’Neophobic’ toddler, mum in tears!

Hi all,

I have a gorgeous two year old who is great to live with in so many ways... apart from his eating. He's always been quite picky, and very sensitive to new textures in foods. Lately he has become really difficult. He won't even put anything new in his mouth - even if it's made up of foods he likes, if it's remotely new looking he won't even try. Amongst foods he likes if they have a tiny speck on them that doesn't look right (e.g. a hard bit in a pear, some peel on an apple) he'll reject it outright and may decide never to eat that food again. The few vegetables he did eat now seem to be rejected and it seems to be a downward spiral.

I've read several books and articles on the subject and the general recommendation seems to be to offer frequent meals which include atleast some foods the kid likes and then not offer snacks in between if they refuse the food. I have been doing this and sometimes it works ok but if he decides suddenly to reject a food I thought he liked I'm left with an hour or more of tantrums and a child with no energy to play because he's so hungry. I want to stick to my guns but often we both end up in tears with the worst possible outcome - meal times becoming a trauma. One book said to give bread with every meal, which I dont want to do as he loves bread and would happily eat nothing else.

I feel really upset about the whole thing and would love some sound advice from anyone who has experienced something similar. Is there any way to give him more confidence with trying food? And am I better off going with his needs than making meal times so hard?

Cheers

The doco was called My child won't eat and is from the UK, I think it aired on Ch1. You might have more luck tracking it down on the net than I am!

I remember my cousin eating potato, tomato sauce and jelly - for Christmas dinner! That was all she would eat for ages. I think she is fairly normal now though.

I don't have any advice to offer sorry but just wanted say that I'm also have issues with my girls eating so I know how stressful it is and have the same dilemma as you re giving in or having hungry babies.

So I've just fed them meatballs every night for a week cos it was the only thing they would eat and I decided I would rather they ate something than nothing.

Good luck, I hope things improve.



Edited by Danda08

I think he was about two and a half? You could try giving him say two spoonfuls of dinner and then one spoonful of pudding, then repeat but with three spoonfuls of dinner - just so he gets the idea?

If bribery doesnt work don't push that one either. My parents did with me and it failed and just made me pissed off. If it does work then great

kakapo wrote: DS (now three and a half) has always disliked certain textures and been difficult to feed. Age two was awful - three is much better. Bribery worked for us in the end: letting him see his 'pudding' (most days this was something small such as one lolly) while eating dinner and reminding him he could have it once he'd eaten dinner. Started with tiny portions of dinner, so he could learn we would give him his reward if he did what we asked. I was initially worried that he would refuse to eat anything in future unless a reward was on offer, but once he got into the habit of eating a healthy portion of dinner he stopped expecting it and didn't notice when we stopped offering. I felt like a terrible Mum for resorting to this, but in the end it worked for us - he started eating proper meals and had way more energy.

We resorted to bribery at bang on 2yrs as well, after following all the "expert" advice not to battle and him still not eating well. DS wasn't as bad as you've described, he was only bad with dinner foods - his overall diet wasn't too bad as he loved fruit and ate plain veges - but it was getting to the point where there was no meat apart from chicken nuggets and the odd bit of plain steak if we were lucky was eaten, then he started eliminating what veges he'd eat too so only corn and carrots I think were being eaten. Nothing could be mixed together, have sauce or be touching. Daycare lunches were an issue too, as they were cooked meals.

He loved desserts though, and we did use the odd lolly or chocolate as the treat too for a the first few weeks but after a while just yoghurt or fruit was enough of a bribe. We started with adding one new vege at a time (the ones he used to eat first) and just small amounts he had to eat to get the treat. Once he was back to eating an OK range of plain veges we moved on to the meat. Every second night he got what he liked (nuggets and chips / plain pasta with no sauce with a combination of the veges he liked) and the next night was some other meat (but with the rest of the meal things he would eat). By the time he was 3 he'd eat most plain healthy food, but still not much mixed so usually had a meat n 3 veg dinner! And then we'd do the odd mac n cheese or bolognaise type meal. Hes WAY better now at just over 4! and I think if we hadn't battled he'd still be really fussy and probably would have got anaemic from the lack of iron! I was a fussy kid so I can relate to his sensitive taste buds, so we dont make him eat things he really doesn't like and he still wouldn't eat something like sushi or even pizza probably ... but he eats a heathly diet and will try alot more these days so we're happy.
I didn't really like the "go to bed hungry" thing - especially as he'd been a heart bub so we spent so much time trying to get him to gain weight as a baby - so I used to let him have a but of bread or a banana in the bath if he refused to eat dinner and we'd said nothing else at the time. and he still had a cup of milk before bed til 3. Thankfully we didn't have to do that too many nights.

If it makes you feel better, my second child will eat ANYTHING, so I know its not us! lol    Although shes definitely go more selective since 18months and is less keen on plain veges than him -- but you can hide them and she doesn't notice (he can pull out grated veges in mince because of the different texture, but will happily eat them all plain as finger food!).

Good luck!! I feel ya pain!

Not quite the same situation, but my 16month old has started to refuse anything that looks like a 'proper dinner' for the last couple of weeks. Not sure why... possibly teething. He used to be a super eater, and dinners would be brown rice, baked salmon, peas, that kind of thing. All of a sudden he just stopped eating dinner. He used eat peas so quick it was like he enhaled them, now he won't even pick one up

Anyhoo... after about of week of stressing, I've now decided to go with the flow, but have made some sneaky changes. I've added LSA to his porridge for extra nutrition. I bake bread rolls for him (like mini focacias) but mix sweet potato and spinach etc into the dough. I've swapped his afternoon fruit 'smoothie' (one of those Only Organic/Natureland sachets) to a carrot, pumpkin and apple, so it's not just fruit.

He's a big bread eater too, and I've discovered that even if he refuses something like chicken for his dinner, if I stick it in a sandwich, he'll eat it

I hoping it's just a phase, because he's far to young to understand any bribery or 'this is all your getting' kind of thing.

Oh, he still has minimum 3 breastfeeds a day too... so it's not like he's starving or anything LOL

Ooooh, had a major breakthru thought you ladies might appreciate. DD asked to try some corn off our plate. and she kept eating it, half of mine and half of DH's. We couldn't believe our eyes, but kept our excitement very low key incase she stopped. This is the first chewable vegetable she has ever eaten if you don't count baked beans.

Sometimes I don't think people truly understand that some kids just will not try something eventually after it is offered time and again. That is where I find it frustrating to find advice about these things because not every child is that easy, so its good to hear that there are others that are having this battle.

Wow, this is a great thread! Im having very similar issues with my nearly 18 month old DD. Things had been going ok until she decided that she only feeds herself a few weeks ago (we can't spoon feed her at all anymore) and now its hard to get her to eat much of anything.

I've also found that since we started having dinner together at 6.00pm every night she isn't that interested either. Dinner quite often becomes a jam sandwich and a piece of processed cheese because she won't eat anything else!

I'm hoping this is just a phase and we'll keep offering her different foods but I think for our DD it is a texture thing - if she doesn't like the look of it or the feel of it when she pops it in her mouth it comes straight back out and we get the big "no". I think if she actually tried half of the food we offered she would like it!!

So anyway, no advice here as I'm struggling too but its nice to have somewhere to discuss it and maybe throw some ideas around :-)