I agree about Supernanny. It was amazing, but the mother was making such a fuss about the dinner and almost bullying the child into eating that mealtimes were the most stressful event going in their house and obviously the mother had got into such a state about insisting that he ate, that the child became phobic about eating or even looking at food.
I am very luck in that my 3 children eat very well and will try anything, so in that respect I don't have any experience with fussy eaters.
I have however seen friends with similar problems to yours and they have ignored the behaviour and if they are not eating, they have not made a scene about it, but just cleared the table once everyone has finished, but without saying anything about their childs lack of eating.
If you could get hold of a copy of last nights Supernanny then I am sure it would give you lots of ideas and reassurance. Good luck.
Hi there - I have a fussy eater, although not to your extreme. But it's not uncommon for my 20 month old to leave the table without eating more than one or two bite. And then refuse to eat anything later, and so go to bed without eating at all. Here's what we did:
Cut out all snacks in the afternoon. We even went so far as to tell the daycare that she is not to get a PM snack. If the other kids are having something, she gets 1/2 an arrowroot, but that's IT. This helped a bit.
My husband and I are "late eaters", and always have been. However, our daughter always eats great at daycare, where she does what the other kids do, but not great eating on her own. We have made an effort to change our eating habits, and make a meal to eat together. This has improved things immensly. She will usually take a little of what I'm eating - provided it comes off my plate and looks like what I'm eating. This isn't an ideal permanent solution, but until she gets used to eating - it works.
We've also decided to choose our battle. We can't make her eat vegetables in her high chair, but she will eat them straight out of the pot on the stove. GREAT!! We stand in the kitchen and she eats her veggies, cause they're a treat - then we go have dinner in her chair.
You can't fight everything. Sometimes ours likes something one day but not another. We make things that she likes, and if she doesn't eat, we've come to the realization that she's just not hungry. Oh well.
