3 yr old hasnt eaten dinner in months

[Avery3]

no wait... hes eaten dinner TWICE in the past 5 months! he hates everything I make up even if hes liked it before. he refuses dinner every single night. still claims he is hungry. I offer to reheat his dinner and he either accepts or doesnt. Ive tried earlier dinners, later dinners, ive tried no afternoon snacks at all.

when he wakes up in the morning hes hungry, he can wake up very early and want breakfast. he demands food all day long. for awhile there i was giving him food all day long thinking it was a growth spurt etc. then I stopped that and only gave him healthy options. he eats breakfast and lunch fine (sometimes lunch is a hit and miss and if it is then all i hear all day long is  "Im hungry:)

In fact all I do hear all freaking day long is "mum..... Im hungry" ALL. DAY. LONG. so he should be hungry by the time dinner comes right? no he will not eat dinner.

what am I doing wrong??

[jacsmummy]

(((Hugs))) Please don't take this the wrong way~How do you react when he won't eat? Do you get upset/angry or hide that from him? Do you sit down & eat together or do you make his tea & watch him sort of thing? Could it be an attention thing do you think? You've probably already thought this? How frustrating for you

Could you try to do a treat like a picnic on the floor or out in the car parked up somewhere pretty just to see if he's genuinely not hungry through distraction? I appreciate you can't do this all the time~more as an experiment really?

Do you only have one child? My friend had a very similar problem with her first son, and it all changed when her second son came~now they both eat really well.....Could you do a couple of dinner dates with a friend. I found in the past when my Ds was being picky I would invite a buddy round & they would eat like horses just for being in company.

Take a breath & hopefully someone will be able to come up with a plan that will work? 

[Avery3]

well I never used to react at all. I would simply say "If you are hungry later I will reheat your dinner, there is nothing else to eat though" and thats what I would do. I never gave in. I came on here a few months ago and people suggested I give him one last chance to eat before brushing teeth and so I started doing that and still nope. He would say he was hungry and I would offer to reheat his dinner. most times he says yes and so I do it and he sits to eat it and says "I dont want it" so I say thats it, theres nothing else.

Now I do get upset sometimes and even one time I cried because i was just so frustrated. I also have just started saying "no you are not hungry!" which I know is wrong to say but Im so fed up I just say it

When we go out to someones house for dinner he does the same thing. Even if hes with friends who are eating. he wont eat or he will take two bites and thats it so I figure hes too busy playing to want to sit and eat. But even at a friends house once my friend wasnt happy that he hadnt eaten what she had made up because it wasnt cheap (she had made it for the adults too otherwise I dont think she wouldve made it up for just the kids ) but it was such a waste.

Ive also tried a picnic on the floor. same thing. doesnt matter where we eat it he just wont eat.

every morning he gets up and hes so hungry and I know its because he didnt have dinner. Its so frustrating because Im running around for the first hour of being up trying to get a bottle made for my other son, get the breakfasts on, get baby dressed and nappy changed and all i can hear over and over is "mummy, I hungry" in fact he just came up to me and said it now!!! Im ready to smack my head against a brick wall!

When I am on the phone to my mother my son will come up and say "Mum?" and i will say "yes?" and I will hear my mother mimic him on the phone before he says it "Im hungry" because its all he says and I think everyone is over it. I could offer him food till the cows come home and he either wont eat it unless it rubbish food (which he hardly gets anyway!) or he will eat it and STILL come up over and over and over again saying "Im hungry" so by the time we get to dinner time and its all Ive heard all day (and i mean literally the first words out of his mouth when we get home from daycare is "Im hungry") Im thinking "JUST BLOODY EAT THEN!!!"

[Khalam's Mama]

Not to such an extent but k does this lately too. He wants to eat all day. He had breakfast then when I offer a snack he wants a full meal even though he only ate well recently. Then by dinner he won't really eat. I think part of it is ot by the end of the day. He loves attention so if I offer to help him he will eat more. I load the spoon a few times then he seems to get the hang of it. He is spirited and has temperature issues too so he seems to prefer it cold. I also find if I do lunch time foods like a tuna sweetcorn sandwich he is more likely to eat. Could you switch a hot meal for lunch?

[Avery3]

he already has a variety of hot and cold lunches and it hasnt seemed to have made much difference. I thought it was boredom so started really amping up the activity but as soon as it stopped he asked again for food (always stupid rubbishy food too like a cookie or a muesli bar, to which I offer an apple or banana or something other alternative)

Its 10am and hes asked me so many freaking times that Ive just gone ahead and made him two sandwhiches. this is after he had 6 crackers and a slice of cheese for morning tea. yet some mornings he wont eat like this yet still go on about how hungry he is.

[Khalam's Mama]

What about offering a supper before bed like porridge? Then you might feel less worried aBout the lack of dinner?

[Avery3]

he will eat some oats before bed but then arent I just reinforcing that its ok to not eat his dinner... guess what he just came up and said to me again..... "Im hungry mum" (can I just smack my head on my computer please??)

[Khalam's Mama]

I think the less you worry the better. Maybe dinner just isn't when or what he wants to eat. Maybe he wants the control? The less of an issue I think the less likely it will drag on. For me I would rather he ate something.

