Healthy snacks

For a snack, about a little cup of nutrigrain or cheerios mixed with raisins or dried fruit. DS will eat that and at least he's getting some nutrition from it. I know the cereals aren't ideal but better than biscuits.

Have you tried giving him meatballs? Mr Fussy likes the ones I make with grated carrot, courgette and packet of onion soup mix (that's to 500g mince) and they're excellent to reheat from the freezer.

It's amazing how kids go straight for the cr*p food eh?!

If you really wanna stop it. Don't buy the sweet stuff. Tell the grandparents that under no circumstance is he to have it and then just keep offering a variety. He will soon learn that hes not gonna get biscuits etc.

We try and make food interesting. Like Daniel is obsessed with fans so we make carrot fans which are just chopped up carrot with these teeny triangles cut out of them so they look like fans and he asks for them all the time now.

Try and give him some choice. At lunch time I always ask do you want this or this on your sandwich? I've done this for well over a year and he chooses.

With main meals I know a few of the things that are foolproof that he will always eat so I make sure I have one of those things and then the rest is a maybe so at least I know hes gonna eat something from the plate. If he doesn't eat what hes given he doesn't get anything else. If he doesn't eat his dinner he sure doesn't muck around at breakfast lol

Daniel has always been weird about his food so we have tried just about everything to get him to eat more variety etc and its working if you are consistant. If you give in and give them what they want (ie sweet stuff) then they quickly learn that holding out gets them what they want.

yep dont offer it.

popcorn can be healthy if not with sugar or other stuff... fruit sticks, mandarin (sweet but healthy).

Maybe give him yoghurt or jelly and fruit for lunch occasionaly if he wont eat the sandwiches...

i would suggest too that maybe he needs a bit more than a piece of toast for breakfast to help fill him up.

it sounds too me if he is asking for food at 9 and 11.30 that he is hungry then and maybe if you feed him lunch and morning tea then instead of waiting he may actually eat more. I know with my kids if i give them dinner too late they just dont eat it - i think they get to that sage where you dont feel the hunger anymore.

Edited by Bizzy

I would offer a bigger breakfast - Caden had a piece of toast, a banana and sometimes some raisons or some weetbix.

For snacks he has things like a plain biscuit, some more banana maybe...apple, crackers and the only "sweet" things I buy, are those fruitsi bars and he has one of those as a snack.

Lunch is sandwhiches, and I cut them into triangles with the crust off, he eats it. Raisons, and some more fruit.

Dinner he is REALLY fussy, so I give him what he likes and thats baked beans and toast, spaghetti...he likes sausgaes sometimes, sometiems will eat pasta, he likes fish fingers.
Refuses to eat any veges, so after dinner if he has attempted to eat anything he will get some yoghurt or some fruit.

With the sweet things, I would just not buy them at all, be tough and say no. Caden prattles on at me all day sometimes "lollies lollies lollies" and I say no no no no He only gets them every now and again and its only ever 3 or 4 m&m's as a treat or if Im eating some choccie he gets a teeny bit.

ETA - Deb thats a good idea about yoghurt and Jelly, I think I'll offer that to Caden when he's being mega fussy.

Edited by Sheza

Oh and sometimes in my house a treat is a marshmallow - not technically healthy i suppose but fat free and they would possibly satisfy the sweet craving. In fact they are more popular than biscuits here.

Some favs for my DD are:
*Mash tinned tuna, some grated cheese and a spoonful of mayonaise together and put inside half a pita pocket. Bake in oven for about 5 minutes on 200 degrees, let cool and cut into little triangles.
*Mashed potato is always popular. Sometimes its a good way to get other veges in, you can grate carrot, pasnip, courgette into the potato.
*Homemade hummus goes down a treat with rice crackers. So easy to make.
*I find little platters are always popular as they have a choice of many things e.g. grated cheese, grated carrot, gherkins, sliced tomato, slice salami, diced fruit.
*My DD loves homemade sushi.

