Should I offer alternatives to my 1 yr old when he refuses the meal I give?

[Flingmoo]

He'll often eat one or two mouthfuls and then refuse the rest of the meal unless it's something he really loves.

I don't want to encourage fussy eating and want him to have plenty of variety. But he's always been on the small side and isnt a big milk drinker, so I worry that he won't get enough calories. I often give him crackers, biscuits, yoghurt, banana or fruit puree etc after dinner, regardless of whether he eats the main meal.

Should I just offer him the main meal and if he doesn't eat it, don't give him anything else? The snacks after dinner are extras usually but if he refuses the main meal then the snacks are the meal on those occasions IYSWIM.

What is the best thing to do?

Is he 12 months or nearly 2?

With my 17 month old there's no other choices, they get offered tea, if they play up etc then they get down with no pudding etc we do a bath, play etc then just before bed they will be offered a bowl of whee tab in and a cup of milk.

He's only just 12 months.

If they try their dinner and genuinely don't like it then I'd give something basic such as toast or cheese and crackers.

At 12 months I would offer some alternatives

Sorry to hijack, but if your toddler (18 months plus) refuses the food and is taken down from the table, do they then wake up in the night hungry?

cosmicglittergirl don't worry, you're not hijacking, its something I've also been wondering about on a related note!

No

cosmic not in my experience. At that age they're usually in a good enough sleep pattern that hunger isn't an issue at night.

Thank you! My DD is 20 months and sometimes refuses her tea even if it's something she has eaten before, not necessarily a favourite, and I currently get her something else (say pasta which she loves instead of fish pie) but I'm wondering like the OP if I shouldn't offer a second choice.

Okay, so I thought I'd go with the half way option tonight by not offering an alternative straight away but offering a healthy snack a couple of hours later, before bed... Chopped up half a banana which he usually likes, and he proceeded to neatly "post" it down the front of the high chair between his legs... So DH got a nicely chopped up banana as an evening snack instead.

Offered him a rich tea biscuit and he munched it immediately. The little bugger!

How is it that I am slowly but surely going from the mum who feeds her baby sweet potato, veggies, cheese, and fruit, to being the mum whose baby eats nothing but biscuits?!

Cosmic, no if dd doesn't eat her dinner it's usually because she wasn't really hungry. She has milk before bed anyway.

Mamushka it happens to us all...

The food which you give them over and over again is the food which they will eventually end up eating when they are older.
A kid needs to taste their food at least 20 times before they take to it. Exercise caution and start healthy eating habits from now.
I started feeding mine on chapati and thats all he eats until the age of ex. I cant get him to eat it with vegs or anything soupy. I now wish I had stuck to giving him my own foods and not been too afraid of the salt scare. I did my calculations some years later and realised that home cooked meals are very low in salt.