Dinner..

Caden doesnt seem very interested in dinner these days, am trying to give him what we eat now, so he has dinner with us and I dont have to make 2 seperate meals.
Im trying to get him to eat more meat, he will eat mince, but he picks at chicken and pork and it just ends up on the floor, he doesnt make "eew yuck" faces so Im assuming he doesnt NOT like chicken etc. He has also started turfing his veges on the floor, so he isnt eating much at dinner time, and I end up giving him a banana or a yoghurt or something so he doesnt go to bed hungry.
He eats breakfast and lunch fine, he has toast and sammies and fruit etc, its just dinner time that he is fussy. However, if I stick Watties cheesy ravioli in front of him at dinner time he will eat the lot!

Im guessing this is just a toddler thing, but do you think I should stop giving him a banana ect if he doesnt eat what I give him to start with? What did everyone else do in this situation?

When E doesn't eat enough dinner, we get her down from the highchair and wash her face and hands and play together/read/ what ever we happen to be doing, then closer to bedtime we get back up in the highchair and have a sandwich or some other "boring" food. SO not eating dinner = finished. Then supper before bed. If she eats all her dinner she gets yummy stuff while still in highchair (eg a yoghurt for pudding).

Oh and I always make sure that whatever we have has something I know he likes in it. Or I cook up some extra mixed vege for him cause he loves peas carrots and corn, then I know that if hes not eating anything at all its cause hes being silly or holding out for something better rather than just not liking it

we've had some 4.30/5am starts to the day earlier this week because Nat hadn't eaten enough the day before (had a tummy bug and was totally off her food but still woke up hungry ), so just be prepared if Caden doesn't fill up enough on dinner, he might wake earlier! I'm in the give them what they want camp (within reason of course!) ..... until she's a bit older and able to understand a bit more!

we had this issue for a while too..drove me mental..some food he genuinely doesnt seem to like..which is weird as he used to love everything.. and i was giving him other stuff as well but i stopped giving him yogurt first.. and also made sure he had a lot less to snack on during the afternoon and it seems to have fixed it.. and giving him tea at his table....it sucks though so hugs for you!

its a hard thing really as you dont want them hungry but they have to learn ..in our case E certainly understands and plays us for food he likes better( i thought he was too young and was really quite soft on him but the last week have got a lot harder on him about it).... about 3 times a week he has our food and the rest stuff like kids pasta with the veges in and stuff..

he also only throws food if he has had enough or hates it..

Spencer goes to bed without if he doesn't eat dinner (and I know it is something he likes), he started the same thing around Cadens age so that is when he started going to bed with no dinner if need be, he's never woken in the night, has just been really into breakfast the next day.

The other thing we often do is have dinner at lunch cos that's when he seems hungrier so he has a decent meal then and then it doesn't matter if he picks at things or just eats fruit for dinner. Or if he refuses dinner I keep the left overs and give it to him for lunch the next day, saves the waste.