Should I feed DD?!

LittleTinker

angelicmary85 wrote: »

Evening All!

As some of you may know, my 2year daughter is a terrible eater.

She has a really poor diet and I'm sick fed up of it

She refused her dinner earlier so yet again, more food got scraped into the bin and she toddled off with an empty belly.

Fast forward to now and she's screaming the house down for food. All I can hear is 'mum please, I want some dinner' and I feel awful not feeding her.

She's still quite young and I'm not sure she'll understand the reason she isn't getting food.

Am I being a cow?!

I am a firm believer of giving food at meal times and if it isnt eaten, they get nothing else.
They will not starve themselves, even if they go a week without eating. Some children have very strong wills..........and they test you to the limit.

At 2 years of age, a child would not be ruling my home.
Give her what you know to be good for her for breakfast lunch and dinner......if she doesnt eat it then she gets nothing more......pandering to her means she wins the battle of the wills.

LittleTinker

angelicmary85 wrote: »

Which is the 'best of the worst'?

Willie Winkies

Sausage meat (from inside of sausage roll, won't eat the pastry)

Pork Pies

Gravy (no, you read it right, she likes to eat just gravy with a spoon)

Custard (which we only managed to get her to start eating last week!)

Yoghurt (occasionally)

My vote for 'best of the worst' is the custard!

All of the above foods were only introduced as a last resort when she refused everything we gave her so no, I didn't start her on a diet of rubbish before anyone says anything!

I'm at my wits end with her, she picked off every bit of sweetcorn she had on her plate a couple of days ago and left it on her placemat. Then, she proceeded to start dropping them on the floor when she thought I wasn't looking!! :eek:

She won't try anything new but she does occasionally lick something if she likes the look of it

This is your problem.....you are giving in and trying new foods all the time....and when she refuses, you go looking for something else to try.

Give her a blanaced diet of YOUR choice....do not ask her what she wants to eat. Do not give her a choice.
Giving her options and pandering has caused this problem now.

Weetabix in the morning with orange juice.
Pasta with sauce / beans on toast / sandwich with a yoghurt for lunch.
fish or chicken with veg for dinner with fruit for afters.

No rubbish and no treats unless she eats all you give her.
She will not starve if you are firm.

gingerwhinger

I know exactly what you’re going through as my youngest (3 in November) was far far worse.
Apologies in advance for what is going to be a long post but I need to give a bit of background as to why I had the attitude that I did...

I had my twins 10 years ago. They were born prem and very very tiny (around 4lbs each). They were on around the 9th (?) centile and as a first time mother I became obsessed with getting them on to what I thought should be the “correct” 50th centile. As a result I overfed them. I gave them milk before they asked for it and later, gave more snacks than I should. Inevitably my daughter (but for some bizarre reason not her twin brother) became overweight. My daughter is now 10 and has a very unhealthy obsession with food. Every single important event in her life seems to be remembered by what she had to eat at the time. We have spent the last 5 years constantly monitoring what she eats, keeping food diaries and weighing/ measuring. She is now thankfully “healthy weight” – but to be honest she is at the top end and I really worry about what will happen when she reaches the age where I can’t control what she eats.

Anyway, then I had my youngest daughter. From day 1 she was a nightmare with food! I don’t know if there was something wrong with my flow of breastmilk or if I wasn’t producing enough or what. I had a real battle with breastfeeding though – I did everything midwives and HV suggested (even spent 3 days hooked up to “milking” machine) but to no avail. She wasn’t taking/ getting enough and kept losing weight until after 3 weeks my fantastic doctor strongly suggested putted her on formula. For about 2 months all was well.

When she was 4 months old she refused to take any milk other then the bedtime bottle. So I had to wean her early. She had mainly fromage frais, pureed veg and fruit and “proper” dairy ice cream. The she progressed to our food pureed and then finger food and I thought “Great! We’ve got it sorted”. And then she started rejecting everything one by one. When we went on holiday when she was about 1 I remember all she was eating at the time was ice cream, fromage frais and the odd bit of fruit.

