Advice about picky eaters...

dizzybuff

My ds who is 3 wont eat beans - not even if they are seperate . I struggle getting potatoes down him. He will eat fruit till it comes out of his ears, yet will only touch broccoli and carrots as veg . He loves yorkies so I will be making these with xmas dinner, just to get some carbs down him. He will eat any baked product and hes fine with pasta. Best advise I can give you is , put things on his plate you know he will eat, plus some you know he wont . Dont make a fuss if he doesnt eat them . Then when you have a family meal , have exactly the same as him , something you know he may make a hey fuss about. If he doesnt eat it , tell him you will leave it there for 10 minutes and then it goes in the bin. An egg timer is great for this . No fuss , just take it off the table throw it away. Then as he gets hungrier and complains , just tell him he should have eaten his tea. Belive me skipping a few meals wont vharm them . Then they certainly learn. Dont give in , he eats what you give him. It is hard but get him involved in making the food , encourage him , it should come no problem.

Its so easy to give him food you know he will eat , but doing this gives him power. There is not much a toddler 4-5 year old can control , but food is one of them .

Good luck

Diz

JBD

One of my children was an extremely fussy eater, to the point that he would only eat about 5 different things in minute amounts. Unfortunately he didn't seem to feel hunger. My health visitor advised me to just give him the foods he did like but also to offer him new foods without pressurising him to eat them.
Slowly he did improve. When he was 6 or 7 he started to learn about healthy eating at school and this did motivate him. Another factor for him was seeing his older brother's friends eat with us, sometimes they would encourage him to try something different.
He still doesn't eat lots of different things but does have around 6 or 7 different dinners he will eat and I work around this. He will eat a full roast on christmas day [he's 14 now] but wouldn't have eaten any of it 10 years ago.

coco1980

Hi OP I am 30 and to this day still cant eat a lot of foods with bits in, cant eat apple pie or anything like that with fruit chopped up in it, can eat the fruit whole though, cant eat yogurt wif bits, love beetroot but cant stand the juice of it touching any other food, my list could go on lol i have only recently stated trying new foods and find i now like alot of things that i would previously said no to,

escortg3

When i was a child my mum said she took me to the doctors as i would only eat dry bread. Doctor told her if that is what i will eat then thats what she should give me.

I am 41 and still fussy about what and how i eat things. Chips have to be square both ends, no points. No gravy on my yorskire puds either or i wont eat them. Dont eat any broken biscuits. Either end of tomatoes go in the bin. Eat my rice seperate to a curry cant mix it.

I am fit and healthy so my childhhod didnt effect me. I wouldnt worry with your little one. At least he eats.:)

*Louise*

The fact that so many 3-5 year olds are labelled as 'fussy eaters' shows it's a fairly common problem and most likely the child will move through the phase themself.

I understand the frustration - my own 5 year old is fussy right now and will only eat certain foods. However I just tell myself it's fine: he eats things like fruit, sausages, quiche and yoghurt but he is also fussy about crisps/biscuits/chips so rarely eats any of them.

They all work through it in the end - my eldest DS did, as did I as a child. All you can do is involve them, keep offering new things and show that you enjoy different foods.

Btw - the tantrum over the Kinder egg.....If one of my lot did that, they wouldn't have got it at all.

peachyprice

CHRISSYG wrote: »

op i dont want to panic you but this to a certain extent sounds like my dd , she among other things is dyspraxic and after reading on a dyspraxic teen site i now understand that a lot of her food issues are due to their textureshe wont eat mash or anything sloppy basically.she also has asd so its difficult to see exactly where one ends and the other begins but food has been a nightmare ,we now within reason allow her to chose what she wants and when she wants it ,her dad + i will have a meal and later she will have what she wants its not ideal but its taken the stress away and she is eating.

Same here Chrissy. My 15yo DS is dyspraxic and has the same food 'issues'. He has a pretty limited diet and won't have anything wet, even to the extent of not having butter on bread.

The 'make him eat what's put in front of him or go without' method will not work with him, if forced he will eat it then vomit it straight back out, it's an involuntary reflex due to texture, not done on purpose.

