Son not eating proper food..

purpleshoes_2

Mylo_The_Moggy wrote: »

Lol, I knew it wouldn't be long before the food police arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This country is far too obsessed with diets & what we eat.
Niece is extremely picky at what she eats, you cannot force other food into her mouth.

How charming you are.:rotfl:

Lol.

Georgiegirl256

OP, do you never cook good old fashioned meals like Shepherds Pie, Stew, Casseroles? So easy to make, and so nutritious too.

That's the kind of thing I was brought up on. People actually used to do a lot more home cooking back in the 80's/90's than they do nowadays....I think the only frozen thing we used to have was fish fingers! Chicken nuggets etc, make me feel sick, I dread to think what's in them.

I don't know if it's because my Mam and my Grandma had a take no cr*p attitude when it comes to meal times (you eat it or else you don't get anything else) or just that I wasn't a particularly fussy eater? Whatever it was, because I ate meals like stews, casseroles, homemade soup etc from a young age, I now absolutely love vegetables etc.

Someone above touched on your own diet being shocking OP. Maybe try to improve that first, so your choices of food don't get passed on to your kids, and make a one pot meal that the whole family can enjoy.

Buzzybee90

One thing, as a child I was an incredibly fussy eater. My parents never eat frozen food (apart from oven fish and chips) but I had a massive aversion to "English food" - it wasn't because I didn't like the taste, I found the texture difficult.

I hated mash potato, swede, carrot (anything squishy and savoury really) and I still don't eat these foods. Just another angle to consider - plus eating things like the fish and chips with the mushy texture would make me gag (sorry!) even though I liked the taste.

Thankfully I grew out of it and I do praise my mum for her cooking skills, because I would imagine it would be harder to come back from if I'd been eating things like chicken dippers/ frozen pizzas.

purpleshoes_2

Mylo_The_Moggy wrote: »

Yeh well we have our own opinions.
The point is, my niece WILL NOT eat anything else. What else can my brother & his wife do?????? He's tried her with fresh homemade meals etc but she won't have it. This has been going on for 8 years & the doctors say as long as she's not overweight, malnourished or starving, then she's ok.
What's the last resort then, a belt round the ears for not eating the right foods, then pin her down & force feed her?
I think not.

We shall just beg to differ on this one.

Thats right, we do. But I can assure you Im not the food police. Showing concern for someone who is sick when other food is put down is a bit different.

For the record. Not only was I very fussy in my eating habits as a child and grew out of it (not fussy to the extent of your niece) I grew up in a home where I did see someone regularly beaten so no, I really don't condone violence of any kind.

My point is and I stand by that, when someones diet is so restricted, in later life she might hit problems. Plenty of stories out there about people who only eat a few foods and they might not end up malnourished, but there will be deficiencies of some kind going on.

There's ways of getting extra fruit and veg into kids who can't tolerate them, smoothies etc, home made. She might even like them if she tried them.

mumps

sacha28 wrote: »

I really wouldn't stress too much, he will eat when he realises that he's hungry and not getting anything else!!

I learnt the hard way with my son (2.5 yrs). He went through a stage about a year ago of refusing anything I put in front of him. I remember a day where I cooked 4 different things at tea time because he was a terrible sleeper and I dreaded the hunger making it worse! After about 2 weeks of being stupid and trying (and wasting) so much food I snapped and said 'no way, no more' and refused to do it anymore. That night I made him sausage mash and broccoli (his favourites at the time) and when he said 'don't like it' I said 'fine but you will go to bed hungry'. And he did (sleep was just as bad as usual) and he hasn't done that since. If he says he isn't going to eat I tell him that he won't be getting anything else and he'll be very hungry, it's normally enough to make him rethink!!

Don't feel guilty, feel like you're taking control. That's all he's doing is taking the pith because you allow him to!

That really doesn't work for everyone. I have four children, all grown up now. All weaned happily on to a wide variety of food. No problems.

At around 12 months one got quite ill and went off their food. Nothing unusual about that, who wants to eat when they are ill? But it didn't improve. Feeding time became a nightmare, we tried lots of different food and she would occasionally like something but after a while would stop eating it again. We tried leaving her hungry. She was quite happy with that. Eventually when she was 3 the doctor said if she lost any more weight, ever half a pound, she was going to have to be hospitalized. We were really lucky as it was a big medical centre and we just happened to see this doctor who said he had a child who had been just the same. He told us to give her anything she wanted, let her live on chocolate if that was what she would eat. He said the priority was to get her weight up and we could worry about her diet later. So she started to put weight on but still had a limited diet. Over the years she improved and as an adult has a better diet than her older brother who would eat anything as a child.