2 year old not eating dinner!

Lucy has just decided that she is not going to eat her dinner and it is driving us bananas! She will sit there and start crying crocodile tears which doesn't work for me. It doesn't matter how many times we tell her "Mmmmm yummy try this", she still refuses.

Anyone else been through this?

We definately have food struggles in our house. I do a few things:

1. Breakfast is her biggest meal so I add as much nutrition to that as I can....fruit, cereal, milk + ground linseeds and almonds + kids flaxoil.

2. We aim to give veges at lunch time to take pressure off dinner..

3. At dinner time, she goes in her chair and is offered food. If she gets upset, we just say calmly "ok you're not hungry" and let her get down straight away. A while little or if she asks for food, she goes back in the chair and we try again.

If she doesn't eat, we get her down. If she does eat we give her loads of praise and encouragement.

A book I read says that kids won't starve as long as there is good food offered UNLESS there is more mileage in starving i.e. they get more attention from refusing to eat than from eating.

Essentially, we don't encourage the crying and refusing by battling it. I think sometimes they just want to have control over the meal so if they know you're not phased if they don't eat they will often end up eating ok. With toddlers it seems that it is all about their need to feel like they are dictating the terms!!! LOL

Sorry - I'm tired so not expressing myself well...does that make sense?

i find that Rhiannon has a huge breakfast at about 7.30am, a snack at 10am, lunch at about 1.30ish, then she snacks from 3-5pm (popcorn, rice crackers, fruit) and when we have dinner at 6pm i dish her up a tiny portion and if she doesnt eat it, i dont stress as i know she has eaten plenty.

Well at the moment the only main meal Xanda eats is lunch. I have a lot of trouble getting brekkie into him in the morning, and for tea he sits there and picks at his food. So for lunch, I send lots to daycare, usually cooked vegies or a big salad sandwich and he eats it all during the day.

Michaela's not a good one for eating her dinner either and I'm not willing to become a short order chef so if she doesn't eat it I assume she's not hungry.

She eats really well during the day and we make sure she gets plenty of fruit and veges offered at all meals so I know she's getting nutrients.

Like FionaS said toddlers won't starve themselves, when they're hungry they'll eat and they're actually much better than us at knowing what their little bodies need.