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Dealing with a fussy eater
#grotbags#
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How do you guys deal with children that are fussy eaters?
I've maybe left it a little late to be forceful with him, but my 6 year olds eating habits are getting ridiculous. It's pizza, pasta, rice & chicken or ham sandwiches and that's about it. I can usually get him to eat spag bol, but not without much huffing and puffing.
Xmas day he ate the soup after much persuading. Though his gran said "4 more spoonfuls and that will do". I wanted to strangle her, but I made him eat it. After that he sat with his back to us, face buried in the wall, refusing point blank to eat the main course.
Today i took him out to our local cafe for lunch. He happily chose a bacon roll. It took over 1 hour to eat it, but I put my foot down and we stayed til it was eaten. Tonight I made curry. It's barely been touched. "I'm not eating, I'm not eating it" is still ringing in my ears
He won't eat potato of any shape or form (other than McD's chips, very rarely). I'm so sick of it :mad:
I've maybe left it a little late to be forceful with him, but my 6 year olds eating habits are getting ridiculous. It's pizza, pasta, rice & chicken or ham sandwiches and that's about it. I can usually get him to eat spag bol, but not without much huffing and puffing.
Xmas day he ate the soup after much persuading. Though his gran said "4 more spoonfuls and that will do". I wanted to strangle her, but I made him eat it. After that he sat with his back to us, face buried in the wall, refusing point blank to eat the main course.
Today i took him out to our local cafe for lunch. He happily chose a bacon roll. It took over 1 hour to eat it, but I put my foot down and we stayed til it was eaten. Tonight I made curry. It's barely been touched. "I'm not eating, I'm not eating it" is still ringing in my ears
He won't eat potato of any shape or form (other than McD's chips, very rarely). I'm so sick of it :mad:
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Don't take him out to eat at the moment, it will be too stressful. For each meal, you cook whatever everyone else is eating, you put a child-sized portion on the table in front of him, and if he doesn't eat it, you take it away. Do NOT engage in any form of persuasion. Just say "This is what we're having for dinner, eat it if you want, no biggie if you don't, but there will be nothing else." Cut out desserts for the moment, just go with a single course. You can offer a healthy snack between meals, but if he argues about it, take it away. Stay in control at all times, ignore any tantrums, and be pleasant and firm - you are the adult here. If he does anything like throwing the food about, treat it as you would any bad behaviour, i.e. naughty step, withdrawal of privileges, etc.
He will NOT starve. He WILL eventually eat. But you must stick with it, however hard it gets. One day you'll go out for a meal and he'll eat the lot with a smile on his face.
You could try potato wedges. You chop the potatoes into wedges, put them in a bowl and he adds the oil and stirs them around.
Have with home made chicken goujons. Slice the chicken into strips, put the egg and bread crumbs on a plate and let him roll the pieces in the egg then in the breadcrumbs. It will be messy.
Or jacket potatoes. Cook the potatoes, then scoop out the centre into a bowl. Let him add some onion and grated cheese, give it a good stir then he scoops it back into the jackets.
What sort of pasta, is it just the spaghetti hoops type out of tins?
- get your son involved in preparation of food. If he helps to cook something with a 'new' ingredient he may be more willing to eat it.
- make sure he understands what he is eating, by taking him to a farm, or watching a programme or reading a book on food. Also any health benefits and if his heroes eat them - footballers, cartoon characters etc.
- make a new food chart. When your son eats so much of a new food give him a star and when he has 5 or 10 stars he gets a gift from the 'magic box' (we wrapped up crayons and colouring books and things from the pound shop). This way he is trying new foods and eventually he'll realise what he likes.
- if he genuinely doesn't like something after a fair try at it don't make him feel bad or force him to eat it. I hate peppers, always have, and as long as I ate my other veggies my mum never made me eat peppers. As a result I still love all veggies apart from peppers, not a bad result.
- make foods look familiar. If he likes pizza, make fruit pizza from melon and strawberry, or try sandwiches of ham and very very thin slices of tomato.
- don't make separate meals. If he moans he is hungry after missing his dinner offer him bread and water (sounds harsh but it does work). If he moans at bread and water say, well its bread and water or weetabix and honey (or whatever you want him to learn to like). He no longer feels in control as he has a choice in the first place, and is more likely to eat the next meal or at least try it, because he knows it's bread and water if he doesn't. It took a few days with my nephew but he got in the habit of at least trying his dinner and with a lot of positive praise for trying.
Hope this is helpful OP, it did work for my sister and our family and now my nephew eats pretty much anything, even stuff I hate, he's 17 now and eats sushi (yeuukkk!!) and cooks from scratch too. Does your son eat any fruit / drink fruit juice - if not it might be an idea to get him on some children's vitamins just to be on the safe side - we gave my nephew a vitamin tonic from the chemist on recommendation from our GP. He's now 5 foot 9
Thanks for the reply. I got so annoyed earlier that as soon as he opened his mouth to complain, I sent him to his room, to which he clapped his hands and said "yesss". Then of course, I saw that as his victory and insisted he came back and ate it. No joy, he's back in his room, happy as Larry.
But yes, tomorrow I'm going to start with your approach. I usually cave and give him toast or cereal before bed when he hasn't eaten much dinner, but I don't know if thats right either. Is that a snack or just me feeling guilty and worrying that he'll fade away in the night?