[kayra]

gosh that does sound frustrating!
Have you tried asking him what he'd like for dinner? If it's something not very feasible maybe you could negotiate and come to an agreement? Or if oats are something he'll eat, make that dinner sometimes-that way you're not giving him an alternative as such it is dinner, the only choice.
could he be doing it for attention?
Do you think he'd understand if you explained that breakfast is at X oclock and if he's hungry before then b/c he didn't eat his dinner sorry but there's nothing you can do, he can just have a cup of milk till breakfast time and you don't want to hear him saying anything about being hungry?

xx

[Avery3]

I could do oats for dinner. also he does ask for a cup of milk all day long too but I thought that would fill him up in replacement of dinner??

[j.and.e]

My 3yo Ds takes a long time to eat. I have a coolbag 4him and he eats his lunch throughout the day. We sit and eat together at lunchtime too, but he doesnt eat a lot at once. He often asks me to leave his breakfast out and he keeps coming back to it until its gone. He's not a gd dinner eater, but will usually try a little. I give him bread and butter with dinner and milk before bed. Xx

[deb]

Can you re-heat last night's supper in the morning for his breakfast? If he's hungry enough then perhaps he'd eat it then at least, instead of it going to waste?

[Peek-a-boo]

I wouldn't worry about the time of day that he is eating.  I would worry about the quality of food he's eating.  Any food you don't consider of meal quality I would quit buying or replace with a more nutritious alternative so that if he's getting the bulk of his calories from snacks, they are just as nutritious as his meal would have been.  Since it sounds like their may be an attention/control issue here,  I'd consider setting up some snacks in a place he can access and letting him do so as he wishes to, with the caveat that he must eat at the table.  

As for dinner, I would serve dinner.  It is what it is.  I would not offer an alternative.  I would not let him have other snacks after dinner.  I wouldn't worry about if he doesn't eat.  It's quite common for kids to eat more of their food in the first part of the day.  Other than growth spurt times, I feel like my kids basically eat what I think of as two meals worth of food a day--they each have one meal they tend to eat well, one meal they eat half of, one meal they pick at, and then a snack or two.  I don't worry about it.  

Unless you had a major failure to gain weight issue, I'd avoid losing sleep about it.  Since the pestering for snacks is annoying, I'd try to create a way for him to have more control there and that way it's easier for your not to worry about it.  

[Texomamama]

Agree with Bethany- look at his food consumption over the course of a day (or better yet, several days).  Don't worry about the timing.  Maybe he doesn't like eating at the end of the day.  Maybe he is in a "grazing" phase and it is better to allow him 5-6 very small meals or snacks as opposed to 3 meals a day.

But, the only way to stop him whining and asking for food in the evenings is to just stop giving it to him.  Otherwise, you are spending all your time playing cook and maid to him, right?

[Avery3]

so then how do i handle the whining and asking for food while he is still doing it? he didnt eat dinner again last night. it wasnt even a real dinner!! I asked him if he wanted a sandwhich or hot cross buns for dinner (it was a hot night and I couldnt be bothered cooking) he said hot cross buns, so I toasted them and gave them to him. they are still sitting on the table this morning. he was up at 6am asking for breakfast!! my DS2 FINALLY slept past 6am (till 7am!!) and I was still up with DS1!!!!! and all because he wont eat his stinking flipping dinner and is hungry earlier!!!

[kayra]

could you just put some healthy snacks somewhere and if he's hungry in the morning he can just help himself to them and not bother you? do you have some kind of a clock system that he doesn't come to you unless it's X o'clock? You could do the same thing for this morning snack, though you might want to give an 'earliest possible' time so he's not getting up at 5 for a snack! ie after 6 before 7 you can go and help yourself to a snack without coming to mummy.
I realise this isn't the ideal scenario but it seems that the issue right now isn't to get him to eat but to stop him from bothering you about it. So either you take the route of 'food is at food time if you don't eat then no other snacks, no whining about it either' but I'm not sure how you can stop him whining about it in that case, I'm not sure that you could give a consequence for it at this stage. Or for the sake of stopping him whining you give into the snacking for the time being but do it in a way that he can access it like Bethany said-you'd just have to keep on top of the snack stash.
Sorry if what i've said doesn't make any sense, it's been a long day...

[Khalam's Mama]

What are his bowels like? Does he have a BM after dinner time or something like that? Maybe he is too full at that time. Don't feel you have to answer that but maybe bear it in mind.
I would avoid the "eat when it is dinner time and or not after" personally as it is teaching him to eat even if he isn't hungry at that time and or to go hungry when he is which is an unhealthy habit for later life imo.
As you really want him to a) stop whining and b) stop being hungry I would do what you need to do to get some food into him. If he is eating a balanced diet and you are offering healthy choices it isn't going to do him any harm in the long run.
I like Deb's idea for not wasting food. Personally I offer uneaten dinner at luchtime the next day rather than breakfast though.

[deb]

Is he able to get in some full-on exercise mid-afternoon? Like to the point of exhaustion? I found that really ramped up the girls' appetites, still does!

[Khalam's Mama]

Esp swimming. Good idea Deb.