When did your DC stop being fussy eaters and start eating like normal human beings?

[TheRozzers]

Oldest DD is 11 and would happily live on chicken nuggets and pizza if we let her.

Younger DC seems to be following suit.

We rarely eat as a family as they flat out refuse normal food (by normal I mean anything containing onions, garlic, cooked vegetables or a sauce of any kind).

They will happily eat toddler food - plain pasta, grated cheese, raw carrot, cucumber sticks.

Please tell me they will grow out of it?

Mine ate honestly anything until she was just past two. She only had home made food. I'm a cook, I gave her what I was eating.

Turned two and stopped practically overnight. She's 7 now and I've got her eating most fruit, green beans, baked beans, carrots, chicken, fish, rice, pasta (plain, and the rice plain) and bread, cheese and plain yoghurt.

My mother is of the "they'll eat if they're hungry" school and it did my sisters and I no end of harm.

I dunno, mine are only 4 and 1 but we all eat the same meal every day for dinner after work/childcare. Which is mad because DD1 in particular is really fussy in my opinion. However we have dropped certain meals out of rotation if we know they’d not eat it (or save it for a day when they might get a pizza so we can try & stick with a routine bed time)

My 8yo DD went through a picky stage as a toddler. So I stopped serving
nuggets/chips etc, and started cooking proper meals like bolognese, stews, mild curries and cottage pie. I also made sure that any snacks were healthy (fruit, yoghurt, hummus and carrot sticks. We just didn't keep crisps, biscuits etc in the house. When there's nothing else on offer they have to eat it and learn to like it. I do fear that your kids may be a bit too old to break the habit thought.
I was a fussy eater as my mum was fussy too. I was never made to try vegetables or anything I didn't like the look of. Luckily I grew out of this in my early 20s, partly due to embarrassment when eating out with friends.

What do you mean by normal human beings? Neurotypical? My dd is ND and would be dead. Kids do not eat anything when hungry. As is I kept her alive when she developed anorexia.

Not until they grew up to be honest!

Op I was very fussy as a child, I ate the same things every day for years. I got there in the end, as an adult I’m much better. It all started changing for me in my teens, I just started being open to new things and found if I was genuinely willing to try something, I often ended up liking it. I don’t think there was much my parents could do, as I absolutely wouldn’t eat new things unless I felt ready. I appreciate now that they didn’t really pressure me or make me sit at the table for hours trying to force feed me, although I’m sure they worried about it plenty.

My eldest teenage dc isn’t fussy at all. Can’t take any credit for this as my youngest, also 11, is much more choosy although better than I was growing up by a country mile. I have noticed over the last year that they have gotten better, they won’t say no to nuggets but will eat a full roast dinner now. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s just getting older. Not sure if it’s helped but something I’ve always done is encourage trying new things without putting pressure on, if they say no that’s fine. I would also sometimes put ‘samples’ of new things on their plate along side their usual food, so they can try the new thing if they want but if they don’t like it they’re not going to be hungry. I never asked them if they were going to try the thing during meals because I felt that added undue pressure, they know it’s there so can eat it if they want. Also if they do decide to eat the new thing, don’t make a big show of it at the table, it’s embarrassing for the child. Let them crack on.

It is a worry, I’m relieved dc2 is making progress at the moment. I think having been the fussy kid myself, I think the absolute worst thing you can do as a parent, and I’m not saying you do this, is make it into a huge thing where it gets mentioned every meal time and there’s pressure. There is every chance your dc will grow out of it, or at least expand their palette as they get older as many kids seem to. One positive is that they do eat at least some veg, I literally never did as a child and I mean literally. But now I do and am reasonable healthy so far.

That sounds really hard, I hope your youngest is healthy now. I had the same to some extent but thankfully it didn’t get that far, we just found alternate meals to replace them until the phase ended. I know I was lucky that these were all nutritious balanced meals and it could’ve been a lot worse.

Absolutely no hate to chicken nuggets, my DH was just a fussy eater to the point of malnutrition so really had to work to avoid following the same path. I was so worried that even one would make DC refuse anything else so I was very strict on it for years.

I would have monitored the child's weight and general health.
And continued to offer whatever we were eating. Letting them choose what they wanted to eat, without making a fuss if they didn't want it.
Toddlers sometimes need very little food.
Healthy children don't starve themselves (the few children with extreme sensory related to other issues excepted).

