OK. I think it's time for me to try and deal with this properly as I feel I've tried everything. Has anyone had a similar experience? Sorry if it's very long.
DS2 is 3.5 and refuses to try ANY new food. He appearss terrified to try and gets really upset (I am not just being soft on him, he genuinely appeares scared of the food). He has been difficult to feed from day 1 i.e terrible colic (saw a cranial osteopath a few times), and then very difficult to wean. Went through a stage of trying new things when he was around 1, but it didn't last long, and he was soon limiting the range of things he would put in his mouth. He seems stuck at the same stage of food "likes" he had when he was 2, and I just don't know how to help him move on.
Here are the things he WILL eat:
Breakfast: Toast with butter only (won't try it if it's got jam or marmalade on). Won't try cereal with milk. Used to eat porridge with pureed fruit when younger but went off this about a year ago. Used to eat yoghurts at breakfast time but now balks as he's eating it.
Lunch: Ham sandwich (home-made wholemeal bread) (as part of packed lunch in nursery) or if at home, sometimes cheese on toast. Dessert is either a chocolate mousse or a Cadbury's cake bar (I know - crap, processed stuff but he stopped eating fruit as dessert when much younger)
Evening meal: Long pasta, cut up (i.e. spaghetti or linguine) with home-made sauces: Cheese & tomato, bolognese or tomato & bacon. Lots of veg in the sauce but if it's at all visible he will not eat whole meal so am STILL blending the sauces down till nearly smooth. I have tried all the usual advice of gradually blending it down less and less over the past 18 months but if the tiniest bit of pepper or onion is visible, he refuses to eat.
Other options are chilli & rice. (again, sauce full of veg blended down to near smooth as he wouldn't touch the kidney beans or veg if they were visible).
He used to eat chicken curry with rice until recently (again, am ashamed to say blended down then added to rice) but is now going off this and only has a few mouthfuls.
Spag bol seems to be heading the same way. We had this tonight, sitting together as a family which he likes to do, but he only ate half of it and clearly wasn't enjoying it. DS1 who is 5 wolfed his down, commenting on the yummy veggies in it! (never ever had to blend sauces down for him - he has always been willing to try stuff and so eats quite a wide range of things).
Drinks warm milk, water, apple juice, Innocent fruit smoothies and squash.
Snacks on rice cakes and would also choose ham as a snack and he will eat any amount of crap such as crisps and biscuits if I let him. Which I don't if he hasn't made an effort with his main meals. He used to eat breadsticks and raisins but won't any more. Funnily enough, he doesn't bat an eyelid if it's a new flavour of crisps or a new type of biscuit that he's trying for the first time.
Things have come to a head tonight when he was sat on my knee about an hour after tea upset that we wouldn't let him have any supper as he had eaten hardly any spag bol at tea. We used to let him have a piece of toast or bread and butter at supper time before bed if he hadn't made an effort at tea time to save him going to bed with an empty stomach, but he got wise to this, and started to hold out for bread and butter suppers, refusing to eat any main meal and then saying happily "But it's ok, cos I will just have bread and butter later". So we are much stricter now. so tonight he got no more food for the rest of the evening (had half a small beaker of milk though).
He was sitting on my knee saying "I'm very sad, I'm HUNGRY", and he was genuinely miserable. He knew I wouldn't give in to him, and was just upset. I told him that he'd have to start trying new foods now he's a big boy and he started crying saying "But I only want chilli & rice, or spaghetti with mascarpone" (readymade pasta sauce from Tesco that he sometimes has)
I said to him "but you can't just live off those two meals, you have to try different meals, why won't you try new things?" And he started sobbing saying it was scary! He was genuinely, genuinely upset.
So I do think he has got some psychological issues mainly to do with trying new foods. The chilli I make is really quite spicy and he loves the flavour so it's not to do with flavours - it's more the IDEA of putting new food in his mouth that is terrifying him. We haven't got further than getting him to lick a fish finger (a la Tania Byron on House of Tiny Tearaways) - he will lick it but no way will he put it in his mouth.
I am just at a loss now. I am sorry this is so long but I wanted to give all the details that I felt were relevant.
I guess I know I need some outside help now - we haven't been to the health visitor since he was little, I have been too ashamed to tell them how bad he is with food, but I know I have to bite the bullet and go and see someone. Would they refer to a paediatrician? Dietician? Child psychologist? I really dont' want to hear anyone else tell me that a child will not starve himself - we have tried not giving him familiar foods for a few days on the trot and he just doesn't eat.
I could cry, I really could. I don't know what I've done wrong - my 5 year old was just not never like this......