Toddlers and fussy eating (merged)

Plasticman

charlotte664 wrote:

Rules are (Are persist regardless!)

1. Offer a variety of foods (not at the same time though!)
2. Don't make a fuss if he doesn't want it - take it away calmly and ignore it.
3. Don't offer him ANY thing else.
4. Ban all sweets and cakes and nice treats - leave as much fruit out that you can handle - don't let him snack at all (except the fruit)
5. Don't let Nan undermine you on this one!!!!! (As discovered - half the battle is with them!!!!)
6. Keep going. It will take ages and ages, weeks, maybe a few months - but he will take whats on offer. Just give him food just because you know'll he eat it! (ie McDonalds)
7. Its true - he really will eat when hungry! He is a toddler who is "trying his luck" and see how far he can push you. Just make sure that you and daddy are eating and smiling and chatting together at meal times and involve him in the conversation without making any remarks about his food at all.

Excellent answer Charlotte, couldn't agree more. We are still having this battle with our 4 year old who - I have decided - is the fussiest eater in the world!!! She has improved a lot thanks to this sort of approach.

Poppy9

Perhaps his food tastes have changed or he is understanding the flavours and textures better. As he is almost two he should be eating more or less the same food as you (except perhaps vindaloos :eek: ). I would just put a variety on his plate of what you are eating and say nothing. If he tries all the food, even if only a mouthful, praise him and put a smiley face on his happy face chart. Even this young they know happy faces are good. Tell him something special happens when he gets 7 smiley faces. You don't have to tell him what but when say if you are going say swimming tell him "you are going swimming today with Mummy because you have 7 smiley faces. Swimming is a good one because it always makes them hungry and tired. Nothing like a bag of chips after swimming.

Also get him to help you make food. Eggy soliders are a good one as he can get nice and messy and see them all soggy. Let him see them cooking in the pan and feel them after cooking. Bet he won't be able to resist trying. Also try making pizza's with him. Let him choose and put his own toppings on to make a face. You could have little pots of toppings which he could dig into. Ask him what he thinks will happen to the face when its cooking.

Finally some children will never have big appetites and you will think they are not eating. Believe me I have been there. My 10 year old still survives on meagre rations her friends clear plates twice as full in 1/2 the time. My HV gave me good advice early on as my daughter hardly fed as a baby (quickest breastfeeder ever ) and she was just 1 pound heavier than her birth weight at 6 weeks. If they are healthy, alert and active they are fine. They just need less food to survive on.

Savvy_Sue

There was a thread on a similar topic a little while back, had a very obvious title so worth skimming a few pages back to see if you can spot it and if there are any helpful hints in there. I tried a quick search but not sure exactly what I'm looking for, maybe someone else can remember. I think it was this board anyway!

It could be that it's just too much like hard work for him to be bothered to feed himself, especially with a spoon. Personally I don't think it matters how he eats at that age, one of mine at two loved soup as long as he could eat it with his fingers (with bread soaked in it!) But does he see you sitting down and eating with him? If you sit him in front of food and then go off and do the washing up, it may not feel like a meal time to him.

And you could try a spoonful of food, followed by a slice of apple. Another spoonful of food, followed by a slice of apple. 3 spoonfuls of food followed by TWO slices of apple! You need a thing for cutting apples into lots of segments from Lakeland (probably other places too). (That ruse worked for a while, but my eldest is now a bit of a mathematical genius probably as a result of my early deceptions!)

But talk to your HV if you are worried.

tiger

try to give different varities of food,also give the fruit only after the meal not before.also allow plenty of play followed by food.plenty of drinks.
also if you also have a friend/family/neighbour with kids who are of similar age group thentry to feed them at the same time, specially if the other kid(s) are eating well then he/she is likely to do as well
makesure baby is not ill

telly-addict

Loads of great advice that I echo, but about the stickers, are you sure he wouldn't like them? I found some good ones in Adams with smiley faces on and my 2 year old loves them. Also the best bit of going to Tumbletots for her is to get a sticker at the beginning and end, even just the one with her name on it!


Good luck with it, my eldest is a picky eater. I just made sure that what she did eat was healthy, making every mouthful count, so to speak. Then she had no clue what the picture of sweets was when the Speech Therapist showed her a picture! No problem with tomatoes or strawberries though:j

P.S. Just occurred to me - what would happen if there were just 3 spoonfuls of main meal on his plate? You would be less stressed about what he hasn't eaten? Have you increased his portion sizes recently? It could be a nightmare to prepare just that amount, but could be worth a try.... Does he have the language skills to ask for more?
Oh and a range of finger foods is a good alternative, or let him eat it with his fingers, perhaps he doesn't like the mechanics of using a spoon, and that is what he is getting bored with, not the food?

