3 year old | Life Happens

So you may have read my post last week about doing the Hardcore Mommy thing (Check it out) because my 3 year old basically refuses to try anything new. I made a Cheeseburger Casserole and she refused to eat even one bite. So I followed the advice of some of my friends and went Hardcore Mommy! In the morning when she wanted breakfast I gave her the plate of food from the night before……

Before

She just looked at it crying for 30 minutes refusing to even try a small bite of pasta. So she got down from the highchair and back into her room with only water for breakfast…….

After

At lunchtime back to the high chair and we had a repeat of breakfast. She just sat crying for 30 minutes and begging me for cheese toast. Ugggh, so down from lunch with only water again.

Have I mentioned up to this point that my daughter is just a tad bit stubborn…..

The way the 3 meal thing is supposed to work is dinner you now try a new meal. So being the strong person that I am (NOT) we all had Fish sticks and veggies for dinner. Because I knew she would eat them and I didn’t want her starve. Plus I knew Friday – Sunday would be really hard for me to stick with this new plan.

But I just can’t suffer through her not eating for 3 meals again. So instead of Hardcore Mommy I give you Easy Going Pushover Mommy.

What I have decided though is I am going to continue to try and get her to try new things. By making dinner with something I know she will eat and something new. This will give her the chance to try something new if she wants but have food on her plate that I know she likes and will eat.
Anyone else have ideas that don’t involve having to starve my child?

Oh, and I have 3 “Try something new” presents wrapped and sitting at the end of the table.
She can have one if she just try’s something new.
They have been there for some time now!

So last night began my adventure in Hardcore Mommy!

Let me bring you up to date…
My dear 3 year old daughter has a set type of food she will eat. Such as… Pancakes, Eggs, Waffles, Oatmeal, Yogurt, cheese, black olives, pickles, Any fruit that was ever grown, sliced carrots (this is important), corn, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter, jelly, bread and sometimes but very rarely I can get her to eat fish sticks or chicken nuggets.

Now just looking over this list it may look like she eats pretty good, but as you start to really dig deeper you can see where the issues fall.
First off the carrots, she will eat sliced carrots, but I gave her some baby carrots a few days ago on her plate and she would not EVEN TOUCH them because they looked DIFFERENT.

In her vegetable eating there is a clear lacking of green vegetables. I can make green beans or peas and she may eat 2 or 3 at the most. Leafy vegetables are just not even going to be tried! I will say that she THINKS she likes celery because this is one of the few items that she will pick up over and over and take a bite of then spit it out. Not sure what she wants it to taste like but something about it makes her think it’s yummy every time she sees it!

Another big issue is that she won’t eat meat! Like I said I can occasionally get her to eat a piece of fried fish or nugget but baked chicken, fish, pork, steak, and everything like that she will not even taste. Who knows she may actually like something but she won’t put a darn bite in her mouth to even find out.

She won’t try Pizza. Seriously what kind of kid on the face of this earth will not even try a bite of pizza?

So here is where hardcore mommy comes in.

She is 3 years old. She is smart and talented and she is old enough to reason with. So here it goes.

On most nights I am a short order cook. I make dinner for me and my husband and then I make my daughter something I know she will eat, usually macaroni and cheese and some fruit or veggie she will eat.

The plate of food that is going to break one of us.

Last night I made cheeseburger casserole for dinner. She would not even try it. Not even put one noodle with cheese on it in her mouth. So she went to bed without dinner. But here is where the really hard part comes in. When she asks for breakfast this morning it is going to be cheeseburger casserole and if she won’t try it for breakfast then she will get another chance at lunch.

I told her earlier that she was going to have cheeseburger casserole for breakfast and she said. “I don’t want it. I want to be hungry all day long!” If she is smart enough to talk to me in adult sentences, she is smart enough to try at least try a bite of the food I make for dinner.

If she would just try it I would be fine. If she tries something and truly does not like it then I have no problem giving her something to eat that she will like. I just get so frustrated that she won’t even try something. Things I know she would like if she would just try them.

So today I am not sure who is going to break first, her or me. But we will find out.

Have any of you guys had to go through this “Picky eater” stage? If so how did you change it?