I’m struggling with his lack of eating.

[makemineadecaf]

I’m at my wits end

My son is 4.5 and his eating is awful. He has a really rigid diet and point blank refuses to try anything new, citing it as “disgusting” without even trying.

Breakfast is peanut butter on toast/ sandwich or weetabix with milk or dry cereal

Lunch is a peanut butter sandwich, crisps, cucumber, fruit, frube

Dinner is chicken nuggets, rarely fish fingers and chips, cucumber and peppers

He drinks different squashes, milk, water and fruit smoothies.

He refuses: pasta, rice, potatoes in non-chip form, pizza, cheese, meat, sauces, cooked vegetables, sandwiches with anything other than butter or peanut butter.

Snacks he’s fine with all sorts of biscuits, treats etc.

He starts school in September and there’s no way he’ll eat the lunches so I’ll have to do a packed lunch to ensure he eats but this will be the same thing day in, day out and I can’t even give him peanut butter at school.

A paediatrician said he’s fine because he’s touching each food group but only just. How can this be fine?

We’ve tried: adding one new thing to his safe foods. Refuses. Tried not leaving the table without trying, we’ll sit there indefinitely. Tried giving him a recipe book and choosing ingredients at the shops - happy to buy and make, refuses to eat.

I’m not sure it’s clear from the OP’s posts that he would starve himself. It sounds like she’s always caved and given him something he will eat which makes it a bit difficult to know whether it’s a genuine restrictive eating problem or a behaviour problem.

You say you’ve tried adding one new food to his safe foods but how long did you do that for? It’s about consistency and doing it without emotion. Also, the new food doesn’t always have to be a vegetable. A strand of spaghetti can be a good place to start because children tend to want to play with it, tie knots etc, it’s a fun exposure.
How long has this been going on?

Should I be seeing a dietician?

I have a similarly fussy kid who likes everything plain and separated, although he has been eating plain rice, pasta and couscous for a few months now.

I think your DS sounds ok in that he is eating a range of fruit and veg, a variety of carbohydrates and some protein and dairy products. I don't think you need to see a dietician, but they could probably help with thinking about how to gradually increase the range of foods eaten (food chaining).

With my son, we do a lot of deconstructed meals where everything is served separately on the table and he chooses which bits to eat. The rice and pasta has expanded our range so much, but for a long time it was bread here too. So fajitas and he has a plain wrap with some corn and cheese; salmon pitta pockets with yoghurt and roast veg and he will have the plain pitta and a bit of salmon; chicken skewers with Lebanese bread and he eats the bread. Maybe a piece of chicken and some cucumber. And every so often he has chicken nuggets and chips with peas.

It is really frustrating because every meal has to be adapted. And anything he eats you have to keep in rotation so he doesn't forget he likes it. But slowly, slowly we are seeing the range of foods increase.

It's a long game. And the idea of serving everything from the table rather than giving him his own plate with a separate meal is so that serving himself from the table is a normal habit for him. That makes it easier for him to ask to try something new if he does want to, rather than everything the rest of you are eating being off limits and different.

I do think in our case that nursery has helped a lot with seeing other children eating foods making him more willing to try. So you might find that school dinner and seeing what his friends have in their lunchboxes increases his curiosity about trying new foods.

Just coming to offer sympathy - DD is similar. We actually selected her primary school partly based on them being willing to offer a deconstructed lunch (she has always eaten pasta, but her total list of foods, whilst different, is similarly restricted).

To those saying he'll eat with others, he might. But DD didn't - she went to nursery at 3; for the first 6 months she ate absolutely nothing, and then moved onto the foods she'd eat at home. She did add a couple of foods to her diet over the 18 months she was there, but that's about the speed she picks up new foods anyway.

DD was under a dietitian at one point (weaning was very difficult; you haven't mentioned whether your DS weaned 'normally' and then became restrictive, or started that way). We found them somewhat judgmental and not terribly helpful.

