Beyond Fed Up - 2 years 8months eating

[twogirlsmommy]

Karen I am sad to admit this but last night dd refused dinner so all she had before bed was a cup of milk.  I'm glad he finally ate the broccoli shapes.  I need to get over to whole foods to buy some for dd as that's the only place around here I can find some.

[Mom to M&M]

OK we REALLY need to get our picky LOs together - especially since you are only like 40 minutes away!!! Playdate one day in the next week or two? Maybe over lunch LOL?!

BTW, we usually buy the broccoli shapes at Whole Foods but Kings sometimes has them too.

[twogirlsmommy]

We have a kings and it is closer then whole foods so I will look the next time I'm out.  We can definitely do a play date over the next week or two.  Dd's last day of school is Thursday but other then that we don't have anything planned till the middle of June lol.

[Mom to M&M]

I'll PM you!

[Mom to M&M]

Sigh. Had made chicken cutlets, roasted potatoes and roasted broccoli for dinner. DS' cutlets were the same but in nugget shape. I gave him two SMALL ones of those, 6 small potato wedges and two pieces of broccoli. He immediately at the chicken and wanted more but wouldn't touch the potatoes (not sure why) or the broccoli. He ended up eating nothing else the rest of the night. I re-offered choice of dinner or apple slices before bed but both were refused.

[Erin M]

What are these broccoli shapes?  Sounds interesting!

[Katet]

FWIW just so you can have hope, DS1 who at 2yo his vegetable content would have been potato (normally in the form of fries) & the veg content of spaghetti bolognaise... which at that age he ate about 3 times/week

Now at pushing 9yo he actually complains that I don't give him enough baked cauliflower, the other day I cut up 1/2 a cauliflower & he ate nearly all of it (about 2 cups of veg)

Because I was always a limited eater as a child I was very able to respect my children in that fact & work at it very slowly - which it has been it really took 6 years to get DS1 to eat enough of the foods to make life easy... still working on DS2 who is 7 tomorrow... if he is anything like DS1, the next 12 months will be the real turning point.

[Mom to M&M]

Erin - these are the broccoli shapes - really like them and this brand overall! http://www.drpraegers.com/Broccoli-Littles-P557.aspx

Thanks Kate -  hope your DS2 continues to improve and will hold out hope here!

After he ate NOTHING for snack or lunch today he had only applesauce and sweet potato fries (homemade and oven baked) for dinner. The other two items were not tried - turkey bacon and vegetable pancakes (homemade). Guess tonight will only re-offer those two items or fruit?

[Erin M]

Oh I've seen those!  We've gotten the fish sticks before, they're good!

[Katet]

After he ate NOTHING for snack or lunch today he had only applesauce and sweet potato fries (homemade and oven baked) for dinner. The other two items were not tried - turkey bacon and vegetable pancakes (homemade). Guess tonight will only re-offer those two items or fruit?

You could also offer something that you know he hasn't really tried, so say he refuses the dinner left overs, you could bargin with a "if you try some grated carrot you can have some..."  & offer a liked, but not loved food, like a slice of bread, sort of start some negotiation going.

[Mom to M&M]

I have tried that before Kate - to no avail but will try again. He doesn't seem open to "bribery" at all! However I'm thinking a bit of a bug is compounding things right now so probably don't have much of shot of things improving until we are all better (though I will keep trying!)

[Mom to M&M]

Update... I've been stricter about meals/trying with a few successes! Still no fruit, though he claims to like it and will say yum but then won't try/eat any... But lately he's been refusing his homemade challah french toast which he brings to nursery school for lunch on Wednesdays (after always liking it well enough in the past). This week I told him when I picked him up and saw it untouched that all I had for lunch was that or a banana and that he wouldn't have any snack after his nap if he didn't eat lunch. He ended up eating almost 2/3 of the piece shortly thereafter!

Then last night for dinner we were all having falafel, roasted potatoes and roasted cauliflower. He only eats the potatoes, and even those aren't always a given. Anyway I served him the same plus some applesauce. He ate the applesauce and 3 of the small potato wedges. Then he wanted to be done but I reminded him that he wasn't going to get anything else later besides this same dinner or some fruit. A few minutes later he ate the last three little potato wedges but still wouldn't touch the cauliflower (I'd put two tiny pieces on his plate) or the falafel (his were shaped like two tiny meatballs). After some calm discussion and him understanding he wouldn't get cereal or anything without TRYING either the falafel OR the cauliflower, about half an hour later he decided to try one of the tiny falafel balls! He didn't like it much and spat out half of it after chewing for a minute but we were thrilled!

[Tweakster]

He didn't like it much and spat out half of it after chewing for a minute but we were thrilled!

This is progress.  Finn tried my smoothie the other day...he asked to watch me make it and I said 'only if you try it' LOL  I'm such a mean so and so.  So I put some on a spoon and he balked and then I said 'well you have to stick your finger in it and then lick your finger'...he did, he went 'blech!' and spat but at least he tried it.

It's such HARD work...you have way more patience for making variety than I do Karen.

[Mom to M&M]

LOL Wendy - that's a good one. Yea Matthew now knows that his "juice" is really a splash of apple juice blended with lots of water and TONS of fresh and frozen fruit and usually avocado and sometimes spinach too. He got upset at first but now likes to help me make it and drinks it same as always.

It really is hard and time consuming but I have to keep trying it's just too important to me!

[clairebear79]

OMG Karen, I have just read the first 2 pages of this thread & I can't believe how similar  your DS's eating issues are to those we are having with my DS atm.

He is 21.5 months & for the last 10 months or so has been incredibly picky.  It has gradually gotten worse & worse, to the point where he will eat cereal (breakfast isn't a problem), bread, fruit and some meats/fish (eg sausage, homemade meatballs, chicken nuggets, fishfingers etc.  The biggest problem is with his tea - he literally eats meat, and NOTHING else.  He is completely refusing pasta, rice, cous cous, any form of potatoes (although chips would never be refused but I don't want to serve them).  He refuses ALL vegetables/ The worst bit is that he won't even TRY the foods, he just point blank refuses.  We keep falling into the trap of making him what we KNOW he will eat, but its so limited & I don't feel its healthy enough. MIL has same problems at her house but at nursery, DS will eat meals eg chicken casserole, sausage, potatoes & veg.  Am wondering if this is peer pressure rather than anything else?  But it shows that he does at least LIKE these foods.

We're trying to make more effort to make some new/different meals for him, but he is still refusing to eat & most days is going hungry.  He constantly demands dessert & spends much of the evening having tantrums b.c he is hungry & we won;t give dessert if he hasn't had dinner.  For the last 2 nights we are have tried positive reinforcement by saying 'you CAN have dessert IF you eat your dinner' rather than our usual 'no you can't have dessert because you didn't eat dinner' and he has tantrumed & cried (tonight was 1.5hrs) before he eventually said 'Ollie eat chicken & rice' & I reheated it & he ate.  We were quite shocked he did it & we plan to follow through & keep saying the same thing, but I am still feeling a bit unsure if this is the right approach b/c I don't want to 'force' him to eat & I'm not sure if this still counts as bribing him?!

He is also MPI & it was interesting to read Mashi's comments that it seems to be common that picky eaters are often MPI.  I have been at a complete loss as to what to do with him, & I'm so glad I found this thread because there seems to be some really great suggestions here.  Thankyou!!    I will be spending some time reading through in more detail but wondered Mashi if you would mind popping on & having a read of my thread too, as I'm not sure how much I can apply some of the tactics here with my DS being that bit younger.

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=231657.new#new

Thanks.x