members of the family and put a plate of plain pasta with cheese in front of him. Don't comment on what he's having, don't ask him if he wants a portion of what the others are having. Put a bowl of yoghurt with fruit in front of him afterwards. Don't comment on the amount he's eaten, if he hasn't touched anything just clear the table. This is what worked for my unbelievably fussy DS1, who is still fussy now at 11 years old. But he will try anything, and has done so since I stopped actively offering any kind of food he didn't already eat. He now eats a decent diet, going out for example is no longer a problem.

He’ll go back to eating lots of things in time. Although it sounds really repetitive and uninteresting to us he’s getting plenty of nutrients, especially if he’s eating a bit of fruit and veg as well as all the cheese and yoghurt. You’re doing all the right things, just let him eat plenty of the things he does enjoy and keep offering whatever the family are eating as an option.

I used to be a Cub Leader and it was really interesting when we took kids to camp. It was the simplest of stuff on the menu…jacket potatoes and fillings, spag bol, pizzas, porridge followed by bacon rolls at breakfast. Often parents might say that little Michael would not eat this that or the other, but seeing their friends tucking in often encouraged them to try. There wasn’t any pressure from the leaders, but they saw lots of their friends enjoying things and that encouraged them to try. He’ll be at school seeing what friends do, he’ll do lots of things as he gets older and his horizons will expand in all ways. Meantime you are doing a good job and he’s eating real food with lots of nutritional value.

I'd cut the afternoon snack so that he's at least coming to the table hungry. Sounds like you are doing the right thing keeping calm.

I was like this as a child and I never grew out of it until I was an adult, and it took a lot of work and determination to cure myself. I suspect I would have been diagnosed with ARFID now.

They honestly do get better with age. You’ve described what my son was like at 5. We just made ever so slight variations on what he ate eg pasta plain or maybe a shave of Parmesan, didn’t matter. He liked a baguette on the side. And that’s fine. He’d eaten. Long story short. He’s 11 soon and absolutely fine. No Gordon Ramsay for sure, but had a homemade thai yellow curry the other night and having a pizza with olives and mushrooms tonight, never thought I’d see the day!

5-8 I've always found is a difficult age for picky eating. All mine drastically reduced what they wanted to eat during those ages. My 10 year old is now an adventurous eater after going through a phase similar to your son.

Like others have said, sit back for a while and just offer him stuff you know he will eat. Take the battle out of it. The fact he is eating cheese, yoghurt and fruit means he is getting protein, fibre and fat. Pizza and pasta for carbs. He's hitting all the food groups. Give him a daily multivitamin. Monitor his weight to make sure he isn't losing. If not, carry on for a while like that and see if taking the pressure off makes a difference. He may get bored of watching the rest of the family eat delicious homemade meals and start to ask for bits of them

im sorry to go against the grain here but I have learned the long way that just letting them eat what they’ll eat just compounds the problem. I have had 4 who are variably fussy, but 2 ridiculously so. It all got worse again in the teenage years. I was trying so hard not to pressure and gentle parent it but one day just snapped and said enough is enough, you’ll be ill if you carry on only eating baked beans and plain pasta and I think they were so shocked they actually realised it was really important to eat well (despite me saying this gently a lot over the years) and now they all eat much much more variety and there’s no drama. I mean I remember tears over a jacket potato I served one lunchtime ffs

As a result of the better eating much less moodiness in the house now too

I've taken a much firmer approach with our toddler and it’s worked there too

My 4 year old is the same and I feel bad about it when I see other children eating much more variety it feels like a bit of a failure… but I also have Nannied the same fussy children from birth to teens who now eat absolutely anything!! He eats tonnes of fruit not great with veg but he’ll eat sweetcorn carrots, peas and cucumber.

He pisses me off with the eating some things sometimes and other times not. He went through a chicken curry phase and then one week just refused. Same with bolognese 🤦🏻‍♀️ Sandwiches he’s terrible with. Sometimes he’ll eat scrambled egg and I’m over the moon 😂

Bloody kids. All this is to say he will likely eventually eat everything if the boys I Nanny are anything to go to! They were plain pasta boys too absolutely no tomato based sauce ever and now they love it.

My 5yo now tries new foods, won't always eat them but that's ok. It's taken a long time to get here!

"Eat what you'd like and leave the rest." -script I say every meal time! This has now evolved to "I'm not expecting you to like everything on your plate but I am expecting you to try everything." We talk often of foods me and DH used to not like when younger but now we like, to normalise changing tastes and why it's important to try foods more than once.

I put a sharing platter of foods, at least 2 they like plus one they're not sure of, on the table as a bit of a starter, so I know they'll have eaten something. Sometimes it's cucumber, pepper slices and cheese cubes, sometimes it's ham roll ups, avocado and blueberries, sometimes it's apricot, grated carrot and orange segments, sometimes frozen peas, apple slices and broccoli - just whatever is in the fridge or freezer!

I also did a mystery fruit. Nothing said about it. Just woke up for breakfast and there was a thing on the table. Lots of talk about what it could be, what it looked like, felt like, smell like, etc. Left it out for at least a day before telling them what it is or cutting into it. We did pineapple (wearing sunglasses 😂), passion fruit, pomegranate, mango , star fruit, kiwi, lychees. Normalised them with no expectation of eating it.

The other thing I have started doing more of is getting them involved. "We make, we eat it." And getting them to choose a meal they'd like to eat on our meal plan the following week. Usually it's a safe food like Bolognese and that's ok too.

I include desserts too in meal planning -, sometimes this is fruit, sometimes sheet pancakes with greek yog and honey, sometimes just yogurt.

The 5yo now tells the scripts to the almost 3yo too which is cute and shows me it has been having some impact even if it doesn't feel like it or has taken a long time.

If you write a list of all the safe foods they eat you might be pleasantly surprised.

Good luck.