This is so true - I fully believed that it was parents’ fault if they had fussy eaters…then I had my own. He was a nightmare from day 1 of weaning and I think food is the subject I have cried more over than anything else when parenting. When you don’t have a fussy eater it’s very easy to polish your own halo but it turns out it’s often nothing to do with parenting. My child would starve rather than eat something he didn’t like/want

I suspect DD is ND.

we have tried the take it or leave it approach and it just doesn’t work. DD has always been highly strung and has epic meltdowns if she gets hungry. She doesn’t link it with hunger but it obviously is. She would scream and cry all evening rather than eat a mouthful of dinner she didn’t like.

Beige food feels better than no food.

They do both eat a decent breakfast luckily - they both like eggs and peanut butter so at least they start the day with some protein.

It was a gradual process. DD was about 16 before it stopped being a bit of a pain in the arse, and now at 18 she'll eat pretty much anything

When they started dating and were too embarrassed about their attitude to food to let their new boyfriends know. Amazingly they found they quite liked a lot of food they’d refused to eat when younger. Still the odd food-hate, but they are much better now and will try new things. However, there are married with DCs now. 😂

Also, as they get older they mature sufficiently to accept that sometimes you have to eat something you don't love. Reactions become less extreme. You can manage to eat something you don't like if it has been lovingly prepared by Granny, or if there are limited choices available.

DS was about 11, although to be fair before then he'd usually eat a slight variation on what we had. Be warned, this also led to him preferring to order off the adult menu when eating out with the associated extra cost.
DD is currently 10 and still quite fussy, but she does have ASD.

I think it’s easy to say that when it’s not your child. Fussy eating is a challenge similar to many others that parents deal with and I don’t see how anyone saying ‘you should have done this’ is helpful in any way other than to make the op feel like crap.

How long for? That was my question.Like I said , DD didn’t eat other than an occasional apple (a day) for two whole weeks, maybe an icepop on a hot day. That was literally it and water.

DS about age 16
DD from when she weaned

Yes I agree. I have one who won't touch any dairy, cheese or butter makes her gag. The other one loved all cheese, including goats cheese and stinky blue cheese. The one who doesn't like cheese loves fish including shellfish, the other one hates all fish. The first one eats fruit but hates most veg, second one likes veg but hates all fruit except apples and blueberries. Oranges make him leave the room. Both of them weaned in exactly the same way!

You often see this kind of post from
people who have zero experience of fussy eating or ARFID

Dc is now 20 and I’m still waiting ….sorry to be bearer of bad news.

And I know other posters will be smugly thinking how could I let this happen, they’ll soon eat if not given choices, etc, etc but you try living with the reality of a child with multiple mental health issues.

On the positive side I was a fussy eater and I grew out of it at about 16 or 17 when I started to cook and eat with friends.

About 10 or 11 if memory serves me well. Hang on there OP. When they get a wider circle of friends, some of whom have already got thru this stage, then their tastes finally do start to open up. It's going to get better soon .

While it may be true a healthy child won’t starve themselves it is also true that many health issues are noticed due to food related problems.

coeliac children often clock that eating various foods gives them tummy ache or makes them have diarrhoea.

same for children who develop lactose intolerance or other issues.

i’m lactose intolerant. I’m not going to drink milk and have diarrhoea for a few days just because my mum thinks I should eat anything.

it’s also really common for kids with bowel issues (crohns, etc) to get scared of food because eating triggers spasms and bowel pain.

i was incredibly thin as a teenager and early adult because I’d learnt that food was painful and hurt, I did still eat but really not much and if I had bowel problems I’d stop eating for a few days to give it a rest (and the hunger was much easier to bear than the pain!)

once I worked out what I was intolerant to I started putting on some weight and was in a lot less pain.

I think it's worth noting that what is fussy is quite shaped by what you consider 'normal' to eat. My grandparents if they were still alive would be disappointed that I still haven't grown out of my great fussiness of not eating meat, gravy or ketchup, which meant I wouldn't eat most things they would have considered a normal meal. I would consider my kids pretty fussy but they eat hummus, garlic bread and curry, all of which my grandparents considered weird foods that it was just sensible to not eat.

Can you get them involved in the cooking? I think kids are more likely to eat something they've cooked themselves. If they like pizza, they can make pizza dough and you can have some pre-prepared tomato sauce with hidden veggies blended in! Let them make their own chicken nuggets and potato wedges and oven bake. Once they've got a few recipes under their belt, you can try and expand their preferences gently.

It sounds like the best thing to do OP is to fill them up on what they will eat . Provided they are eating enough as they get older you can chat to them about trying little bits of other things . That’s how I’ve expanded mines food vocabulary. Lentil Dahl and also tofu peanut satay have joined the list of safe foods like plain pasta here