Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here - we started easy tonight. We were already planning on making pizza so I offered pizza and strawberries with milk. Older kid ate everything. Younger kid at two bites of strawberries. She hasn’t eaten since 10am so I thought she might be hungry. Nope nothing. Then went outside to play for 1.5 hours came inside and got ready for bed. I am sure she will be hungry in the morning but at this point it’s a battle of wills. She will hold out for a while I am sure. I am assuming the next week or two will be milk and water with an occasional bite of fruit. Fingers crossed she starts eating real food because I am certainly not making chicken nuggets for dinner.

Don't starve your kid!!! Did you read the Ellyn Satter book or just do this based on what people posted? Read the book.

Missing a meal is not starving anyone. Let go of the drama.

Anonymous wrote:I am wondering about something after I read your update, op. You said you ate popcorn a ton instead of meals. I wonder what your childhood home meals were like? The reason I am wondering if that my college age kids are at home now. I am finding that ds and dd want all kinds of food. Meatloaf, fish and green beans, curries, pork chops, steaks, rice dishes, calamari, beans, soups, I mean like I am some kind of a all cuisine restaurant chef! Did I create these monsters? Was it that I cooked too much when they were kids? I am tried from cooking. Maybe I created the opposite, these nightmare, where is my smoked salmon and avocado everything bagel, and you can't really expect me to eat a plain sandwich douche bags! I always thought it is great to cook and have a variety of dishes, but boy, I am not that happy about it now!

ha.. I have been having similar thoughts. We buy very expensive cut steaks, seared to perfection, though we don't have it that often. One time, DS (teen) was somewhere and was served a cheap cut, and he didn't like it. I had to explain to our kids that the steak we have is an expensive cut, and the differences between cheaper steaks and more expensive ones. They like things like sushi, crab, and other expensive foods.

We are fairly frugal in most things except for food.

Can you make your own breaded chicken breast? That is more delicious than chicken nuggets. I would provide something she sill eat, maybe plain pasta that you can just scoop up before putting the sauce on?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here - we started easy tonight. We were already planning on making pizza so I offered pizza and strawberries with milk. Older kid ate everything. Younger kid at two bites of strawberries. She hasn’t eaten since 10am so I thought she might be hungry. Nope nothing. Then went outside to play for 1.5 hours came inside and got ready for bed. I am sure she will be hungry in the morning but at this point it’s a battle of wills. She will hold out for a while I am sure. I am assuming the next week or two will be milk and water with an occasional bite of fruit. Fingers crossed she starts eating real food because I am certainly not making chicken nuggets for dinner.

Don't starve your kid!!! Did you read the Ellyn Satter book or just do this based on what people posted? Read the book.

OP is not starving her kid! How ridiculous. She is offering a balanced meal that the child chooses not to eat. That's ok. You can't force another person to eat. Keep offering the meals and move on, don't force it.

What else did you offer between 10am and bedtime aside from the pizza and strawberries?
Does she normally eat pizza?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here - we started easy tonight. We were already planning on making pizza so I offered pizza and strawberries with milk. Older kid ate everything. Younger kid at two bites of strawberries. She hasn’t eaten since 10am so I thought she might be hungry. Nope nothing. Then went outside to play for 1.5 hours came inside and got ready for bed. I am sure she will be hungry in the morning but at this point it’s a battle of wills. She will hold out for a while I am sure. I am assuming the next week or two will be milk and water with an occasional bite of fruit. Fingers crossed she starts eating real food because I am certainly not making chicken nuggets for dinner.

Don't starve your kid!!! Did you read the Ellyn Satter book or just do this based on what people posted? Read the book.

OP is not starving her kid! How ridiculous. She is offering a balanced meal that the child chooses not to eat. That's ok. You can't force another person to eat. Keep offering the meals and move on, don't force it.

Anonymous wrote:Op here - we started easy tonight. We were already planning on making pizza so I offered pizza and strawberries with milk. Older kid ate everything. Younger kid at two bites of strawberries. She hasn’t eaten since 10am so I thought she might be hungry. Nope nothing. Then went outside to play for 1.5 hours came inside and got ready for bed. I am sure she will be hungry in the morning but at this point it’s a battle of wills. She will hold out for a while I am sure. I am assuming the next week or two will be milk and water with an occasional bite of fruit. Fingers crossed she starts eating real food because I am certainly not making chicken nuggets for dinner.

I think chicken nuggets for dinner once a week with veggies or fruit is not the end of the world personally.

I do not make a separate meal for my kid and never have. Like some of the PP's I do put something on her plate I know she likes if I am making something new. This may just be bread, or a cheesestick. I also always do a fruit or veg that she likes. She eats all fruits that I have tried so far and all veggies except zucchini, except she will eat zucchini if its zoodles in pesto sauce.

Last night I tried a new recipe, chickpea pasta with eggplant and she ate all of it, she had carrots and tomatoes as well.
We are not vegetarian but eat a lot of vegetarian meals and only eat meat about twice a week.

Aside from food allergies and the child that stopped eating meat, they ate what we ate. As for growing out of it, the vegetarian stopped eating meat two years ago.

Anonymous wrote:They're picky eaters because you feed them separately, not the other way around.

Except for the kids that are truely sensitive to certain tastes. I have one that eats anything and one that is very limited. She has added a few foods over the years and probably will continue to. I am glad I did not turn dinner into a battle ground.

My 8 and 10 yr old eat what I make. Sometimes without sauce or some other easy variation. My 3 yr old...she eats what we eat maybe half the time. I don’t fight about or make her something separate. If she wants to eat a slice of bread (made by me) and a banana instead of green chicken curry, fine.

PP here - I posted without reading all the other threads thinking that surely someone had mentioned the Ellyn Satter book, but no one did!!

Here's what you want to do: https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/how-to-feed/the-division-of-responsibility-in-feeding/

Anonymous wrote:Op here - we started easy tonight. We were already planning on making pizza so I offered pizza and strawberries with milk. Older kid ate everything. Younger kid at two bites of strawberries. She hasn’t eaten since 10am so I thought she might be hungry. Nope nothing. Then went outside to play for 1.5 hours came inside and got ready for bed. I am sure she will be hungry in the morning but at this point it’s a battle of wills. She will hold out for a while I am sure. I am assuming the next week or two will be milk and water with an occasional bite of fruit. Fingers crossed she starts eating real food because I am certainly not making chicken nuggets for dinner.

Don't starve your kid!!! Did you read the Ellyn Satter book or just do this based on what people posted? Read the book.

I did it until the kids were about 6 in part because we are both lawyers and they are before we got home. Don’t stress about it. They eat everything we do now at 7 and 8. We always gave them a compartment of every meal we ate, like the salmon or the fried rice etc. I think most kids stop being as picky at about 5-6 IME. But a bunch of back patting dcum types will credit themselves I am 100% certain. Haven’t looked yet lol.

Of course my kids eat what I (we) eat. That is how they learn to try new foods. If not, they are hungry, or just have 2nds of the green beans (which yes, does happen) .

Op here - we started easy tonight. We were already planning on making pizza so I offered pizza and strawberries with milk. Older kid ate everything. Younger kid at two bites of strawberries. She hasn’t eaten since 10am so I thought she might be hungry. Nope nothing. Then went outside to play for 1.5 hours came inside and got ready for bed. I am sure she will be hungry in the morning but at this point it’s a battle of wills. She will hold out for a while I am sure. I am assuming the next week or two will be milk and water with an occasional bite of fruit. Fingers crossed she starts eating real food because I am certainly not making chicken nuggets for dinner.

They're picky eaters because you feed them separately, not the other way around.