4.5 yr fussy eating and "babying"

kassie

just wondering if anyone has any advice for me regarding meal times for preschoolers.

My 4.5 year old daughter used to be such a good eater, would always eat what was given to her. But over the last 8 months or so she has gotten so bad, saying she doesn't like this or doesn't like that when she used to eat them no problem. She also likes to be spoon fed by someone whenever she gets the chance. One of her grandmothers in particular is very bad for encouraging this and we are going to ask her to stop. She is in preschool and is starting primary in Sept and i think at 4.5 yrs old she is only too capable of feeding herself!

She will sit at meal times at the table and chat and distract herself with whatever is in reach and its a battle to get her to eat. Its very frustrating and we try not to fuss too much over it but do end up nagging "eat" which i know can't be helping. She'll sit with a spoonful of food in her mouth playing with it or chewing it - its like she can't bring herself to swallow it.

She only seems to want to eat bread when asked what would she like to eat. She eats very little to no fruit, despite whatever way i dress it up or down. The only fruit i can get her to take is smoothies.

I know kids go through phases of not eating and changing their minds about foods, but what i'm wondering is, is it a good idea to maybe just let her eat what she wants of a meal (a spoonful or two), not make a fuss and just let her go about her business (obviously cutting out all junk food and treats in the process!) and hope over the course of a day or two that "hunger will be the best medicine"??? Its getting the grandmothers (who look after her after school while myself and husband work) to restrict the biscuits that will be the problem! My MIL tends not listen when we give her instructions like this.

its a constant battle these days and i don't want to cause her to hate food or give her a complex about eating, i'm just a worried mother who doesn't want to see her child go hungry or get ill.

any tips or advice are greatly appreciated!

pwurple

Your child is not going to starve themselves to death with fussiness for a start. No child does that. But a bit of hunger can be a good thing. If she's never properly hungry, she will just pick away and graze rather than eating a meal.

I've never ever asked my children what they would like to eat, they are children, they don't get a choice here. The meal is available, they don't have to eat it if they don't want, but there is no second choice or alternate option. our house is not a restaurant! Sure, they go off and on things as time passes, and express their own preferences (this is my favourite etc), but that's all normal enough I think?

I'd put food in front of her at mealtime. Take it away half an hour later if it's uneaten and stick it in the fridge, and if she whinges for food, produce it again. If she wants to go to bed hungry, let her. She's not going to starve herself. No child does that.

Pestering her to eat turns it into a game, just don't mention it. Brush it all off as totally normal to be eating, no discussion about it needed, talk about something else.

Spoon feeding a child who is almost 5? Her appetite must be non-existent. Build up a bit of hunger between meals and it might help with that too.

kassie

thanks pwurple, i guess i know what needs to be done, just looking for a nod from other parents. I totally agree with you in that its one meal for the family and thats it, she gets her main meal during the day with either of her grandparents as its too late for us to cook a dinner when we get home from work so its generally a "tea" we have in the evening.

I've made my decision now (like what you've advised) and thats that, the grandparents are being warned today lol and hopefully we will see an improvement towards the end of the week.

thanks again

pwurple

It's a tea for us in the evenings as well, toast and some avocado or whatever. I think it's even ok for them to not eat a meal here and there too. I mean, I occasionally am not hungry at lunchtime if I had a late brekkie, or a different day I might have had a big lunch and not be hungry in the evening, so I might just have a cuppa instead. The fussiest children I know are also often bizaarly overweight, so I can only imagine it might be parents sometimes pressuring them to eat when they are genuinely not hungry?

One other thing, is the access to food. My 4 year old has climbed up on a step and gets into the fridge for a yoghurt or grabs a banana from the fruit bowl, which is fine for a 3 o clock snack and she is peckish, but not so good if it's 20 minutes before mealtime, as she then she is too full for a meal. So I guess, watch the timing of snacks.

Big Bag of Chips

We spoon-fed one of our past 5!! Not consistently, mind. Funnily I was always the food that he didn't particularly want that he found difficult to feed to himself. He never had any trouble with the nice stuff! He's now 6 and it still happens occasionally. Whatever it takes to get a few carrots in to him!

