Fussy Eater

[scotlass]

My 22 month old daughter used to be a great eater but over the last 2 or 3 months has got really fussy.

She now refuses to eat pasta (which i used to cook almost daily!)or anything that is too lumpy. She's very good at trying things but if the texture isn't right then she spits it out.

She loves toast, english muffins, crumpets but refuses fruit and vegetables.

Does anyone have any tips? i have tried serving the veg as finger food with dips etc but she's not having any of it!

Please inspire me, i've really ran out of ideas :)

[Pugwash]

When my kids went through this stage - I liquidised fruit and made smoothies, carrots got pureed and put into mashed potatoes, custard got coloured green. Basically nothing was as it seemed!

One trick we learnt when the kids were older, is not to serve them certain foods, but made sure on the adults plates this food was very obvious, when they moaned why they could not have the same as us, make a statement that this was not food for chldren, 9/10 they ask for a taster and liked it!

[Pickle]

I wonder whether she might be getting her molars? Can be a really slow and painful process, and I guess it could be having an impact on what she'll eat?

Pugwash's ideas are great - especially having things on your plate that you haven't given the kids. Both of my kids can be easily fooled into eating if I put some of their food (which is the same as ours anyway) on my fork and pretend it's off my plate!

Not sure if she's quite old enough for this, but a top trick with my 2.5 year old is to simply rename things that he's not so fussed on eating. Porridge with raisins is "robot porridge" and comes complete with a robot dance (here's hoping the neighbours can't see in my kitchen early in the morning!), chopped pear is "moon rocks", and he'll generally try a few things if convinced they're things that truck drivers eat!

[legalbeagle]

How about making your own pizzas? I cook up onions, courgette, peppers, carrots - whatever is in the fridge with a tin of tomatos and liquidise it all together. You can then use this sauce as the base and add other toppings she likes - make faces or pictures on the pizza to get her to join in. If you don't have time to make your own dough then sainsburys do an Annabel Carmel kids pizza which is free of rubbish, and in the shape of a teddybear. Again, add your own toppings to make the teddy face. You could even just use a muffin as the base if she'll eat those.

If the weather turns nice (!) you could make your own ice lollies - just mix together fruit juice and water. Again I think there are some fairly cheap ice lolly moulds in sainsburys.

To get fruit down my fussy ones I used to make fruit crumbles and smother them in custard - a dish known as "cakeyandcustard" by the kids which is fine by me if they eat it!

[Fuschia]

You can make a very good fast pizza with a round pitta, too, just moisten the edges before putting the topping on. Cooks in 5 mins.

Tips that work for us:

have nice plate, spoon and forks for them

sit down and eat together (though you could also try feeding her while she watches TV, or give her fruit while she'sn the bath, for her to catch like fish and eat)

Snacks in the car or a push chair are good too

Don't worry about every meal, look at what she eats over a week

Don't let her fill up on milk, never give juice before a meal

xx

[scotlass]

Thank you all for your suggestions, I will try them all!

Leagalbeagle, i made a huge pot of ratatouille on Sunday afternoon and she kept spitting out the lumps so i took your advice and liquidised it. She has just eaten a huge bowl of it with some toast to dip in :))

I will also try and use it as a pizza sauce.

Thank you everyone, I am now feeling a lot more positive

[legalbeagle]

Glad it worked! If she likes dipping toast in sauces you could also try humous and guacamole?

[pebbles]

I promise you're not alone

My 23 month old was a fabulous eater until he was 18 months old and then suddenly everything went to pot. He eats, pasta & pesto, baked beans on toast and fish fingers (all of which HAVE to be cold). We have tried disguising everything we can think of in these 3 meals but somehow he seems to be the cleverest person in the world and doesn't even need to taste it, one look at pasta & pesta which is the same colour as normal but has vegies pureed in it and he won't touch it!!!

Meal times are probably the thing I find most stressful about motherhood

Thanks to everyone above with all their ideas, i will continue to try them all and keeping fingers crossed for all of us parents of fussy eaters - here's praying that it's a phase!!!

One thing i do use which is a life saver for me knowing that he's getting vegies and fruit are those ella's kitchens squeezy pouch things. he won't eat pureered fruit or vegies when i do them but for some reason he will these so he eats copious amounts of them which is why i perhaps am not panicking as much because i know he is getting nutrients of some sort.

i think what i hate the most is that quite often my friends with babies the same age will all go out for lunch to pizza express or something and their little'uns eat the pasta or pizza and love the outing whereas seb just screams, won't eat anything and i end up leaving early or feeding him ella's kitchems - i dream of the day we can go for lunch/dinner with him and he being part of the meal

ps - i'm a fussy eater (although my son has never witnessed this) and my mother is now quietly laughing in her hanky at what she went through for 18 years - i pray he isn't anything like me

anyway, enough waffling - time for a glass of wine me things :)

[Fuschia]

I remember once standing in the kitchen carefully hiding a tiny piece of grated cheese inside each piece of macaroni.. didn't fool son no 1 though!

[scotlass]

Pebbles, it's so nice to hear that I'm not alone. I also can't wait for the day i can take my daughter to a restaurant and choose something from the menu. I seem to be the only mummy who packs marmite sandwiches when going out for lunch :-S

I hope things get easier for you

Fuschia, you've just had me in fits of laughter! I can just picture you painstakingly hiding strands of cheese inside macaroni. Your face must have been a picture when your little one refused :))

[Fuschia]

scotlass Wrote:

>

> Fuschia, you've just had me in fits of laughter! I

> can just picture you painstakingly hiding strands

> of cheese inside macaroni. Your face must have

> been a picture when your little one refused :))

He won't do cheese. Unfortunate for a vegetarian. Nor will he entertain pasta sauce. Makes for an interesting home made pizza, I must say.

[Tanza]

Another route for dealing with an exceptionally fussy eater is to simply just serve up the food they will eat - not worry about trying to introduce anything new at all. I followed this advice (which I must admit, from a lazy perspective suited me better than the frustration of cooking a dish, having it immediately rejected and then throwing it away). For some children, the dinner table can become a bit of a battleground and this does at least take away the stress for everyone involved and the focus is no longer on the fussy eater.

My son is now five. He's not an adventurous eater now, but he manages at school lunches and he will at least try a mouthful of something new from time to time. I also found eating out seemed to really help, I would order their version of his familiar homecoooked dish and that got him used to trying something different.

[Fuschia]

I have some success cooking some new stuff and then having fish fingers on the side.. as long as everybody else eats the new food, I don't have to feel bad if son no 1 won't entertain it. Mr F bribes him with sweets to eat new food (it works, I am loth to agree, and after a few tries, he seems to forget the new food is "new")

He is quite good at tasting new bits if we're out - chinese food or meze type meals are good with lots of new things to nibble at