[Strawberry Welli...]

My daughter is 2 years and 8 months and has progressively become more and more fussy. She used to be great and eat anything, now her main diet consists of peanut butter on sandwiches or rice cakes. She obviously will eat other foods but barely any fruit (only blueberries, apple, pear, grapes occasionally)or vegetables (only carrot, peas, corn on the cob, snow peas, beans, sweet potato, potato). It's all very hit and miss though, many days she will go without eating any fresh fruit or veg at all.

I need help! I feel like I have somehow become backed into a corner of extremely limited foods - she refuses to try almost anything unfamiliar (this includes desserts like ice cream or custard!). It's so frustating. I eat a very healthy diet with lots of fruit & veg, whole grains, legumes, plus some eggs & dairy (we are vegetarian). All the meals I cook have lots of veggies and usually beans, lentils or tofu in them but she so often turns her nose up at them I am starting to feel like 'what's the point'.

So far I have avoided the vegetable "hiding" and just offer them steamed or chopped and cooked in a dish (eg, soup, pasta, stir fry), but maybe I should start blending them and hiding them in other things? Or do I go the tough-love route and just not offer anything other than the veggies until she eats them (or goes to bed hungry?). Her behaviour gets so horrible when she hasn't eaten that I usually cave and just let her eat something else.

How do others deal with fussy children?

[librablonde]

Many EB'ers would call me a hard a*se so this might be not what you want to hear, especially if you have a tendency to "cave". As long as you are reasonably sure the child is not sick or has ASD or other health/cognitive issues that might make eating difficult, then I'd just take the food away and put up with the tantrums until the child starts eating again. No other snacks, no alternative provided, no pretty-ing up the food to entice the child, no hiding of veggies, etc...... If the child is hungry enough and learns that you're not a pushover, then they'll start eating. Everyone is allowed a couple of things that they don't like, but beyond that is just manipulation by your DD, OP.

This post has been edited by librablonde: 25/02/2013, 07:43 PM

[galba]

We're hard a*se in our family too. All my kids have gone through this phase but I've just ignored it. I just remove the plate - no arguing, shouting, demanding food be eaten etc and then I say 'No problem - but there's nothing else'.

They learn very quickly.

[cinnabubble]

She obviously will eat other foods but barely any fruit (only blueberries, apple, pear, grapes occasionally)or vegetables (only carrot, peas, corn on the cob, snow peas, beans, sweet potato, potato).

That's a far more varied vegetable intake than either of my children at that age.

[countrymel]

Do you eat together OP?

This is purely anecdata - but of all the fussy eaters I know they are all fed separately to the family meal.

IE: children are fed, put to bed then the adults eat.

The non fussies are just plonked in with the rest of the family and everyone just eats - there is no hovering, no "just one mouthful please".

Eating is viewed as a normal, pleasurable, part of the day.

I know it is a pain to eat early, but maybe it is less of a pain that catering to an overly picky food drama queen?

[lsolaBella]

With a child who refuses any meat, fruit or veggie I think you are doing well.

Food is offered it is their choice to eat or not. Small portion of meal will be a preferred item.

Eg fajitas. Chicken, salad, tortillas. Child decides to eat tortillas only fine, but they are not allowed to gorge themselves on them.

[MelbChick]

I second the idea (if you're not already eating together) to try this. I did with my 2.5 year old son!
We set the table for my husband and I opposite each other and he sat in his high chair on the end. We had dinner and he had an empty plate and watched us eat. It wasn't long before he would request some of what we were having! It was a trick that opened him up to trying a lot of new things. I would say that before that, he was about the same as your daughter. Ate the things he was familiar with happily, but had a kind of resistance to anything new that irked us.
Good luck!

[twinboys]

I had one child who would only eat mashed potato for dinner, We had it a few times a week but he still had to have a bite or a taste of everything else on his plate
Sometimes he realised he did like something and would finish the meal.
Other times he did not eat anymore of what he had to taste so he would get a sandwich.

I hate food arguments - as long as they try what I have prepared that is all that matters.
I never made a fuss or turned it into a long drawn out affair.

[meggs1]

It might help to remember that they have an instinct to eat the familiar food and knock back anything (a) new, (b) strongly flavoured and © that you aren't eating. It's to stop little baby animals from getting poisoned or wasting energy eating something not worthwhile. It's not necessarily a mission to reject our cooking.

Same reason people get morning sickness while pregnant and just want to eat bland carby food.

I sometimes do compromise veggie hiding for my 16mo, by puréeing say half the pasta sauce and leaving the other half chunky veggies. Or we might do carrot and zucchini muffins with some blended right in, and some still visable. That way if he picks out the obvious bits he still gets some goodness, but he still gets the message that we eat veggies.

[Twolittleducks]

Our twins are 20 months old. DD is an eating machine - tries everything, eats everything, then asks for seconds. DS is fussy and gets more so everyday. He often only eats things prepared one way or one brand of something. Both have been exposed to a wide variety of foods, we eat as a family and I've never made a fuss over food. So, I really think that it is often not what the parent's do, just the way some kids are.

For DS I make sure that at least one thing on the plate is a favourite of his. I also hide vegetables and offer this several times a day. Many of his favourites have vegetables hidden in them.

E.g. Toasted cheese sandwich with vegetable puree. Spinach and ricotta pastry. Rainbow pikelets (orange - pumpkin, carrot, sweet potato; purple - beetroot etc). Our butcher sells sausages with 5 vegetables hidden in them.

I also offer snack plates at morning tea and afternoon tea and leave these out on the coffee table for 30-40 minutes while they are playing. DS comes back to the snack plate again and again and eats far more than he would in the highchair.

I also got some tips from this article which I thought were pretty good. See if there is something here for you. http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/feeding-i...ing-picky-eater

Good Luck