A breakthrough? – Fussy Eaters Support Club

So after my post last month on should I ignore or do something about the very limit diet that Ben would eat I decided to do nothing.  But then after reading someone else whose child constantly asked for food I twigged that he wasn’t asking for food as he was hungry, it was boredom.

So I decided to take action, when I knew he wasn’t really hungry an hour after a large breakfast of cereal and toast I said “O.K. if you are hungry there are apples or grapes to eat”  He said he didn’t like those, but I just kept repeating back that these were the only options.  This led to a trip to the supermarket to look at fruits.

I ended up buying ingredients to make Bolognese with pasta, and asked Ben to help me at dinner time to do the cooking.  One thing Ben loves is to be involved in anything I am doing, so he pulled up a chair and helped me prepare the vegetables.  I got him to sniff the peppers and onion and help peel things and we talked about the peppers having seeds like the ones we are growing.

As I was stirring the onions I looked and he was peeling a large mushroom and eating the peeled bits *SHOCK*

I asked him to choose which type of pasta to eat (even as a weaned baby he would never eat pasta)  he choose tagliatelle and I set about cooking it.

I put 2 small bowls of cheese on the table, one cheddar and the other mozzarella, he sat down to wait and I looked again and he was eating cheese…EATING CHEESE AT HOME *tries not to faint with excitement*

I was doing my very best to be casual about all this eating, talking about it but not cartwheeling around the kitchen!  Yes I need to encourage but not let him realise the fuss it is causing.

The pasta was ready so I put some on his plate and some Bolognese next to it and sat down with mine too.  And he ate the pasta, and asked for more and I tried not to cry.

So of course being the laid back person I am I went to Asda the next day and bought 4 different types of pasta! He has eaten is again a few times, always on its own, no sauce.  The cheese eating has yet to be repeated but I live in hope.

But it isn’t all good news on the eating, he went a whole day at nursery yesterday without eating anything apart from his breakfast.  They were worried about him, he just refused it all. I collected him at 5 p.m. and chatted to his key worker and told then to try not to worry and that I would talk to him again later and reinforce the need to eat at nursery.  I fed him later at home on beans and bread sticks, nothing exciting but just food to fill him up at least.  And he slept for 13 hours last night. Odd little boy.

So the theory of they won’t starve themselves, they will eat what they are given…Ben might not have got that memo