Do you serve up dinners you know they dont like - how to expand diet?

[Wumpy]

I dont know whether you would describe my dcs (5.5 and 3)as fussy eaters. They eat what i would say is a reaonable variety of healthyish dinners, eg, they would eat bolognase, shepherds pie, fish pie, chilli, pasta in a tomato and veg sauce etc. They also eat quick dinners such as omlette, fish fingers etc.

But if i serve a roast, casserole etc, we would they make a major fuss and probably would eat very little.

Now my dilema.... Shall i stop giving the dinners that they dont really like and just give them what i know they will eat just for an easy life. I shall i continue in the hope that they may learn to tolerate them. When i was a kid i just had to eat what i was given!

In fairness, i usually make them what i know they like, and just make a roast type dinner once a week. We have a new rule...They dont have to eat their dinner... but they arent offered anything else. We made this rule as we wanted to take the stress away from the dinner table.

What do you do? Just want a general opinion really.

mmm It's tough, isn't it? I'd probably keep offering them, with some adjustments. For instance, I'd put in their plate a few pieces of meat from the roast with veggies they like/or a bit of pasta.
I notice that my children often change their tastes, they go off things they used to like, but also start to eat things they weren't too keen on.

Thanks for your reply, Franca. I might try putting a bit of pasta on the roast plate.. atleast then they will have eaten something.

I know what you mean about taste changing. Chicken cassarole was my DS's favourite when he was a toddler!

Wumpy, I never accommodate fussy eaters. which you would be doing by putting pasta on the plates.Like you, thry don't have to eat it,but it's all there is.

(I'd murder for someone to cook me a roast dinner once a week!)

I do serve up dinners that I know probably will only get picked at - fish pie, roasts. Was a bit peeved when my lovely Christmas dinner was roundly rejected by the pair of them, only to trough down something similar at my mum's a few days later. Grrr.

Sometimes have found that continued exposure eventually sort of wears them down - I put peas on my DS1's plate at every dinner for weeks and weeks before he ate any. He loves peas now .

I do allow a healthy pud (fruit and yog) to be eaten if they haven't eaten the main course, as long as they've (well, only DS1, really, DS2 still to little for this) tried it.

When DS was fussy about certain meals, I'd let him have ketchup with the food. The more he got used to the food, the less ketchup he'd have. I did this with roast dinners (without gravy), and now he loves them without ketchup and with gravy.
And it also helped having him eat at MIL's now and again - he'd be more likely to eat something at somebody's else's home.

The meals your dc eat - i don't think they're fussy eaters! I guess we all have meals we're not that keen on.

I am having the same dilemma, and realise I have become lazier and lazier as DS at nursery 3 days a week (where he eats everything) so I convince myself he is getting enough variety.

With things he's not keen on I make sure there is at least something on the plate that he likes, and tell him that he doesn't have to eat the rest of it. Yesterday he picked out all of the broccoli from his rice saying he didn't like it, put it in a separate bowl, and then ate it once he'd finished the rice .

I never believe him when he says he doesn't like something as it changes from day to day.

Yes, I would give my DS (20 months) something he doesn't like because I have read - and have some experience of - children, partic toddlers goig on and off dishes all the time.
However I would ensure there is something else on the plate he does like me.
One example is last night when we had the rest of the chicken and leek pie I had made two nights before. he didn;t like the pie two nights ago, but I still put it on his plate along with peas, sweetcorn, carrots and saute potatoes.
ANd the result???! He still left the pie and the carrots which he used to love but ate some - but not a lot of - the peas, sweetcorn and saute spuds. I also gave him a biscuit, and cheese to fill up on. Oh, and then he had some custard and pear.

Meant to add, it can be bloody stressful, this (non) eating lark.
I get sickened by other people - mostly inlaws, saying: "Don't stress about it!"

Oh yes.

Dinner is dinner in our house. You get it on your plate, you eat it or you go hungry. Doesn't bother me. Nothing else is on offer though.

DD has to sit at the table though until the mealtime is over.

I do try and make sure she likes at least one component of a meal - but wouldn't go out of my way about it.

I serve up what I choose to, but if i am aware it is not something they will normally eat, i amke sure they do like the side dishes/ and or have a lunch they really like.

that way they get exposed to lots of foods but don't go hungry

I would never remove something they didn't like from the plate though, just ask that they leave it if they choose not to eat it

i usually make sure there is something which ds will definitely eat and only ask that he try a new or unwanted thing, doesn't have to eat it but must taste.

he isn't particularly fussy (is 3.8) but obviously would prefer to live on chocolate.
he eats food made by lots of different people - me, dh, cm, grandparents. i think that helps a lot with trying new things and expanding diet.

I tried the "dinner is dinner" approach for a while until I realised that ds1's trousers no longer fitted him around the waist. That stuff about children not starving themselves is not true, not here anyway!

I have recently managed to include spag bog into their repetoire, hooray! I now have to cook it once a week, every week, or they'll forget they like it. Dd and ds2 would be ok, but not ds1 (he is 3).

I did it like this:

1. small lunch and no snacks or juice all afternoon - the starvation method
2. serving up the chocolate cake we were having for pudding, and putting it in bowls on the table where he could see it all through the first course
3. putting a tiny portion on his plate
4. telling him he wasn't getting down until he'd had 3 mouthfuls, but if he ate most of it he could have that cake, look, that one there

It worked because his main problem is that he won't try things. If it had been rice, it wouldn't have worked because rice makes him gag - he'd just have been sick. You have to pick your battles.

It is a hard one but they do say you need to try stuff loads of times before they feel familiar to a child.

My DD wasn't very fussy and from day one we had a rule of 3 mouthfulls and then if she didn't like it fair enough. I would try the meal again and again but I never made a fuss or told her off and she would always eat the 3 spoonfulls until the third-ish time I served the dinner then just decide she liked it.

Thank you all for your help. I am glad to see that i am in the majority. I will just keep serving up until they decide to eat it