Family meal ideas for fussy 4yo?

[Mrs G]

Hi
Dd is 4 1/2 and had never been a good eater. I actually think I weaned her too early cos she hated milk, but anyway...
She eats lots of fruit and veg so no worries there and had milk, cheese and yoghurt, but has no proper meat, she gags when she puts it in her mouth so I just don't bother giving it to her. She would much rather have sandwiches than hot food, when she does eat hot food it's sausages (don't really class them as meat!), fish fingers, plain pasta, mash but then never eats as much as I know she would if it were sandwiches!
We try to eat together but it's not always possible in the week, and I hate wasting food so I guess I go for the easy option of what I know she'll eat.
Would live some ideas of food to tempt her with and how to get out of this rut!
Thanks, Kath.

 

[aimee-lou]

I know it's hard but you need to keep offering different foods. She may not eat them, but get her to try them at least. I know waste is heartbreaking - and I get so disheartened when I cook a meal and every plate but my own is half full at the end. But, I know I need to offer these things as otherwise they'll never experience anything.

My eldest is 5y3m and from age 2-3.5 he was the fussiest creature ever. At his worst he would only eat fromage frais, sausages, My Kipling bakewell slices and crisps! lol We came out the other side. I insist he try everything on his plate at every meal and he son started to branch out.

How is she with things in sauces? Things like beans, tinned spaghetti hoops, pasta bakes, things like that. I am just thinking they're quite innoffensive and not too wasteful. Put with toast or bread and butter they may tick her boxes and start to broaden her horizons.

 

[fluffpuffin]

Isla is bad with meat too... Sausages and fish fingers are what she likes. She will eat minced meat in chilli and bolognese though. I'm glad she likes veggies though and don't push the meat. I always give her a little to try in case she suddenly likes it. Oh chicken Kiev's she eats at times. The meat is quite tender so easier to eat I think. I just give her what we have. We often eat pasta with chopped frankfurters in tomato sauce or similar.

 

[jd83]

I think you just have to keep offering it, and asking her to at least try it. My older son was really, really picky for a long time too. In fact, I'd say he was picky enough early on to be classified as a problem feeder. Only at a handful of things, and gagged on anything else, or outright refused to even try it. What I've found over time that seems to work the best for him is to offer everything on the plate that we are having, and make sure at least one item is something he likes. Typically this is a veggie or a pasta side, or yogurt. He's picky about everything else. But, over time, he's gotten soooo much better about trying bites of things when I ask, where he used to just outright refuse to even try things. He tries them now, and sometimes likes things and then will eat it. We've made progress with expanding his diet variety just by continually offering everything we are having, and just continually asking him to try a "bite". I don't push it if he doesn't like it. Trying a bite is better than not eating altogether. Another thing that helps my son is to offer dips for meats. He's much more likely to eat a meat or to try the meat if he has something to dip it in, like ketchup, ranch, etc. May sound gross to me to dip it, but hey, it works, so I guess I don't care if it sounds gross if it gets him trying it. LOL.

 

[OmarsMum]

I'd work on what she likes and add variety to that. Omar does not eat any cold food or sandwiches, he loves strews cooked in tomato sauce so I keep adding new veggies to those to add variety. He loves smoothies so he gets his raw veggies and fruits from them.

If she likes sandwiches you can try to add meat to those like thinly cut lamb meat from a roast, chicken strips, and so on. You can marinate the meat with apple cider vinegar to make it more tender and less chewy, or you can try home made patties in burger buns or bread.

 

[Mrs G]

Thanks all. Really need to make more of an effort, just hard when we can't eat together. Was thinking of some kind of reward chart for trying new things but read somewhere not to reward for food??
X

 

[RachA]

I wouldn't do rewards for food because if it's something that she just can't tolerate then it'll make her feel bad.

Will she eat meat like wafer thin ham cut up into small bits. If she will then i would just add that to the food that she will eat.


With all the other foods that she is eating i wouldn't worry too much about the lack of meat. I would keep offering it to her in very small amounts.

DD finds meat hard to deal with. She does however like ham so we do have a tendency to call most meat ham. She will now eat 'chicken ham'. wafer thin ham, sausage and gammon (ham!).