2.5 year old very inconsistent with eating. Help!

[BareFootMomma]

DD is a grazer. Most days she wants to eat all day long. The trouble is, there is usually NOTHING in the house that she wants to eat. I end up opening the fridge and cupboards and asking her one-by-one if she wants anything in them.....the whole "do you want bread, crackers, sandwich, yogurt? Usually the answer is no. Many times if the answer is yes, by the time I get the food out and ready for her to eat she then says no to it. Most of the time if I just make a meal she refuses to eat it. She never eats what I fix for DH and I for dinner....never. I end up trying to figure out what she wants to eat and then throwing it away because she changes her mind once I have it ready. SOOOO much food gets wasted trying to get her to eat! This has unfortunately been going on for a LONG time, and I am finally reaching the end of my rope with it.

Now that she has learned the word hungry she cries and yells "hungry" all day long. She has also started to wake up early from naps and in the morning saying she is hungry.....but then she wont eat anything. Some things she does eat on a consistent basis are fresh vegetables and fruits, but even with those many times I will get them out and ready for her and then she acts like they are poison.

Liquids aren't an issue. She drinks about 16-18 oz of milk a day and maybe that much of water.

It is getting really frustrating. I would love it if she would just eat what I offered, or at least what she said she wanted. Can I just offer that same food every meal until she finally gives in and eats it?

[Lemonthyme]

I don't have a picky toddler (yet, I think it happens to everyone) but from an inexperienced perspective, it sounds like going too far to just offer the same thing for every meal.

I think what I would do but this isn't from the voice of experience, is offer say 4 - 5 things at every meal which you then offer and take away if she doesn't eat them and I'd include fruit / veg in that so, e.g.:

Breakfast: offer a cereal, grapes, satsuma, toast

Lunch: offer sausages, potato, peas, carrots followed by a yoghurt

etc.

Then not get too stressed whether she eats it or not.  With snacks, I'd just give 1-2 options and take them away if she doesn't eat them.

Also the preparation time seems to be an issue?  Is it worth having some things prepared at the start of the day?  E.g. small dishes with cut up fruit, a mix of dry cereal and dried fruit as a snack?

Alternatively, maybe a whacky idea but have you involved her in cooking as a play thing?  Maybe start by getting her to chose her own home made pizza toppings?  She might be more persuaded if she gets to chose as well.

How do you approach mealtimes?  Do you all sit together and eat together?  I was amazed the other day when at a mum and tots group; they have a snack at the end.  I put some fruit onto my son's plate and a small piece of cucumber.  I said to another mum "I don't know why I bother, he never eats cucumber" which he normally doesn't but seeing the other kids doing it, he gave it a go!

[Truly Blessed]

Hi Hon,

YUCK! Hugs on this one. DS is 2 in January and was a super eater for a long time but has gone through some very bad patches. I am not the strongest person when it comes to the 'Eat this or there's nothing else' route  but I can categorically tell you that it is the conveyor belt of food called 'Mammy' that is the problem. This is NOT me on my soap box because I have did it for a long time and have felt like I may as well throw the money straight in the bin and cut out the middle man. Right now I have struck a happy medium..here's what I do, I hope it can work for you too  .

I offer food that Sam (DS) has eaten in the past and enjoyed, this way I can be sure that if it's left it not because he doesn't like it. For breakfast there is 2 choices, toast (with a topping of his choice, within reason LOL) or cereal. I vary the cereal to avoid boredom, but his favourite thing at the moment is Ready Brek (porridge), followed by fruit which he loves. At lunch time Sam has never eaten a lot so I give him a snack..for eg: cheese and crackers with fruit for afters. One thing I have found to be critical is to cut the afternoon snacks. If Sam doesn't eat his snack at lunch time he will often be hungry an hour before Dinner, but I only leave it out for 1 hour then times up,  so instead of allowing him to snack too close to Dinner I bring Dinner forward an hour and then let him have a snack before BT instead. This means that he is hungry enough for a meal. With his evening meal I offer a new vegetable..he will usually leave it but sometime he'll pick it up and just lick it, which is a start! he has amazed me by eating broccoli around the 9th offering, so you just never know. Nutritionist' say it's not our job to force our children to eat but to offer a variety of food at mealtimes and keep offering previously refused food so as to allow them to change their minds. Just try putting a small amount out, with Sam volume really has a negative effect. He can always have more if he wants.

So all of the above said: Some days Sam will eat next to nothing, other day he will eat really well, but after MONTHS of stressing and writing threads of my own, I have come to realise that  HE WILL EAT IF HE IS HUNGRY ENOUGH  and I have finally relaxed about it..about bloody time!!!!!!! 

Once again I can't stress enough how important it is not to continuously offer alternatives. I found what happened with Sam when I was doing that is that he would just wait and see if something better was coming along and this seems to be the case with DD too. I also have learned that Toddlers are not good with too many choices, they aren't able to handle it yet. I have put this to the test with Sam. If I give him 2 things to choose from he can do it..but more than that and his brain goes to mush.

I hope this is helpfull to you, once again I am as guilty as anyone, because I JUST WANT HIM TO EAT!!!! and the thought of him being hungry is awful, but he never will be. And also once they get to Toddler age hunger will not wake them from sleep. One thing to add that may help you relax if you haven't done this already is to put DD on a multivitamin with Omega 3. That way you know for sure that she is getting all the nutrition that she needs. Sam has been on drops daily for a year now and it certainly seems to have warded off illness, not everything of course but he is a generally a well child...Please Lord, I barely can write this for fear of tempting fate.

Lots of Love Hon

Good Luck!!!!

(X)