If he likes his room, take away his favourite toys. Each time he misbehaves, toy goes. If he's good and eats a meal, toy comes back. That's why the naughty step or loss of TV privileges tends to work better - kids' rooms are much too nice!
Do not offer him ANYTHING except at set mealtimes and snack times. He can have a drink of milk before he goes to bed, that should stop him from fading away. If he doesn't want that, he's clearly not that hungry. It's going to be tough, and the rest of the family (especially grandparents) will have to support you, but I guarantee that if he's a healthy kid, you'll get through this. I'll bet he doesn't sit at school dinners and whine at the teacher, he just thinks you're a soft touch - time for tough love!
So she stopped the nagging, the coaxing, the drama, put my dinner in front of me and took it away uneaten. Then just as suddenly as it had happened, it went away and I realised I was very hungry and ate everything on my plate. I think sometimes it can be a bit of a power struggle, or attention seeking, or genuinely just a weird childhood phase.
Relax, no child ever starved thenselves to death, let them eat what they want , it is better than nothing at all, the fussiness will go in time, and if it doesnt, it should not matter.
By forcing him to sit and eat something that take an hour to do, you are feeding his 'fear' of eating and well may cause problems later in life, never EVER force food onto a child.
I have had 3 faddy eaters, one of them now eats everything in sight, the other two are still fussy, its just how they are.
Soon learned to eat what was on the plate.
As far as sending him to his room is concerned, as he sees it as a victory, then make him sit at the table until everybody else is finished eating. If he doesn't eat it, just simply take it away without making an issue out of it and don't offer any more food till the next meal time.
You must avoid the situation where he is controling you by making meal times a chore.
He hates all potato with a passion, but it's worth a try I guess. Re the pasta, no, not just hoops which I guess is something. He'll eat normal pasta with tomatoey sauces, but it's bloody boring having that 3 times a week :sleep
i just feel bad that he doesn't eat "good" food. Right down to where I buy grapes from is an issue, or he'll eat cherry tomatoes for his gran, but not me, because "they're not from Morrisons"
He just came in and apologised, but is still refusing to eat what's still n the table. So he's back to his room. These are going to be some cr@ppy holidays
I don't want to be hard on him. Other than this he's a wee smasher and my best buddy, but I just feel like I'm not doing enough by feeding him, pizza, pasta, rice, pizza, pasta, rice.
Goodness, you can't have him dictating where you buy the food from - that kid's watching WAY too much TV!! Don't keep sending him to his room, just take the food away and leave him to it. Much less hassle for you. The message here is simple: "I'm serving you good food that won't kill you; if you don't want it, don't eat it, but there's nothing else on offer". Personally, I don't believe in catering to fads and letting children eat what they want - I did that with my son, and I really wish I hadn't. It took years to get him to eat "proper" food, he survived on beans, tomato-based pizzas and cheese for years, but Gordon Ramsay doesn't do those!
Oh, I don't, I've just stopped trying to give him tomatoes. And bananas and potato and carrot and everything but green apples, grapes (Tesco or M & S
My mother saw the battles that they had and decided not to have that in her house, and just left me to get on with it. She made meals and put them on the table, made me taste a mouthful, but if I didn't want to eat it, she just shrugged and let me not eat it - I lived on apples and potato and raw carrots for a good while. She never ever made anything specially for me, but there was always something in the meal that I would eat, usually potatoes. I remember genuinely not liking the tastes and textures of most foods, and being anxious about going to other people's houses in case they made me eat things. And then one day I just decided to eat normally, and started eating things. Nowadays I eat almost anything. I'm so so glad though that my mother never turned my fussy eating into an issue - mealtimes were never a battle or stressful or upsetting. They must have been frustrating for her, because she is a really good cook and I just refused to eat things, but I was healthy enough, and grew out of the fussiness by myself.
Mealtimes should never be a battleground - they should be a family time when people actually talk to each other and share food as a social experience. Even if a child isn't eating, if the rest of the family are talking to him, and to each other, and eating the food, the message will get through. The main thing is not to single out the child in any way.
Sometimes there CAN be a physical issue. I used to hate eating meat that you had to chew - didn't mind mince, couldn't stand steak, used to either have to swallow the bits whole or spit it out. Years later, I discovered that my teeth were lined up wrongly - instead of the top front teeth overlapping the bottom ones, they met in the middle, so that the back teeth had a big gap and I couldn't chew properly. Some excellent dentistry reconfigured my "bite", and at LAST I can enjoy my steak!
put it in front of him, at the end of the meal if its not eaten remove it and thats that till next meal time
dont make a fuss, just ignore it
Getting him to even eat a cheese sandwich would be a start! I give him £1.65 for school lunch. He buys a ham wrap, eats the ham, bins the rest, 9 times out of 10 not even getting a dessert.
I do give him a multivitamin which, ironically, is disgusting and he drinks only really milk and water. I guess it could be worse. I would just be happier if I could add 1 or 2 things to his "list".
Thanks for all your replies and I'll definitely be going with the "eat it or beat it" approach.
x
Let us know how it goes. You yourself will feel a LOT better just by taking control, though, even if it takes a little while to get junior to cooperate.
Hi kania, yes, I think that seems to be what most people have suggested. So I've sat him down now and told him from now on I'll make his meals and if he chooses not to eat it, so be it, but there will be nothing til the next meal, except maybe a piece of fruit. He just smiled like an angel and said he is looking forward to his breakfast :rolleyes:
Ironically, mine was slightly better as a toddler