My son’s the same went from eating loads of different things to just eating bananas and yoghurt as well as his formula for a week!
We found that the more we fretted about it the worse his eating fads got, so now we take the attitude of ‘if he’s hungry he’ll eat’ and it works he will now come and sit at the table and eat his luch/dinner. The staff at the nursery he goes to say he has the best table manners and eating habits of all the children in his age group, even my mum has made comments that he’s really good when they take him out.
Smoothies seem to work really well if you are concenred about fruit intake and even a juicer too, Jnr. really likes carrot and orange juce and loves the colour of beetroot juice!

Just gently persist and try lots of different food, patience really is a virtue!

Fairly sure I remember my parents saying that when I didn’t eat I was just left to it, eventually I’d get hungry enough to go looking for food myself. I suspect this was when I was >17 months though,so surely all you can do (and I’m no parent so feel free to ignore!) is leave her to it and when she’s hungry she’ll cry, just check she isnt losing weight?

Hi meikle_partans

“you have absolutely no scientific background ” . Wild guess indeed.

In fact an MEng in engineering. I don’t accept claptrap. The answers are never all in one place as I pointed out. My job is all about seeing what works, understanding what’s behind it, improving what does, reading lots and throwing out the crap. This website indeed contains much of the latter, but I was asked to enlighten. One thing I don’t do is accept marketing at face value, especially if there is a lot of money behind it.

well i did say it was a wild guess! when it comes to this kind of stuff i am firmly in the http://www.badscience.net camp.

That all sounds completely normal! Just keep putting small pieces of different food on her plate to try to widen her tastes. Try not to fuss, otherwise they learn to refuse to eat for attention. It helps to look at food consumed over a week rather than at each meal, both our kids have eating days and non-eating days but it all averages out. Regular mealtimes and eating at the same time as the child are also good.

dont feed them on their own.

dont feed them too much crap.

some kids just eat less than others.

(my personal bugbear) table manners are for kids are really important. its pretty disgusting watching some kids eat and it shouldnt be.

its really not that hard to get them eating properly.

Hi meikle_partans,

Well we are not so different. I have a lot of time for Ben Goldacre (Bad Science). I believe he occasionally jumps on the big industry bandwaggon without always researching as thoroughly as he should.

Our two (currently aged 3.5 and 2). Have eaten what we eat since they were weaned – our diet is fairly normal. I.e. meat/fish/vegetables and very little processed food (meat from butchers & organic veg box). It saved all sorts of faffing about. When they were really little, we’d cook the meal and blend it to feed them; as they got older, we gave them more lumps. If they didn’t eat it, there wasn’t anything else available.

We’re really lucky in that they’ve taken to this really well – this also means that when they have the odd chocolate/crisp/cheese frenzy, we’re not too worried.

Another thing that I think also helped is that we’ve always sat at the table and eaten together – they see what’s on our plate and see us eating it.

Plus the kids have never eaten in front of the telly – it’s too much of a distraction (weekend breakfasts are an occasional exception as I sometimes put the telly on in the kitchen).

We still get occasional refusals of food but, after initial anxieties, we just leave them alone. If they’re hungry they’ll eat. If not, then it could be any number of things – tired, hot, teething etc.

Good luck, you’ll all be fine!

We’ve done the same as freddyg with ours. We always made the effort to sit down and eat together, and they ate what we ate, but blended down or chopped up.

Our eldest (almost 6) will eat (huge quantities) of almost anything, though she is almost vegetarian and just doesn’t like the texture of most meat.

Our youngest (almost 4) is much pickier than her big sister. She also eats a lot less. She’d happily subsist on nothing but sausages. She’s not keen on ‘vebbles’, but will eat fruit till it comes out of her ears.

I don’t have kids, but i can speak as fussy eater. I would be on the verge of throwing up when trying something new, it was before it was even in my mouth. Both my mam and myslef ending up it tears on various occasions and it hurt both of us. I ended up going through various things with the doctor, psychologist and even a hypnotist(a very cool/relaxing experience). Apparently my subconscious is trying to protect me!!! Never found out what from though… 😕
I’ve got better at trying things, but my diet is very very limited and not healthy at that.
It might be worth trying to find out what it is that daughter doesn’t like. For me its textures, i can eat a wide range of flavours, but if the texture is wrong i don’t like it. I now just laugh it off as a mental disorder thing 😀
Given your daughters age, its likely she’ll grow out of it. Not sure if the above helps, but it may help ease the frustration.

From what you are saying, sounds like she has a healthy appetite. I would live and let live to be honest.

Is your missus a freaky eater, or does she have any issues with food? (she must have, she’s a woman 😆 )Be careful she doesn’t transpose this onto the child.

If you put pressure on her to eat, you’ll encourage her to use eating, or not eating as a bargaining tool.

My wife has successfully done this with my son, who now eats nothing very healthy at all. He’s now 14 and she still panders to him based on her own negative childhood experiences. He’s very sporting so isn’t overweight, but i’m certain he will have major health issues if he doesn’t start eating stuff like vegetables and fruit etc.

I would get concerned if the baby reaches 4-5 years and still has extreme eating issues. By the sounds of it, she has none anyway. For now, just keep meal times as calm and stress free as possible, or I guarantee you’ll regret it later on.

Never in a million years expected to get so much good advice from you lot.

I doth my cap!

Mrs AB says a BIG thank you too.

Dunno if anyone else has mentioned it, but have you checked if she is lactose tolerant?

Dosn’t have to be an all out vomiting and screaming rejection for it to make her unwell enough not to feel like eating.