Lilly in Pea and Ham Soup - back when she used to eat. Those were the days...
When Lilly first started getting a grip on solid food, she’d hoover down just about anything. Pasta bake? You betcha. Mash and vegies? More please. Thai green curry and pad thai noodles? Where have you been all my life? It made sense to gladly abandon all of the frozen ice cube trays of mushy pumpkin, spinach, and ricotta, and just feed her a chopped up version of what the Boofhead and I were eating.
But as we’ve edged towards the terrible two’s, slowly but surely, Lil’s palate has narrowed. We seem to be eating the same meal, every night, and it’s beginning to get to me. Creamy pasta? Bugger off Mum. Cherry tomato, cheese cubes, and crunchy carrot spears? Surely you must be kidding.
The only way we can get anything green and remotely healthy down her throat is to hide it in mashed potato. Don’t get me wrong, I love mashed potato. I use a decent spoonful of reduced fat cream cheese and milk, it doesn’t even really need any salt that way, so it isn’t ridiculously unhealthy. My mashed potato is art on a plate.
Well, that's how I used to feel about mashed potato. These days it makes me want to gag. Or throw a saucepan through the kitchen window. Either way, it isn’t good, and I’m over it. Standing at the kitchen bench peeling those potatoes has such a soul-crushing Ground-Hog-Day feel to it for someone who loves food as much as I do. I used to revel in the comfort of a nice chicken schnitzel with mash and vegies, but we eat it so often now that its lustre has well and truly faded.
My dilemma is that if I cook to make Lil happy, I cook the same thing every night. If I force some variety into the mix, she won’t eat, and dinner ends up a stressful test of patience. I’ve toyed with the idea of her living on pizza Shapes and sultanas, but that may just ensure that she grows out and not up.
What happens at dinner time in your house? Do you have any suggestions for me? Or just commiserations?
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Pumpkin & Sweet Potato Risotto
Oh man, we have this problem. In bad news, Mr3 is nearly four and still won’t eat much that I serve up. In good news, I’ve realised that there’s not much chance of him starving if he refuses a meal. So I aim for variety, suck up the stress (and it is stressful) and soldier on. Everyone tells me it’s all you can do. So I’m telling you the same.
I know! I’m right there with you. As an infant, my boy ate all sorts of good stuff. Now, oh, no, he will not touch any of it. He has to have macaroni and cheese or maybe sometimes chicken nuggets WITH RANCH, and he is back and forth on everything else (one week he likes ravioli, the next he won’t). Every single night, if you ask him what he wants for dinner, he says, “Cheese.”
Sounds just like our house…M1 used to be a great eater too..At 2 and a half, he will eat something one day and not the next. I even made little celery cream cheese boats and veggie kebabs after he was impressed by the Play School people making the exact same snack.
I was excited as he said ” This is the perfect snack Mummy!’…but my excitement came too soon. He licked all the cream cheese off the celery boats and left everything else….
I refuse to offer him a second dinner. And am working on the idea that he will not starve. I ‘ll let you know in about 15 years how this works out for us!
this too shall pass?? As their taste buds develop they change their food tastes too. I have found it gets better again
I agree, my oldest was the same. Ate everything and then only vegemite toast and sultanas for what felt like months. She grew out of it. The important thing to do was to keep offering all the other meals but don’t make not eating a drama. Be firm about there being nothing else, she won’t starve if she eats enough of what else she likes during the day.
Oh, if only my toddler would eat mashed potato, I would be so happy…. jam sandwiches for dinner. that is all he will eat. or he will happily not eat. Serious.
I used to feel this way about making sandwiches. HATED it. But have made peace with my destiny as chief sandwich maker in my home for the forseeable future. Just a thought, how about cauliflower for some variety? It looks the same as potato when mashed. x
My kids ate so much potato in their first year that none of them will go near mash now. The second year is by far the worst for limited food selections. Just keep trying! I always think that my job as a Mum is to PROVIDE healthy food. After that, it is up to them
Good luck, and seriously, if you can’t face it, you can’t. Go with the mash. It won’t kill him.
You know, I started to see myself edging towards this hysteria-inducing (her and me) pattern of cringing at the very little nutritional content she was getting out of the cheese slice and pasta every night. Not even sauce on the pasta. So I ripped off my new resolve like a band-aid, laid down a house rule (made sure the husb was with me on it) and said to my then 3yo “Well, this is what’s for dinner and if you don’t eat it, that’s ok. But you will be hungry in the morning if you don’t have anything to eat.”
