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!

when ds went through diagnosis at 3 (ASD) we had to keep a food diary. I was amazed that the only comment we got was that he slightly lacked vit A and advice was to change to margarine rather than butter (which we ignored)

At the time his diet (from what I remember) was bread, butter, processed cheese and sausages, banana, apple, chocolate buttons and the odd fromage frais - and gallons of orange juice!

His diet has improved (he is now 9) - although I have just realised he now doesn't eat banana and finds butter repulsive and keeps hiding it!

I used to worry A LOT.

My middle dd is particularly difficult to feed and all the stress started to make me ill. It was a turning point because she was actually very happy and healthy so I decided to lay off completely. She's now 7 and still eats NO fruit or veg at all except pure juice and Innocent smoothies. Do I worry now? No...because I know eventually she will get more adventerous. My other two dds also aren't brilliant eaters when it comes to variety but oh well.

To the OP - really don't worry. Don't make too much effort or too much fuss. Don't make it into an issue (like I did!). Try and sit with him and let him watch YOU eat - one day he'll want to try something from your plate. And spend time as he gets older cooking, shopping for food and let him get messy and experience different textures. These things are all important.

Also - my dd1 hardly ate a thing from age 1 to 2. After 2 her appetite gradually improved.

My nearly 19 mo eats so much better since we have had him sitting at the table with us! He also likes to use a grown up plate and fork (but we also have child sized cutlery to hand)

He does go through phases of choosing to only eat bread and pasta. I found that I can get him to eat fruit by making a big bowl of fruit salad for only me and dh to share

I also have races to eat things like green beans or sticks of carrot and brocolli which works a bit.

But if he doesn't want to eat I try not to sweat it. I think I read somewhere that it's all very normal and they won't starve

Doesn't stop me worrying tho'...

I went through an entire YEAR as a child only eating weetabix, yoghurt and cheese - god, but was my poor mum beside herself (and shs's a GP ).... I trowel it in now, though, I'll eat anything ...If that's any consolation?!

Mine (18 months) eats what we do. Not because I have A Thing about it, but because I can't bear cooking a separate meal for her when it's a 50:50 tossup whether she'll feel like eating dinner that night anyway. She seems to eat loads one day and hardly anything the next.

Also, I am cranky if I haven't had my own dinner, so I encouraged self feeding and family dinners as early as possible so that I didn't have to sit there and spoon things into her, and could eat and have a glass of wine myself instead.

I've also discovered that the mnore highly flavoured a food, the more she likes it, so when I was trying her on children's food she hated it, but if I give her something curried or a bit spicy she'll gobble it up. I fed the whole family kedgeree yesterday and she abandoned her spoon so she could shovel it in with both hands.

I don't sweat the vegetables, TBH. She eats tomato and onion in sauces, she likes peas and corn and asparagus and bok choy and sometimes potato, and she has fruit for snacks, so even if there are some days where she doesn't get much of any (see above re: kedgereee!) I think it probably adds up fine.

I love food. I will do anything I can to make sure eating it is a pleasant experience all round. I loathe quotas and 'sometimes foods' and five-a-day. Just put good food in front of them and trust them.

I worry a little on the days when DS has no fruit and only peas for veg (he's 2.6) but mostly he's ok. He went through a brief phase a month or so ago of not eating his dinner - but that seems to have passed again. He has very definite likes and dislikes and thank goodness for me he likes fish and will eat it whenever, and he likes green veg (but is picky about other colours).

I have found that he needs a snackette around 4:30/5pm - if he gets that then he'll eat his dinner no problem when we do, between 6:45 and 7:30 usually. If he gets no snack, he doesn't want to eat his dinner. Mind you, I am a bit like that too - if I go a longish period without food, I am no longer hungry either.

I don't worry now but when my ds was 18 months old, he hated any veg, fruit, mash potato (or even chips ), pasta, anything remotely healthy or fresh! He would occassionally nibble on toast, eat yogurt from a tube, never with a spoon , sausages, crackers with spreadable cheese, chocolate raisins and that was it!

Don't stress at all, the more of an issue you make it the more he wil rebell.

DS is now 2.10 and although is still anti veg, he will occassionally eat carrotts, he does eat apples, grapes, oranges and fruit smoothies. Cereal, potato waffles, he loves fish- especially salmon, pasta in tomato or creamy sauce, cheese, chicken, gammon, baked beans, any sandwiches which he would have refused before, yogurts, with a spoon!!!!!

We just had to ignore him completely when he refused to eat and just not nag him, the more we nagged him, the more stressed he got and the less he ate.

My DD is 22 months and has been quite fussy for a while now. But when we stop and think about what she does eat, it's actually quite balanced. We're trying really hard to keep offering a variety of things, but with no stress- if it's eaten great, if not then never mind. We try and eat with her where possible as well.

You say your DS eats bread, will he eat things like oat cakes or rice cakes just for a bit more variety? DD loves both, piled high with philadelphia. She also loves baked beans- a little bit salty, but we get the low salt ones and they're great for protein.

When I was younger I went through a phase of only eating bread, cheese, grapes and raw carrots. My sister used to never touch vegetables and she's vegetarian now! So I do think it'll all work out in the end!