19 month old eating advice

Vel

Our 19month old son is quite a good eater and will try a variety of things but lately he has started to refuse point blank to eat certain things as soon as he sees them. I'm not too worried about this but wonder if he refuses something that he has previously happily eaten and I'm sure will happily eat again in the future when he is in the mood, should I offer an alternative?

Today for example, he has refused point blank to even consider eating the risotto I offered him, so instead I offered some spag bol which he has happily chomped down. But what if he had refused the spag bol too? Do I toffer another alternative or do I give him nothing else knowing that over the course of a week he would be eating a good, well balanced diet anyway?

silja

I wouldn't give him too many choices, that will only make him picker as we all have our favourites. In our house, certain things are always available (buttered toast and milk in the morning- carrot sticks, apple slices, watered juice during the day). Everything else, no alternative is given, but they are not forced to eat. Ie if we have risotto for dinner, they don't have to eat it, but they don't get an alternative. They can have carrots, apples and water or watered juice, or go without for the one meal- it does a toddler no harm. In terms of desert, they have to eat three bites of the main meal to get desert.

Vel

Yes this is pretty much what we have been doing, but for the past few days he has been refusing stuff left, right and centre and I was beginning to doubt our approach of taking the dinner away and not providing an alternative. We are making sure not to make a big deal of it. I tend to offer it to him 2 or 3 times and if he keeps refusing I leave it at that.