I simply cook a different meal for DD, as eating only what she can would send me up the wall. DD is welcome to try anything we make. She has made food in food tech (she's at secondary school) as well as at home, but usually hasn't been able to swallow it.

Now she's a teen I worry less, as there are other things to be concerned about! She's a healthy weight, as she'll eat plenty of what she enjoys, so I'm calling that a win.

Came to say similar.

low pressure and don’t remove safe foods.
try not to make it a thing (don’t talk too much)
try not to show your stress.

he does have a good variety even if it doesn’t seem like at the moment. I’ve worked with people who’ll only eat one specific type of chip cooked exactly the right way/colour/crunch. And that’s it.

it could be ARFID - does he react negatively or just refuse? Does he gag, vomit or become really distressed. These aren’t the only signs but they are clear ones. You can go via GP to get a referral?

Also - don’t do the “he’ll eat when hungry”. He may not and it may reduce his safe foods if he doesn’t trust you. Try to make the eat environment as calm as possible as well as anxiety can increase the chance of refusal.

Great advice. Take all pressure off him/food

This feels like a breakthrough to me even though it sounds trivial.

Hes eaten four quarters of chicken nugget sandwiches. Do we think if I keep these up and I can get to regular chicken sandwiches for school?? 🙏🏻 🙏🏻

That’s a win, I would certainly keep working along those lines for school. Just take it slowly, do nuggets for at least a week then maybe try removing the breadcrumb/ batter from a couple of nuggets and mix that in with those still crumbed. Gradually reduce the number of coated nuggets and mix in diced chicken breast.

Great idea I’ll defo do that.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up, it wasn’t till he hit 14 that ds would eat uncovered chicken! Even now he’s not keen on slices, but will eat cooked thigh meat. Sorry not trying to be mean, we mostly have cheese sandwiches, but ate a great deal of marmite at one point. Acceptable sandwiches are still quite a narrow range, even if he will eat calamari!

Well our current sandwich list is limited to peanut butter which he obviously can’t have at school so I’m taking this for the win

If he’s happy with them cold then obvs go for it! It was a definite texture thing for ds, it might work if its pieces rather than slices too….who knows how they decide what is and is not acceptable because it baffled me sometimes. 🙂

I know someone whose child only eats chicken nuggets and crisps 99% of the time. I don’t understand why there are chicken nuggets and crisps always available for this to be a thing in the first place. She says he’ll starve himself but I’ve also never seen him be hungry as he’s always eating chicken nuggets and crisps.

In terms of sandwiches, does he eat bread on its own? Would he go for deconstructed sandwiches at lunch? So a lunchbox with some bread (or pitta, wrap, croissant, brioche bread, bread roll, malt loaf), cucumber, peppers, fruits, frube (or other fruit yoghurt), sliced cheese/chicken on the side. That way, if he doesn't like the filling, he might still eat the bread rather than dumping the whole thing.

Also, with frubes - would he still eat it if you squeezed it out into a bowl? Or would he eat a fruit yogurt pouch from a different brand? That could be another way to extend his range of dairy items.

Weirdly, my son loves chicken nuggets but any other breadcrumbed thing he picks the breadcrumbs off and picks at the fish/chicken inside.

What we have had most success with DD is Buffet or self serve meals. Always enough food she likes to make up a meal but also add in some new stuff regularly and just don’t mention it. Don’t point out that it’s there, or ask her to try it or in any way recognise it as being a new thing. Then we eat and give her the ability to decide for herself if she wants to try it. If she does then we just ignore that too but try to notice whether she went back for a second bite or made a disgusted face and struggles to swallow.

when she was about 3/4/5 food was a battle and meals were on repeat. Now at 12 she has a much wider range and regularly adds new foods in, we just have to not make a fuss about it because that completely stops her in her tracks. On holiday recently she tried calamari off her dad’s plate in a restaurant and declared it delicious.