Whilst it was a worry at the time it was always at the back of my mind that I didn’t want her to end up like DD1. I always cooked a family meal in the evening – which she invariably didn’t eat. I always made her lunch – again ended up in the bin. I really tried to not make an issue of food. She was allowed pudding whether or not she ate her main course (as someone else mentioned because it was part of the meal). She was allowed fruit whenever she wanted (fortunately she always has liked things like grapes, banana and melon), and sometimes she’d want breadsticks, raisins, fromage frais or mini milks. Rightly or wrongly I just let her get on with it. There was a nutritious meal there if she wanted it or there were snacks that I was happy to let her have.

Fast forward to today (she’s 2 years and 10 months). She is the best eater in the whole family! She still doesn’t really like stodgy food like potatoes, bread or pasta – but she will have a little (probably the right amount to be honest). She does like rice though. She loves meat and fish plus all fruit and most veg. She’ll eat cherry tomatoes like sweets. When on holiday recently we ordered snails just to try them (disgusting by the way) and she got stuck in. She ate 13 snails and ordered them again the 2nd time we went to the restaurant! She will eat curries and other strong tasting food such as sardines, smelly cheese, even olives.

What I’ve done differently with her is let her decide how much of her meal she eats (I always used to encourage the twins to eat up). If I’m cooking I ask her if she wants to taste it to see if it’s OK – at first she always refused but now she asks to taste it first. Another thing is I often had something different to her. I’d give her what she wanted for lunch but then I’d have something different and I think there’s always the feeling of “missing out” so she’d come and ask to try bits from my plate. Sometimes I’d say “no” and then she really really wanted it! Also another thing I’ve just thought about is try to make the portion sizes really small – this helped with mine. Better to have them coming back for more than getting so daunted that they won’t even try it!

As someone else suggested (and I know you’ve already tried) I’ve found it quite successful to get them involved in the whole cooking process. It’s probably a bit early days for yours but things like “pick your own” can be good. Even if she doesn’t eat it at least she’s learnt where it comes from. Also at the moment we’ve got blackberries growing round the back of our house. My daughter really liked picking and eating them. I think there’s some “amazement” that you can get food from outside and the novelty value sometimes makes them want to try it. She has mentioned that with the snails too though...

Above all though RELAX! Having been at the opposite and of the scale (with a child that overeats) this is a far less worrying problem. As long as your daughter is growing OK and looks healthy she is probably getting enough nutrients. I know you mentioned that you’d got her on vitamin supplements so she’s probably fine. I know I’m not an expert but I found in my own situation that by not making food an issue it kind of sorted itself out.

XX Ginger XX

Charlies_Mummy

You've received some fantastic advice on this thread OP but I thought I'd add my experience too. My 5 year old DD went through a very similar phase when she was 2. I weaned her really well on homecooked food, and until the age of 2 she ate everything offered, then suddenly she was saying "I don't like that" about almost everything. DD1 never went through the phase so it was quite challenging to deal with.

What I did was carry on serving her up family meals, and we'd all sit round the table and if she ate it great, if she didn't I removed her plate and that was that. She didn't get pudding but what I did is an hour or so later gave her either a piece of fruit, some toast, or some plain fromage frais with chopped fruit in it. I did this later on rather than straight after the meal so that she didn't associate it with not eating her meal. Funnily enough she has always eaten a lentil bake I used to make when she was a baby, so I still make and freeze batches of it now, and I add lots of vegetables to it, and she is always happy to have a bowl of that. Also her baby brother likes it so I think it encourages her to eat it even now.

Now she is a bit older she is eating more and more things; a friend advised me to think quality rather than quantity, and she is generally happy to eat fruit, veg, meat etc, which is good. She doesn't like potatoes but I have just managed to get her to start eating homemade chips and wedges. When she was at her fussiest, I found small pasta shapes (you can get them in the weaning section in Boots) with a homemade tomato and veg sauce would always get eaten.

Good luck, I really hope you get things sorted, I'm sure things will improve for you