I never made a second plate of something else again. And I began to (terrifying as it was, and it really was!) make meals that we could all eat, started branching back out and making things we used to previously enjoy while she had her baby food.
It worked and we haven’t looked back. I have noticed that there will be periods where she won’t eat – and I don’t bark at her for it, just calmly say that’s ok but never offer anything else – and there has been two times where she’s decided to make a “thing” of something she apparently “hates” even though she’s never tried it. And on those 2 nights there have been tears at bedtime… But it’s worked, I promise. She’s a healthy eater, a fussy eater, a picky eater, a ravenous eater. She’s all those things and keeps changing! But we remain consistent so she knows what’s expected of her and it’s her choice to decide when she dips in or not. It’s working really well (sorry! this feels like a sermon, this is going to be such a long comment but you asked! xx)
If I want a stress free dinner, then its peanut butter on toast!!
Cooper wont anything that looks like a vegetable, the only way I can get vegies into him is to mash it all up with potato and pumpkin and bribe him with sausages or I puree up zucchini, carrot, corn and broccoli in a bolognese sauce – wouldn’t know the difference. Other than that if I ask him what he wants for dinner the reply I get is “chocolate cake or cheese”
Riley’s diet consists of mashed vegies, weetbix, and yoghurt! there is no variety whats so ever so yes talk about ground hog day!!! Sometimes I might be able to get a piece of toast into him but he refuses to eat anything else. AND he is not interested at all in feeding himself – very capable but I think I can count a few times that he has even held a biscuit to his mouth!! very very frustrating!! I have 2 toddlers going through the terrible twos and Im going very grey;)
We make one meal, if miss 4 and 1 don’t eat it, they get offered a piece of fruit, otherwise nothing is ever offered. They just know that’s all there is. If they are hungry they eat it, if not they have a drink and in the morning have a huge breakfast, I used to think they would wake hungry, but they don’t.
Totally agree with Clairey here
Fruit is the alternative – but distinctly we have two dinner choices at our place: Take it or leave it!
Kids won’t starve and I’m a bit of a hard-arse that I refuse to become a short order cook!
I do understand that it must be frustrating and worrying. I would detest making the same thing over and over and over and … over. xx
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I make a separate meal for the kids most nights – partly because we eat at different times and party because I like hot food. But generally, there are about 2 dishes that they will all eat without fussing so I just make something healthy and varied and if they eat it, they eat it and if they don’t, they don’t. They learned pretty quickly to tuck in or go hungry. Worked for me. x
We have lots of food issues with my 5yo, she wont eat food that touches – this extends to dipping her nuggets in sauce even. Her diet is fairly limited. Nuggets, chips, plain pasta, honey or jam sandwiches. We’ve spent lots of time talking to occupational therapist, paediatrician and nutritionist.
Part of the problem is a sensory issue, which is related to the autism.
So we make food she will eat, but also continue to serve up new foods. It might take seeing something new over 100 times before she will consent to poke it with her fork but we keep trying.
It is so frustrating and depressing. I’m so relieved she will at least eat lots of fruit and the kids multi vitamin the paediatrician recommended so we know she is getting her vitamins.
EH- she’s two. Wait until you can’t hide the good for her stuffs in the mashed. (The day my kids discovered I put spinach in the pasta, they stopped eating it on principle.) Honestly, save your sanity for bigger battles. If all she wants is mashed, make a bunch–healthy stuffs hidden inside– and portion it out. Freeze/ refrigerate those puppies and serve them to her every night and the grownups can eat something more reasonable.
(And if you’re slightly off as I am, make a huge deal about how good *your* dinner is and maybe she’ll be more into eating with you. Usually, if I’m enjoying something and refuse to share, my kids decide they have to have it also. Some call it reverse psychology, I call it effective parenting.)
My first would only eat yoghurt for a while there – the health nurse said she’s be fine (and potatoes are at least nutritionally brilliant). They do grow out of it – not that my first is all that much better – but I can now happily play the ‘eat it or go to bed’ card
I wonder if things have improved since you wrote this post??
xxxCate
keepcatebusy (Cate) recently posted..Day 178 – hooray for coffee
She has improved a bit; wolfed down a chicken korma last night, no worries. I’m encouraging her to ‘help’ me in the kitchen, and getting her to taste dinner while it’s cooking seems to help.
The discovery that she will eat anything as long as it has lemon juice on it also helps. I know, lemon juice.
This took me back! The good news is that Mr4 has abandoned all that silly nonsense now that he is no longer Mr3 and will pretty much eat whatever I put in front of him. Yay! I hope things have improved for you too – most of the time it’s just a matter of time.
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