Forum Fussy Six Year Old - what do YOU feed them?

Oops, just look at the date on the original post 

Just a little late in replying! 

When trying to expand their range of foods, I try and serve some familiar favourites and something new.  Only a tiny bit of each, and no more favourites until the other food is eaten (or at least tried a few mouthfuls).

My kids love wraps - make tortilla dough in the tmx, and serve with mince and a range of salad ingredients.  I think they also like that they can choose what they add and how much, which is another tip I've heard: let them serve themselves.

Lasagne or shepherd's pie is good too.

EDC mashed potatoes is popular here, or a mix of potato/sweet potato.  

Is she extra tired lately?  I find when mine are tired, they don't always eat as well, and we started eating half an hour or so earlier for quite a long time which helped. 

I'm a bit tough too - I tell them it's my job to provide a range of healthy food but it's their job to eat it.  If they don't, well, breakfast is in a few hours!  

I do something similar for my 2 year old.. I blend up vegetables and the lace it through sauces e,g bolognaise etc. Doesnt always work, but worth a shot.

What about meatballs? Chop vegies really small and mix it in? Hopefully she will miss her former diet! All the best.

The other thing I do is give them raw vegies when they are *starving* hungry just before dinner. They eat raw carrot, capsicum, lettuce, cucumber, beans, peas... without even thinking about it as they are so hungry. I'll get them to that with hummous if it's a while before dinner.

Hi! I too have a fussy 6yo. With some help from his dad (I was too cross to do this with him after yet another uneaten meal!) he sat and wrote a list of his favourite meals. There were quite a few that we all liked, so after explaining that we all (the other 4 of us) don't want to eat to his (bland) tastes every night, but that I would cook at least 2 of his favourite meals each week; and just like we would eat his faves even if we didn't like them, he should try our faves too. Anyway, he is eating more  and if he doesn't, then he goes to bed hungry. I'm not running a restaurant! (Although could be easy to with the TM!). The other idea  friend gave me is that we dont discuss ingredients at the table. when they've finished eating, I will tell them what is in it, but until then I won't comment. He does like pasta, jacket potatoes with coleslaw, pizza, mash potato, custard, brothy type soups, lasagne, rice (incl fried rice), eggs - any way, shepherds pie, fish, prawns, vego chilli con carne. I don't cook with meat, so he does pretty good to eat vego and he loves seafood (which i will cook). Also, I can put almost anything in a mountain bread wrap and he'll eat it - so i do a (vego) burrito type filling with salad stuff and grated cheese, and he'll eat it. (hmmm now I know what we're having for dinner tomorrow night - havent tried making that in my TM yet!). He also eats almost any veg if it has come from our vege patch or his greeat aunty's! Good luck, fussy eaters really put a dampner on your cooking fun!

How about making like small pizzza's like you get at the bakeries, dip (my dd is not keen on avocado's, but will eat the avo dip). My family go nuts over cannelloni, I make mine different to the standard, I used philly cheese instead of feta, as feta can be quite bitter for kids and philly is a nice creamy texture. Kids love sheppards pie, savoury mince, chow mein. If you check out ethier the TM cookbooks or try the thermomix forum as well as this site  

I am also a tough mum, eat what's given or starve and have always done that. My dh hated vegies so I used to only put that on her plate and then rewarded her with the meat after she had finished the vegies. I used to make it realistic, not too much.

i have a 7yo with ASD fussiness, a 6yo who'll eat most things and a 4yo who copies whatever her brother says / does. our menu is really very limited as there are not that many things that all 3 will eat and i refuse to cook more than 1 meal!!!

you can see the things we have been eating lately (i also work, as well as feeling very unmotivated to cook, which influences the menu) here http://brazen20au.blogspot.com/search/label/menu%20planning

I have a fussy 2 1/2 year old. He eats the ragu from the EDC. Tuna Mornay from the budget busters. He loves the vegitarian sausage rolls from Cindy's book. I usually batch make these and freeze them up. I also make the meat balls, steam them and give him them with tomato sauce. He just dips them in and eats them. I have also managed to get the pasta figoli from the EDC down his neck as well but thats very hit and miss, being yummy one day and yucky the next.

Its not my 6yo that is fussy here, its my 4yo.  However I just tend to feed them and if they dont eat tough. Mean Mummy.

Some things he has liked lately have been the Apricot Chicken rissotto, pasta with a leek sauce (Just a bechemal sauce with leek added in).  Chicken nuggets (going to try the chicken croquetes I saw a recipe for soon). He says Pancakes are good, but I am guessing that is not what you were after, LOL.

He is also far more likely to eat something he cooked.  He can make the pancake batter (crepes recipe EDCB), coleslaw (EDCB) and does pretty well with the risotto as well.

My 6yo can do all of them and more, he often helps with whatever I am making. Perhaps let her use the machine to make dinner with supervision, I also get the 6yo to read the recipe book as well.

I think the key is perseverance, a child really wont starve if you serve them food to eat, they may refuse to eat, but most children will eventually give in and eat.  Good Luck.