You are the adult.. you are in control..

a toddler can not go to the supermarket or make the desicions to buy the 'junk'

time to toughen up.. stop buying the biscuits etc

Saying no doesnt make you weak.. you can offer lots of fruit, ham, chicken drumsticks, jacket potatoes, homemade popcorn, Veggie sticks, yoghurts, raisin packs, toast with avocado or hummous, kruskits with vegemite or peanut butter, celery sticks, a bowl of frozen peas... the list is endless...

Set some new guidelines in place and stick to it.. the transition will be REALLY hard for a few weeks but hang in there..

eventually your DS will become used to all the new foods being on offer... and just think what you will be dealing with if the 'bad habbits' continue.. an un-healthy school aged child who lives on crap..

Im no saint ... but i do limit the high sugary snacks.

Good Luck - you CAN do it. It will be hard work and you need your family to support your changes

My daughter will get just as excited about some chopped fruit as she would over a lollipop.

Something I have noticed with my kids is that they form and also break habits very quickly. If I were to give my kids an afternoon treat 2 days in a row, by the third day they would have already come to expect it. Likewise if they don't get it for 2 days in a row, they generally forget about it.

Popcorn is a fave at our place too and so cheap!!

My DD is 2 & 1/4, and for breakfast has a bowl of weetbix & milk with yogurt/fruit, sometimes toast, and a glass of juice watered down to 50/50 or less. Lunch is sandwiches, 1 small piece of baking and fruit, sometimes a couple of chips if we have some open. Dinner she eats what we are eating, and if she eats her dinner then she is allowed pudding. She only has 2 snacks a day, a morning one at 10ish which is normally a biscuit or baking, and an afternoon one when she wakes from her nap, which is fruit or yogurt - nothing that would spoil her appetite for dinner.

To be honest, if she doesn't want it and is being fussy, (and I know that she likes it, or should at least try it if it is something new) then she doesn't get anything else until she does! She is not the boss, we are! We have only had this problem a couple of times - the food just gets left out or put in the fridge, and brought out again when she asks for food, until she eats it (obviously within reason - we don't overrule food hygiene). Either that or she gets offered fruit. Kids will eat if they are hungry, and I don't believe there is anything wrong if they end up going to bed with no dinner just once or twice - but I would always offer it again, or a piece of fruit, or a milky drink before they went down.

But that's my opinion, and how we choose to raise our children - you have to make your own decisions; I am not saying this is what you should do, just sharing what we choose to do.

Also I suggest buying (or getting from library) a baby recipe book - try smoothies, or other interesting ways of serving food. Kids love it when something is a bit out of the ordinary! Good luck :-)

I second/third/fourth/whatever the bigger breakie idea. M wasn't eating much breakie (toast/cereal) so now i try to do scrambled eggs with salmon, pancakes, boiled eggs etc for breakfast.

I don't necessarily agree with 'you are the boss just dont give in' as this is hard and then you have a tantruming 2yr old on your hands (and with a 6monther you don't need it) so what i do is tell M she can have 1 muesli bar and 2 biccies (treat size ones) a day and thats it for junk. I even went as far as having a snack bag per day with the junk and some healthy snacks so when its gone its gone. You could slowly replace the not so healthy treats with healthy ones this way.

Lunches - M wouldn't eat sandwhiches for ages so she gets quiche, rice crackers with cottage cheese, wraps with hummus, cheese sandwhiches, pasta, pastry-less quiche, sushi, as the main part of her lunch then some fruit, some cottage cheese and some veg (usually cucumber).

Meat at dinner time is getting better here, as you know M had her teeth done a couple of weeks ago and is now chewing better so i am slowly introducing more meat. I get her to help prepare it and then if she refuses it, i try to get her to taste it and at least chew some of it which she has to swallow. So we just start with small bits and move on from there.

Edited by Kicker