Of course she is capable of feeding herself, she'd just rather not! And sometimes if it takes you feeding her to get the dinner into her and finished rather than her sitting there for an hour and a half picking then I'm firmly in the "you do what you gotta do" camp!

It's a phase. She will grow out of it. Just don't make too much of an issue of it, and certainly don't offer alternatives to what you've cooked. She eats it or she doesn't, but she won't get anything else.

I used to find threatening to scrape it all into the bin used to work for some reason ?!

As mentioned, she won't starve!

kassie

just to clarify, i don't make alternative meals if she doesn't eat, i ask if there is anything in particular she would like to eat before i cook to save on food wastage or stress and thats when she will always answer "just bread" to which i'll tell her she can't have just bread all the time and then we'll decide on a proper alternative. I thought by including her in the decision of what we have to eat would help her with the actual eating!

Moonbeam

sounds a bit like my 4 year old,she could even ask for a particular dinner then not eat it.
Then inform us she wants to be fed,I say no but if there are grandparents here they might feed her.
I do not force them to eat things they do not like but you must try everything.
I try to make a dinner all 4 of them will eat,the 6 and 4 year olds are not good for veg but will eat loads of fruit so I reckon they are fine for now.
Their favourites are salmon and rice,spaghetti and meatballs or pasta with cheese.

hoodwinked

kassie wrote: »

just to clarify, i don't make alternative meals if she doesn't eat, i ask if there is anything in particular she would like to eat before i cook to save on food wastage or stress and thats when she will always answer "just bread" to which i'll tell her she can't have just bread all the time and then we'll decide on a proper alternative. I thought by including her in the decision of what we have to eat would help her with the actual eating!

that is a great start imo i think sometimes people forget that children are still little people

most of us can probably recall a time our parents made us eat something (with me it was pork chops) that even today would make us gag? with my mum it was mince meat, she'd never touch the stuff, even to this day,

children too have their taste buds, and just don't like specific food, we never forced our daughter to eat her meals, instead trying a variety of things (and alternatives) not always good for her, but we NEVER made a fuss about food, When she declared she didn't like spagetti Bolognese anymore we asked her to pick out her favorite pasta shapes and tried different flavoured meats/sauces (even found some new dinners for ourselves)

we always all eat the same thing as i refuse to cook two or three meals at a time but variety on tastes can help greatly (for example we found she LOVES yorkshire puddings when my husband never would have eaten them before he now loves them too)

in saying that if she says "i want chocolate for dinner" we do try and redirect with things like "chocolate is a snack not a dinner,so you can have a chocolate bar now but how about chicken for dinner, you love chicken" and go from there, i know myself there are some days when even with my favorite meal in front of me i just wouldn't feel like eating it.


i feel like at 4 and 5 they are just becoming independent in so many ways, that they love just having an input into decisions, and imo clothes they wear and foods they eat can be area's parents can allow them an input. if she says "just bread" maybe branch it out a bit, suggest toast? then maybe beans on toast...etc or try sandwiches....

or maybe bake homemade bread with her, then maybe make a pizza dough, with sauce and cheese...etc especially with homemade you control the toppings/salt content...etc so you can add cheese (protein/dairy) sauce (tomatoes) and other toppings like ham or pineapple or tuna or whatever else she likes. once she has options maybe she'll try something new,

you could also maybe find one of every fruit/vegetable you can find and what i do is i make a "salad" as i call it where i give her chopped up bits of everything and she tastes each one and tells me if she likes it or not (maybe have a spit plate and glass of water ready just in case" the more food she tastes the more likely she is to find one she enjoys and you could do varieties of that. and remember just because they didn't like it before doesn't mean they won't like it now, my 4 year old wouldn't touch a sandwich of any kind, every now and then i would make a platter of mini sandwiches with different fillings, and now she eats cheese sandwiches everyday.

Mink

One tip I've heard is to see how much juice and milk they're drinking during the day, like actually monitor it for the day. It could be filling her up a bit. The advice in that case was just to offer water rather than juice and then they'll drink only as much as needed. 3 cups of milk for the day is prob fine but not close to dinner