Picky eating replacements

If your child is a picky eater, decides they no longer eat what seems like everything, however there are very few things they will eat, what do you do for meals? My son has decided to go off his carbs, he will eat pasta though, his getting a bit funny with his meat and fish also.. no issues with veggies. So when I cook, if he decides he doesn’t eat that today, he simply won’t eat and will go to bed hungry! Now I’m finding ways to incorporate pasta into our usual meals.. like today I was going to do a Cod mornay.. usually we have it with roast potatoes except he don’t eat them now, so I’m going to serve it with pasta.. like a cod Mac and cheese with peas🤦🏽‍♀️. A few days ago I made pasta with tomato and mascarpone and blended up some bacon, peppers and carrots into the sauce and he loved it.. had that for lunch the next day and he devoured it! How would you go about this? Would you find a way to make pasta the carb or would you do something else? His 17 months and I have tried just giving the other stuff and like I said, he goes to bed hungry as he refuses.. running out of ideas now

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keep offering the same food. their taste buds change at much faster rate than adults so sometimes they like something one day and hate the next and back to loving it. No kid in this time and place died from starvation so let him go to sleep hungry he will enjoy his breakfast more. Just like adults sometimes we fancy something more and sometimes we don't feel hungry I think that's totally valid

I try to serve one thing on the plate which is "safe" - might be a vegetable, might be a carb or whatever and aside from that I don't offer alternatives or adapt our meals. So if he eats the veg, just serve what you're eating and make sure he has the veg on his plate. Their tastes change over time too so keep offering variety and see what happens

Check out the Solid Starts resources on toddler selectivity. It’s likely this and not true picky eating. Very very common for this age. Keep offering a wide variety with no pressure for them to eat anything. You offer, they decide what to eat.

@GMF I had a look at the page you were speaking about and he doesn’t align with selectivity and instead matches with the picky eating. This issue hasn’t only just started up, it started a little after he first weaned then he stopped eating totally around 7 months until he was about 9 months and then when he started eating again he would never eat the items he would eat before he stopped eating. I have always found my way around the issue but it just seems a lot worse now than before. He also has sensory issues so if it doesn’t feel right, it won’t even go in his mouth!

@Klaudia umm.. I’m sorry but I really disagree with your last statement. No kid will die of starvation if they have absolutely nothing wrong with them.. sure. However there are kids out there that have got feeding issues and will end up in hospital in very severe cases and that’s the only reason they don’t die🙄. Also my son doesn’t have this issue with just “dinner” items.. he will go to bed hungry and then also not eat breakfast if it’s not something he wants. He has done it many times and the only thing that stops him from “starving” is the fact that he will wake up hungry in the night and then drink a load of milk while half asleep! He will happily run around on empty but then he will be very grumpy, very tired and want to nurse instead. As with adults, you might “fancy” something more however if you are actually hungry you will eat whatever you have available, you might not be happy about it and don’t usually go to meals not hungry without excessive snacking before

@Fiona the thing is, them just eating a couple of peas/sweetcorn kernels etc. simply isn’t enough for a whole meal though?

@Shay ah I gotcha. Do you have access to feeding therapy or OT? In the US we have it through our school systems even for younger children, but I’m not sure how it would work there.

@GMF honestly getting help or access to any support like this for children seems almost impossible! That’s why I was asking on here because they have made everything really difficult and when you enquire they always say you have to wait it out, so that’s what I’m doing.

@Shay I try to remind myself that I'm in charge of what I serve and they're in charge of what they eat. Some days my toddler literally eats nothing at dinner, other days it's 3 portions and pudding, but over a longer period of a few days it balances out. It probably helps me knowing that she eats well at nursery, but even at the weekend I try not to stress or compromise too much

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