Weaning and Fussy Teenage Stepchildren

[ArcticRain]

I'm weaning my DD and going down the route of giving her what we eat . Prior to moving in with DH I use to be very healthy and cook from scratch . I am going back to this method .

My stepsons , 18 and 16 are extremely fussy , the youngest eats about 15 foods . I spent years trying to encourage them to eat healthy . It didn't work . Would end in tears and tantrums , even as recently as last year for SS 16. I kinda feel in with them . They eat freezer food and a few cooked meals if done to strict criteria .

Already I feel stressed about having to cater for everyone . They both didn't eat the dinner this evening (from the BLW cook book) . I am happy to cook enough for all but I no longer want to cater for their needs . I tried and failed with them , so now I want to focus on my daughters needs food wise .

We do all eat up the table as a family .

How would you handle this ?

They're old enough to cook their own. You shouldn't have been pandering to this bollocks for so long anyway. Their dad should have done it.

Cook for whoever will eat your food - if that's just you and dd so be it.

If left to their own devices they won't eat till about 2030 - 2100, and it will be pizza every night because they won't cook .

Should I just go with it ? Let them know the meal plan for the week , and they can substitute meals they don't want ?

Agreed, you should not have to pander to overly fussy eating. Some degree of compromise is probably a good thing, though, especially if your own definition of "healthy eating" is at all unusual or extreme.

The kids are way past the age where they ought to be helping with meals anyway. Does your DH prepare any meals? I know there might be a good reason why you have split responsibilities with your DH, but there is no good reason for the teenagers not to be doing this.

When I moved in with DH, we set up a rota. The kids (13 and 16 when we started this) take turns preparing dinner along with DH and myself. We also have a 'takeaway' or cold sandwich night once a week, so no one has to cook that night.

Maybe that would work for you? On "their" nights, the kids could prepare their ready meals or less healthy options (you could still make a simple healthy option for yourself and DD if you didn't want what they were having); on "your" nights, you choose what is served and if they don't like it, they can lump it, or have toast! (The key rule for any alternative they want should be that it does not create any more work for you, either in terms of food preparation, shopping, or cleaning up!)

I am very stern about substitutions - we buy cheap options for this, like cheap pasta sauce, or soup, or beans on toast - and that's what's permitted. Otherwise, we'd end up spending a fortune to have the food they prefer (which is always more expensive, naturally!) and I'd end up doing two lots of washing up.

I may get them to suggest a meal to cook next week and see what they come up with . They tend to eat pizza, chips, wedges, super noodles, sausage rolls etc . I can't put 'bits' into food , and SS 16 only eats bone dry food . No veg .

Today I cooked a Thai green curry with onions , spinach and green beans , chicken and rice . They ate the chicken and a few spoonfuls of rice . SS 16 had his fried dry . Picked out the smallest bits of onion . I feel my blood pressure rise and try not to watch! DD enjoyed sucking it though .

I'm on leave till next year so pick up the cooking . DH isn't very good with timings. Like the sandwich idea .

Oh, where to start with food! I have been tearing my hair out for 5 years with this issue. dsd's - now 11 & 9 - have been allowed to dictate what they will eat and what they won't. They were not given a wide variety of food as very young children so were reluctant to try anything.

dsd1 is much easier and now enjoys a wide variety of food. Unfortunately dsd2 is not good. She uses food to manipulate, she will sometimes eat something and sometimes not. I had started to feel sorry for dsd1 as I was always cooking boring, bland stuff when they are here (half the time) so that there was a chance that dsd2 would eat it. After she refused to eat both chips and roast potatoes in the same week though I gave up and now cook whatever I want. She can take it or leave it.

When my own kids were young we had a system where everyone chose one meal a week. (Only one person could choose chips though). The rule was that they could choose whatever they wanted for one meal a week but then had to eat all the meals that everyone else had chosen without complaining. They did start by choosing weird things and things they thought their siblings wouldn't like but it soon settled down and worked really well.

Made my life much easier as I find it's the deciding what to eat that's the hardest part! I have suggested it to DH and dsd's but they can't even be arsed to choose so it doesn't work. It may be worth you giving it a shot as it's great if it does work.

I definately wouldn't cook separate meals for different people!

I have the same problem with my DSS 11. I thought it might get better but juding by this maybe not. he also won't eat anything with 'bits' in.

We have him EOW and I end up cooking pizza one night and a very bland spag bol the other night. This really fustrates me as i like to cook quick meals like spag bol, chilli etc in the week and have something a bit 'nicer' at the weekends.

However even with food DSS will eat one week he decides he doesn't like it the next so I'll cook something I think he likes and then he won't eat it.
He usually only eats about 3 mouthfulls (literally) of dinner whether it's something he likes or not so most of it ends up going in the bin. I don't really know why I bother cooking to his tastes when he doesn't eat it.

I think you have tried everything you can and have had a lot of patience at the end of the day u can't force a 16 &18 yr old to eat. I would just leave them to cook what they want (within reason) but the rule is they have to clear it all up. no doubt they will soon eat what u cook when they realise what effort goes into producing a meal. I can't really do that with dss at his age but I can assure u if he doesn't eat it he doesn't get anything else. He doesn't seem to care tho and I regularly find sweet packets etc stashed in his room I have no idea where they come from but DH doesn't address it which winds me up further!

I had the same problem with my SSs same-ish age.

I found it really insulting that they would happily eat a ready meal but if I prepared the same thing from scratch (so no crap in it) they would pick over it like they were performing an autopsy.

I eventually told them (with DH's backing) that I would like them to eat as a family of course but unless they ate what everyone was having they would have to make their own, - with an added proviso that kitchen facilities would be closed after 7.30 pm unless to make a sandwich.

Fenton, do they eat with you ? Last night I did chicken , rice mixed with peppers , peas and sweetcorn, stirfried broccoli with chilli, garlic bread , and a bowel of chips for the boys. They ate some chicken, garlic bread and a few chips . They left most of the chips because not done in a tefal activefry thing, so there was really no point me even doing the alternative for them . Should I be sticking in oven carbs alongside what I cook as an alternative for them?

Tonight its homemade meatballs , but I haven't grated the onion, just cut it , so I'm sure they won't be eaten . I think I won't cook for them anymore if not and just focus on DH , DD and me .

Don't have any answers, just sympathy! When I first met DSS he was 4, and he would eat ANYTHING you put in front of him. I was so impressed. Unfortunately over the last three years he has gradually become more and more fussy...plus as someone else said above, a dish that he loves one weekend will next weekend be declared "horrible". There's no consistency and I feel increasingly like I am navigating a minefield when planning what to cook when he comes. But I'm thinking that now he is 7 we need to decide on a policy and stick to it...either we make a conscious decision to provide an alternative if he doesn't like what we are eating, or we say "this is the meal, it's this or nothing". At the moment we aren't consistently applying any single approach...can imagine how much more complicated it will be if/when we have one of our own...

I think probably in your situation I'd have a rule like one meal out of every X can be chosen by them and you will prepare it for all the family, but the rest of the time you will cook what you want. If they don't like it they can sort out their own alternative.