4 year old refuses to eat veg!!! :(

loshypops

Hi peeps.

Bit of a dilema really tried looking through the indexed collections and couldnt find much help either:(

My OH's 4yr old son stays with us most weekends and one night during the week. I wouldnt say that he does not like vegetables he just doesnt want to eat them! For example he will sit down for dinner look around his plate and basically if he can see any veg he will eat round it. And its not because he doesnt like veg - he ate two mouth fulls of peas on sunday when we went out for lunch and my BIL said he ate a piece of brocolli last week 'but that was just so he could get away from the table and play' - he just isnt interested in it.

He initially used to get spoiled - didnt see him for a while until divorce gained joint access - so OH would let him off for not eating his greens and then let him have a chocolate bar!!!:mad: but he too has said he needs to stop eating the junk.

So, we have tried the 'if you dont eat it then you cant have desert', or if he says he is full having hardly touched his plate, but wants a treat straight away we've tried the 'you cant be full if you want something else' but still no luck.

I've also tried to be sneaky and mashed some veg up with potatoes - he loves any type of meat with mash and lots of gravy - this has worked out with swede and turnip ok but i still cant get him to eat anything else.

I know this has probably been said before but i cant see anything and im sick of google haha just giving suggestions to make a smiley face out of the food on the plate - it doesnt work!

N.b its the complete opposite for fruit he will eat as much as humanly possible!
Any ideas would be most appreciated!:beer:

seabright

If he's eating lots of fruit I'd leave it, to be honest. If you don't mention if for a while he might "forget" he doesn't like it.

What about giving him baked beans instead - healthy, cheap, easy & sweeter than veg - it might be the sweetness that he likes in fruit, so he'd like beans instead.

jinky67

how about offering him a choice of veg?

say to him you can have either peas or carrots?

that way he can decide

but I wouldnt make a huge issue out of it, besides if he is eating loads of fruit he is not missing out

loshypops

Thanks for that -He likes beans which is a plus but we seem to make the same meals over and over every week and it works out easir and cheaper for him to eat what we are having - which he does but just not the veg.

We made pizza together last week and he helped put the topping on lots of peppers mushrooms etc but when we sat down to eat it he picked all the veg of and just point blank refused it.

We always have the guilt factor of making him try and eat veg considering we have him 2/3 nights a week but we know he is eating pretty much the same when he is with his mum and wont eat veg there either just wants cakes and chocolate and crisps - and its the same at school

loshypops

thanks jinky - we've tried that one too but it ends up in OH's or the dogs belly.

Its the fact that he likes it but just wont eat it!

jinky67

Does he eat soup?

karengi

Just what's been said, if he's eating his fruit he's not missing out on much (if anything). Just keep offering it to him and if he eats some make a big deal about it (we do "ooo, what's happened to all your veg, did the invisible man eat it???" Then big cheers when they say they ate it themselves!). My eldest is 6 and when he was 4 there was very little he would eat in the way of veg but now he's really good. Just keep on putting it on there and lots of praise if he eats even a small piece, it'll eventually sink in!

loshypops

Actually you have just hit me with a brain wave! he loves tomato soup, i could probably be able to blend in some extra bits that he wont see - thanks for that!

he will eat half a loaf of bread along with it though hehe!

Result!x

loshypops

Thanks Karengi -its always there for him, like i said he ate two mouth fulls of peas on sunday for lunch and we were in total shock! but i think that backfired on us and he said 'thats all im having ive ate 8 peas thats millions and billions' - come to think of it he may have only ate them as the kids on tha table next to us were saying how much they liked peas....!

Ambersuccubus

Have you tried slightly unusual veg for kids - for example, I hate brussels sprouts, so does my childrens' father, but my current partner loves them, and so do my kids...they like making me eat 1 or 2 "because they're good for you!" (kids love role reversal), but they'll eat tons of them. It could be he's just bored by the peas and carrots kids normally get served - you did mention he ate brocolli - lots of kids seem to be taken with eating "little trees" - perhaps he likes pretending to be a brontasaurus

Have you tried any raw veg, either...another thing my daughter does is insist on taste testing ALL vegetables as we're preparing them, and she definitely likes the raw crunch better in a lot of cases (although she's a good eater in general anyway, so I'm lucky in that respect)

BTW, my mum mashing swede into potato put me off swede for life! What a waste of good mash...

cyclingyorkie

i used to grate veg into a tomato based sauce for pasta when the kids were little. they got suspicious if i put too many in - but i regularly got away with grating pepper into the sauce.

has he tried things like chilli or curry - i do know he's quite young but you can hide many different kinds of veg/pulses in these