I'm unsure what to feed my 2 year old, all she eats is chicken nuggets, fish sticks, ramen noodles, grits and hotdogs. Occassionally she will eat corn and for awhile she ate brocolli but has refused it lately. She doesn't eat sandwiches, peanut butter, jelly, spaghetti, tomato products at all, tuna, or oatmeal. She doesn't eat red meat at all and green veggies are unlikely. Does anyone know of some stuff I could try to feed her. I don't want her to live on junk. I'm looking for any kind of recipes or ideas of stuff I could try to feed her.

By Ginny~moderator on Sunday, July 23, 2006 - 01:29 am:

I remember (it was a long time ago) when my oldest son, at about 2-1/2, was refusing to eat. The pediatrician said that he certainly wouldn't starve or become malnourished if he missed meals for a day or two. The ped told me to offer the food and if he didn't eat after a reasonable time, take it away, no snacks (he did drink his milk at each meal), and offer him food at the next mealtime. I was to make no fuss, not try to coax him, just put his meal on his plate like usual and act like there was nothing wrong when he didn't eat. He went about a week with not eating two meals out of three, but eating all of the third one, and then began eating at each meal again.

The point of this is to say that if it were me, I would *not* try finding special meals to fix. I'd offer what you think she should eat and if she doesn't eat it, the meal is over. No snacks (except a glass of milk if she didn't drink her milk - but only one or maybe two so that she doesn't fill up on milk) and then offer her whatever you've fixed at the next meal. If she eats some of the food and not the veggies, then I'd put the veggies on her plate first and she doesn't get the other food until she eats a couple of bites of veggie. Talk to your pediatrician first, of course, but I would be very surprised if she didn't start eating whatever was put in front of her in a fairly short time.

The problem with fixing special meals is that you are telling her that it is OK to be a fussy eater and not eat what everyone else is eating - that mommy will fix special food for her. Do you still want to be doing this when she's 10? or 16?

By Dawnk777 on Sunday, July 23, 2006 - 05:06 pm:

Sometimes, my kids ate like horses and other times, they barely ate anything. There was no predicting and they continued to grow and thrive. I figured the meals that they REALLY liked made up for the meals where they picked at their food.