He's not so bad now and will try new things as long as they are within his texture boundaries but as a younger child he used to get so distressed whe we tried to make him eat more variety. I suppose we gave up when he was about 6, since then we know what he likes and what he doesn't and we work around that.

Holidays, especially abroad, can be a nightmare, but as long as he can find some bread he's happy to accept that it's his problem and doesn't expect us all to eat boring food because of him.

He's fit and healthy and has the clearest skin and beautiful glossy hair, and TBH I think the mental distress of forcing him to eat usual family food would have done him far more long term harm than his eccentric diet.

Oh, and he's a twin, his (non-dyspraxic) brother eats anything and everything under the sun, so it's not a parenting issue, no matter how many 'do gooders' try to make you feel it's your own fault.

peachyprice

dizzybuff wrote: »

My ds who is 3 wont eat beans - not even if they are seperate .

I am so with him there, eeeewww the texture, makes me heave just thinking about them. But I do love the juice

BAILEYS6904

My son was a majorly picky eater. Wouldnt eat meat, didnt like much Vegetables, loved some fruits but not others, but kept changing his mind which he liked, didnt like Chips, would basically eat waffles, fish, bread and not much else. He used to 'try' stuff, loved his dairy products, but different textures made him gag.

This all stemmed from his dad and I splitting up. Before then, when he was weaning, he'd eat anything lol.

Anyway, He's at school and after much thought, and him asking, I have put him on school dinners. It was the best thing I could have done. Now he's eating with his 'peers' he'll eat EVERYTHING!!!! I was soooo worried as at least with packed lunches I could make sure he'd eat what was going in, whereas school dinners are never the most appetising, but its been like a dream come true. He now loves brocollli, all veg, will eat meat etc.

HTH xx

newcook

OP – I have no children of my own so my opinion is a moo point!!

From what I have seen with my friends kids, they go through phases with foods (including not wanting to eat stuff they ate the week before!) some of it is seeing how far they can push you but also that their taste buds are still developing.

My mom tells me I went through a phase of only eating jam sandwiches – this lasted about 6 weeks (breakfast, lunch and tea)!! She also took me to the doctors who said ‘if that’s all she will eat then let her eat it – she will soon grow out of it’ and he was right! The only thing I still don’t like is mushrooms – but if they are in a meal I wont pick them out!

jennikitten

Parva wrote: »

I can totally sympathise with your problem, my son was (and still is) a nightmare to cater for. He was fussy with food from the minute that he went from the bottle to solid foods and to this day still is, he's now 24!

Sounds like my boyfriend (21)!

Parva wrote: »

He lives on microwave burgers in a bun, cheese slice sandwiches and if he wants a take-away margherita pizza. I kid you not, he will not eat anything other than the most basic pizza.

Actually...that's better than my boyfriend. He won't eat cheese because he tried one kind, raw, many years ago & proclaims that he hates ALL cheese in ALL forms from that :mad:

Parva wrote: »

It drives me mad that he won't even TRY to experiment with food

Same with my OH - I tell him if he tries it & he doesn't like it then that's fine, and I won't nag him to try it again, but he point-blank refuses.

Parva wrote: »

He's still fit and healthy despite his terrible food choice all these years later and if I were you I wouldn't go down the road of involving outside help unless his health was suffering.
As long as he's fit and well I really wouldn't worry at all.

But how can you tell with these things until it's too late?? My boyfriend survives on a diet which mainly consists of Coke, chicken, chips, bought cake, crisps, sweets, chocolate and plain pasta. The only veg he will eat is cucumber & raw carrots, and then not very frequently. Alzheimer's runs in his family, as does unhealthy eating, and whilst I know genetics etc. play a big part, eating high quality meat and veg has been proven to help combat it. I worry about him all the time God knows what he actual health is like, not to mention his organs.

He says that a lot of his issues are down to texture - he doesn't like the texture of most foods and that puts him off. Perhaps this is a factor with the OP's child? I try to put myself in his shoes by imagining what it would be like if eating fish eyes or tarantulas was a very common thing, because that would freak me out and I can understand his perspective, but it's still very worrying.

I would say act on it sooner than later, but be careful you don't cause more harm than good. Otherwise in ten or twenty years' time it will be driving everyone mad!