Hi I'm so sorry if this has been discussed recently- I did skim through but there was 39 pages
Does anybody have a toddler who has suddenly decided they don't want to eat dinner?!
My son is a great eater, not fussy and we have a broad range of meals. We sit and eat together for our evening meals Friday to Monday (Tues, weds and Thurs is just a snack after nursery) but recently he has started refusing to come to the the table - "I'm busy!", Flat out says he doesn't like it and we often resort to airplanes and other games to get him to eat. Other times he will sit and eat with no fuss, uses his cutlery and finishes his plate. Other nights is a huge battle.
I don't want to force him to finish, or use trades like "if you finish your plate you can have x,y,z"
But gah it's so annoying. I know he's hungry, he knows he's hungry so I try to follow his lead and will leave the plate there for an hour and then start the bedtime routine. If he hasn't eaten, he hasn't eaten and he's never woken in the night hungry.
Am I getting worked up over nothing? I don't know if it gets more under my skin because I hate food waste and chucking a whole plate of food in the bin really bothers me. It's just so bizarrely variable that I don't really understand
or can predict it. Has anyone else experienced this and have any tips? I know I should be grateful that he is for the most part a really good eater and he's growing fine but argghhh just bloody eat the lovingly prepared food