My guy is nearly four now but since he was about 2.5 we have had a rule that he has to taste everything on his plate even if he doesn't eat it. We make a game of it and we have set steps that we go through, and a song (from Yo Gabba Gabba 'Try It, You Might Like It!'). The steps are so that he doesn't just have to put a new or suspicious food right in his mouth and eat it. So:
First we touch it and say how it feels (hot, cold, wet, dry)
Then we smell it
Then we pick it up with our fingers and kiss it
Then we stick out our tongue and lick it
Then we put it in our mouth and take it straight back out again (might do this a few times)
Then if we've got this far, we'll put in a tiny bit and eat it.
If after all these steps he really doesn't like it, he doesn't have to eat it!
But to answer your question Etsy yes you can send him to bed with an empty stomach! Try it and see, my LO has never woken from hunger in the night since he turned about 18 months or even less. If you discover he does wake from hunger you could give him a banana right at bedtime and don't let it be connected in any way with what he did or didn't eat at dinner time.
