4 year old with eating problems!!

xxfelix

Hi all,

Soo sorry as im sure this has been posted before. I Have a 4 yr old girl who seems to have problem with meat/fish/Chicken etc just seems to hold food in her mouth until mush(sorry) and then cries and ends up not eating dinner. Im fed up Grrrrrr.

She eats patatoes and veg (Brocolli mostly) but is this enough??

He diet consists of Sml bowl rice crispies
Lunch - Cheese/yougurt/ Rasins/ Apple Juice
Dinner - ?????

Is it enough????? really beginning to worry - do i give her pat/veg for dinner and get her a supplement to replace meat and if so what other than protein is she losing out on.


Thanks in advance for anyone if any that reply.

Thanks

thesimpsons

one of my kids did that at around the same age - she'd put a spoonful of mixed dinner into mouth and swollow the veg and leave the meat in mouth until she started droolling and just wouldn't swollow it. She ate plenty of cheese, fruit, veg and was as healthy as could be so I wasn't too worried about it. I'd shred the meat up and sometimes I could get away with it. She eventually started eating meat around age of 6 or 7 but it has to be very dry or cripsy meat. Main thing isn't to make an issue of it or let kids see you are upset or worried about their food habits. If she's eating plenty of veg and fruit, cheese and dairy, and is looking healthy she's probably getting plenty of nutrition. It was only when our girl wanted to go visit people's houses for tea that she eventually started to eat full dinners.

xxfelix

Thanks for your reply but she is really thin and not much of her in it if ya know what i mean and is always picking up vomiting bugs and colds n flu's etc so i dont thinks she is healthy as such.

amiable

Have you talked to your GP and had her weight checked?
If she is below a certain weight they tend to take things more seriously.

amiable

Does she snack in between meals?

cormie

Possibility she just doesn't like meat full stop. Does she only have a problem with meat or have you tried other veg and other things and she has a problem with these too? If it's just meat, you could read of on adapting. There's plenty of vegetarian resources out there, but the best to go for would be dark, leafy greens. There is a great food called Spirulina that's very high in protein and iron. Try get the organic type and tablets and see if she will take these for now, the powder isn't so nice, unless mixed with a banana smoothie it's nice then. Don't get too worried, just experiment with different foods, if she eats her breakfast and lunch no problem, it may just be a case of mixing around the offerings for dinner until you find something she loves

Sleepy

My 2 year old is similar when it comes to meat, just chews beef or chicken etc and then spits it out. What we've done is to generally replace the meat with eggs or fish. Chicken nuggets will result in a highchair covered in masticated chicken whereas fishfingers result in a request for 'moah dip?' (ketchup).

branners69

My four year old for 2 weeks tried eatling her meat in bulk and then trying to spit it out in my hand. I say two weeks but more like a week and a half as we came down on her like a ton of bricks!

I took every toy, perk such as sweets (ie jellys and biscuits etc) and play time from her for not eating properly and within the 2 weeks she was sorted. That was 2 months ago!

Basically stand your ground, remove what they love and be willing to loose the old battle, just to make sure you win the war!

Khannie

Childrens minimum protein requirements are actually fairly low. Just FYI. Cheese, yoghurt and milk on the rice crispies may actually be enough to meet minimum requirements for a given day. That she eats broccoli is great. It's a brilliant source of lots of things (including protein believe it or not!). I would encourage that big time.

If you're concerned about total calorie intake (and that's what I'd be concerned about looking at what you've written) there are a few things you can do. Personally I'd start by trying to replace the bowl of rice crispies with something else. They are basically rubbish and a low calorie breakfast. I feed mine oat based pancakes every week day (I sneak their daily vitamin D requirements in these too ). I let them put whatever they want on them (mostly they choose nutella..while this is not ideal it's a bit of give and take). If you think her protein intake is too low, these can be a great way to get protein in. I add unflavoured whey and cottage cheese into mine. Each pancake has around 10g of protein in it. These are flippin' delicious yokes. I eat them by choice.

Adding a glass of whole milk with every meal is a good way to get calories in too. We were concerned about the youngfellas calorie intake and started doing this and it has had an immediate and very obvious effect on him.

I buy unflavoured whey because I am a sports gimp. If you want to get some yourself for cooking or whatever, you can get it from bulkpowders.co.uk.

I'll dig out the oat pancakes recipe if you're interested. Short version I'd recommend for you:

150g oats
100g cottage cheese
30g unflavoured whey
add milk or water
blend and leave overnight
in the morning add 2 eggs, blend, stick on frying pan. These make short, thick pancakes (i.e. american style)

I would recommend frying on a low to medium heat in butter.

How Strange

I would also recommend ditching the rice crispies and replacing them with something more nutritious as they are complete rubbish. Oat pancakes are a great idea as are eggs especially for protein considering she won't eat meat.

She seems to have quite a good diet-cheese, yoghurt, veg so I wouldn't be too worried. It would be far worse if she was only eating junk and processed food.

Would she eat soup because it's a great sneaky way of even getting her to eat meat if you made chicken soup otherwise add lentils and beans as a good substitute.

littlebug

My 6 year old has recently discovered the concept of vegetarianism and explains that he just doesn't want to eat animals. He conveniently ignores my pointing out that vegetarians should eat vegetables :rolleyes: I don't think he's ever (even as a baby) eaten red meat. He will eat chicken at a push maybe once a week, never eats fish.

He's healthy.... upper end of the curve for height and weight so I'm trying not to get bothered by it

Khannie

Ah I wouldn't let that bother you at all littlebug. I think it's kinda sweet. Vege can be super healthy, once you're not eating too many carbs and get enough protein in.

littlebug

Khannie wrote: »

Ah I wouldn't let that bother you at all littlebug. I think it's kinda sweet. Vege can be super healthy, once you're not eating too many carbs and get enough protein in.

Ya it is quite sweet esp that he is a real nature/ animal lover too so I can't argue with that. It has conveniently given him a reason for the dietary habits he has always had though!

He would live on carbs if he could but there's plenty of dairy in there too so he's getting plenty of protein. We tried your pancakes and he wouldn't touch them but the rest of us loved them
Sorry OP - taking away from your post. In my experience you can't force a child to eat anything, you just have to work a bit harder with what they do like to try to get some balance in.

Mr. Presentable

Hi OP. With my child a similar experience turned out to be a textural thing. She'd eat meat if it was minced and well cooked. It only lasted a while until she got over it.

caseyann

xxfelix wrote: »

Thanks for your reply but she is really thin and not much of her in it if ya know what i mean and is always picking up vomiting bugs and colds n flu's etc so i dont thinks she is healthy as such.

Hey felix
I have a suggestion for you purify all her chicken and mash into potatoes.Make her stew with mince.You can also make stew with the chicken just purify her chicken.
And get her some fish oil to make up for missing out on fish
If i recall right i am sure i used to do that about 5 or 6 years old.
Try making the food look interesting aswell.