how much do you worry about the food your dc eat?

[stainesmassif]

ds is 18 months and seems to have settled on a diet of bread, fruit, bread or fruit based food, cheese, or any kind of dessert known to man or baby.

i keep offering alternatives, beautifully hand crafted home made recipes that end up on the floor without being sniffed....should i worry? i really don't know what else to do. i am not ready to send him to bed hungry. it seems like he's only just started sleeping through!

oh, anything processed in a wrapper is fair game. if only they put broccoli in shiny purple packaging.

I think you may be onto a whole new marketing universe, stainesmassif

Yes, mine can 'smell' a wrapper a mile off...

I worry about the salt intake more than anything else. It's very hard (particularly whilst out and about) to find anything that doesn't have a a mountain of salt in it

it really scares me. if he sees one of us eating crisps (oh, the shame, we do) he leans out of his chair, mouth open like a little bird crying 'more, more'. why doesn't he do that for a stick of cucumber??

A friend of mine who ran a toddler group in Battersea was at the Nanny who would not let her charge eat the raisins provided at snack time, because they were not organic, when said precious toddler only actually got to see her mother for 30 minutes a day Mon-Fri. Its all about getting your priorities right, innit?

It's substitution - the less maternal time, the better the nutrition - it evens out the neglect....

My DS won't touch veg unless they are lost in a sauce (sometimes he'll eat chunks of veg in pasta, sometimes I just blend the sauce). Peas or sweetcorn are discarded or handed over to parents... However he loves pretty much all other food on Bonsoir's list - and any fruit you care to mention.

Remember eggs are protein too, and cheese. Meat has iron but so does dried fruit, as someone pointed out. If he's not keen on meat, will he go for it in a tomato sauce, so it's a bit sweeter? Or a peanut butter sandwich? Or baked beans? Baked beans on toast is a complete protein (DS hates baked beans, unfortunately - and eggs). For carbs, if he's eating bread that's great; how about cereal? DS likes munching shreddies without milk like crisps. Or porridge?

I take comfort from the fact that my BIL would only eat spam. MIL took to grinding up vitamin pills and mixing them in... He's still grown up to be 6ft 6, is a great cook and eats all sorts of food.

DS1 - lots
DS2 - some
DS3 - um
DD - I'm sure she eats

Raw vegetables is my answer. My children have always eaten raw vegetables. However, they refuse to eat cooked ones. Tonight they refused to try fried aubergines (a staple in the Italian diet ). Ooooh the shame

eggs - no thanks! tomatoes in all forms are despised. peanut butter is occasionally accepted. i guess there are eggs in cake....he'll eat cake. he threw the cm's beautiful home made baked beans on the floor just before i arrived tonight.

i forgot, oats are on the list, which i'm grateful for, though now he wants to feed himself i'm less keen on redecorating the dining room in porridge and sometimes substitute toast.....more bread!

when i think about it on balance, there are so many other things i'm lucky not to worry about. he's healthy (he looks healthy anyway) good humoured, he's talking, walking etc. so if he wants to live on cake, why shouldn't he emulate me???

Mine lives on readybrek with fruit puree, organix fruit bars, peanut butter sandwiches and dinner is usually sauages, fish fingers haddock, meatballs or fish pie. He eats tuna sometimes and never touches proper fruit. He won't even eat raisins. Would never touch pasta or rice, esp in a sauce.

I do give him vitamins and sneak veg and fruit into him wherever possible, but he won't eat it in it's pure form (sweetcorn results in upchuck)

in short, don't worry.

Tomatoes are tricky, because frankly it is difficult to find good tomatoes in the UK. I suggest sainsbury's pomodorini tomatoes, if they are still selling them.

This babycentre article seems to give fairly sensible/reasonably achieveable advice...

Pancakes might be a way to make eggs acceptable - you could do drop scones for a snack or breakfast with fruit/yogurt and to make life easier, make up the batter the night before (handy hint I picked up on MN yesterday ).

Jareth your ds is right re raisins, I find them inedible

pancakes are good if you need some new occasional rugs in our house. it's heartbreaking!

Mine is nearly 3, we did BLW and she loves her food, eats well at nursery and eats pretty well at home. These are my 'top tips'

1. Give them choice - If I ask her what she wants to eat she will either say 'chicken' or 'Sgetty". I figure she eats a good varied diet of 'adult' food at nursery so on a work day I usually give her what she asks for, spag + tom sauce spag with pea + ham, chicken thigh, potatoes, brocoli, but at weekends we all eat normal dinners together (including asparagus!)

1. Get them to help you cook (see www.mydaddycooks.com for inspiration)

1. Mine gets bored whilst eating and will want to leave the table before she has finished. Listening to music/nursery rhymes etc keeps her at the table for long enough to eat a decent amount

1. Don't make a big deal of it, eating and food is a pleasure - if they're hungry they'll eat, as Bonsoir says toddler portions are pretty small too, so don't expect them to eat too much, and don't bribe with pudding!

1. Don't try to eat too late - my dd eats best at lunch, but will eat a good dinner if she eats before 7

1. Just because they don't like something one day, doesn't mean they won't like it another. If i listened to my DD all she'd eat would be pasta and chicken.

HTH!

Oh - speaking of tomatoes - mine loves 'em picked from her granddads greenhouse - warm. Making food fun is a good way to get them interested (and I don't mean karmel-esque face shaped sarnies )

I think I've also got DS to eat eggy bread - I think it's the texture of eggs that he doesn't like. Eggy bread with jam got eaten, I think... was a while back I last tried though!

Egg custard? Bit of a faff though...

Actually, one way DS eats eggs is in a carbonara - but then he likes ham/bacon.

DS tends to go through phases where he will be more open to eating new stuff, and times when he won't...

wild card! red bean pastries

Mind you I know that if I did this for DS it would end up on the floor, so only do ANYTHING if YOU are going to enjoy it, then if it is eaten by your DS it's a bonus. My DS hates sweet veggies such as sweet potatoes or parsnip, which is why I don't think he'd go for this...

mm, yes, i think i'd like the red bean pastries, will have to give it a go. i'm fairly certain i could get ds to try eggy bread if smothered with jam - in fact anything smothered in jam. unless he licks it off. this thread has genuinely comforted me though, i no longer feel like the world's least nutritionally proficient mum.

bread, fruit, bread or fruit based food, cheese, or any kind of dessert known to man or baby

Thing is, I know it seems limited, but actually that includes all the major food groups and requirements for a child (protein, carbs, fibre, calcium, vitamins and a decent number of calories). So you are honestly doing pretty well. Wish mine would eat cheese!

i smack them with cucumbers occasionally and try not to look at the rest

I found a recipe for the red bean paste, though if I were making them I'd try out the shop-bought paste first to save the heartbreak of time/effort/floor redecoration...

I've remembered that when DS was small, I bought lots of different types of flour (eg chick pea flour, and also things like ground almonds) in an effort to get some protein into him. So don't worry - your DS's tastes will evolve sooner or later and before you know it he'll decide to only eat ham sandwiches and sausages (joke! DS's eating is not that bad...)