HappySad

Thanks for your advice (please can I have more advice from all you MSEers).

I will try out the stickers. Telly-Addict = You say that your child is two love the stickers but my child is just over 1 1/2 and I don't think that he will have a clue about them. But being a desperate housewife/mother I will try it out.

I will see about trying him out with sandwiches and see how that goes. Fingerfood might be good with him.

Also the advice from Savvy_Sue about a mouth of food followed by a mouth of apple might also work.

My son can ask for more food. I taught him some sign language and he does the sign for food when he want something to eat. He sometimes signs for food when he want a snack of raisins or apple or some other fruit.

At the moment I am trying "you will have your lunch and nothing else until dinner time". Today he had the usual 3mouth full of lunch followed by 3/4 of an apple. He then had no snack. Then when dinner time came he eat most of his dinner then had most of his yogart (he does not alway eat his yogart). So at least he has had an almost full dinner even though he had less then 1/2 his lunch.

I will search for the other thread about this topic.. ...but if anyone find this tread could you enter a link to it from this one.

Cheers All
HappySad

jo_b_2

HappySad wrote:

I will search for the other thread about this topic.. ...but if anyone find this tread could you enter a link to it from this one.

Cheers All
HappySad

There is this thread about feeding two year olds:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=46329

There was also an article in Junior magazine saying that toddlers actually need much less food than people tend to think. I would try not to worry too much and use the fruit as a treat, much like you would do with chocs/sweets etc.

Even a few mouthfuls of dinner is nutrition!

I don't know whether your son is too young for stickers, like you say, but it might be worth trying. My son is two and a half and I'd never really believed that stickers would be effective. But we've used them to crack potty training. When he's running to the loo he now says either "I want a wee" or "I want a sticker"! (He only gets stickers for number twos!)

You wouldn't believe how much emphasis he places on a bit of sticky paper!

Good luck with the mealtimes! Best wishes. Jo.

telly-addict

HappySad, did you see House of Tiny Tearaways on BBC 3? They had some major eating problems there, purees at 2 1/2, spoon feeding at 5, a diet limited to chocolate buttons, milk and bread and butter at 5. Interestingly, it was the parental anxiety about eating that was what Dr Tanya focussed on. There was a lot of stress, anxious body language and negative messages going on. It is really easy to be stressed about food without even knowing it, and it gets picked up on by your child. I'm sure I was with my first daughter. I think the 'take it or leave it' attitude will be fine, if you are presenting healthy choices and some of it gets eaten, then that is great.

My 2 yo definitely went through a phase of hardly eating anything for lunch, but she would make up for it at teatime, or vice versa. I don't do sweets or chocolate so what she did have was healthy. I do believe in a snack time in the mid-morning and afternoon because low blood sugar can be a recipe for tantrums, but the snack would often just be some raisins or a plain biscuit.

She has changed now and is more interested at sitting at the table to eat, so she eats more, but not every meal time. Once they are in toddler mode so many things are a lot more interesting than sitting and eating!

good luck with it and try not to worry ( I know, one of the silliest things to say to a mum! I assume this is your first born? It is different with the second!)

gravitytolls

try not to worry.
Use a small plate, maybe one with favourite character on it.
Don't put too much on the plate. And cut it into bite sized pieces so it can be speared with the fork.
Eat at the table, all of you if poss, and don't make a big deal about it, otherwise meals will become a source of dread for all of you.

Good luck

carpool72

My friends little boy has been very similar from about 20 months - could only be relied on to eat fruit and maybe yoghurt / cheese sandwiches if she was lucky. She did get a bit stressed but her HV was v reassuring and pointed out that at least fruit & cheese are healthy (if not entirely balanced) and he would grow out of it. Right enough, he's just turned 2 and is slowly but surely extending his menu. She says the best thing she did was not to make an issue of it, offer him whatever she was having (so it wasn't made especially to then be rejected - lol!) and use fruit and yoghurt as puddings so he ate at least something each meal.

My wee one's not half so bad, but even then swings from eating everything in sight to refusing everything she's offered, even things I know she likes - I've read that this is something they can control and so they do it every so often.