Food Fights with 2-y.o.

IMO, 2 is a bit young for decision-making. I would let your son decide what they are going to eat.

As for not eating what she asked for and then asking for something else, my 5 YO GD does that. It took me a minute to realize it also, but ever since I have, I don't let her get away with it. Of course, she is much older than your LO, but if my GD asks for something and doesn't finish it, okay. I don't make them clean their plate because I think that might start an over-eating issue later. They only have to eat until they are satisfied - not full, but satisfied. Then they don't get anything else for at least a couple of hours, depending on what they had before and how much. If she doesn't finish what she has and asks for something else, it's a simple no. You have to wait for the next time it's time to eat. I make her wait a couple of hours and then if it's not a meal time, I'll let her have a healthy snack. She, however, will want only junk so she usually gets nothing. I definitely won't allow a "junk food" snack if they haven't eaten what they asked for previously. So she usually ends up waiting for the next meal and then she really eats because she's hungry!

Your LO is much younger, but it wouldn't hurt to start now to try to break this habit.

For breakfast and lunch I offer up two choices. That's been our model since they were old enough to choose. We do have more options after a good grocery trip, and if they can make a quick choice they get to choose whatever they want but they have to stick with their choice. They're not allowed to abandon it for something else. This has always been our house rule. If they abandon it and ask for something else, their plate gets covered and put in the fridge until they're hungry enough to finish. I'm not a short order cook.

I relax slightly on this with my autistic daughter because of her serious sensory issues with food. She doesn't eat much to begin with, so we have to keep what we know for certain she'll eat in the house at all times. I try to keep things in the house that she's "been eating recently" or has asked for. Those things may suddenly go by the wayside in favor of things that are our steadfast standbys. She's allowed to eat whenever she wants. I got lucky tonight that she ate a completely new supper and asked for seconds. Chances are next time I make it she'll lick it with her tongue and declare it inedible.

My other kids have never gotten away with that but they usually don't try to because they're more adventurous.

I give 2 options, it's A or B, and once it's prepared I hold him to his choice.

I'd just give her two bites of whatever you give her, at 2 their tummies are still little and really don't hold that much, she can always ask for more. And truthfully, you might want to try giving her small amounts of food spread out over 6 times throughout the day and evening, little ones are best at grazing rather than eating 3 bigger meals. Offer breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, an after-nap snack, dinner, and a snack before bedtime, maybe she'd do better at that.

And for the harassing, complaining, and requests for other food I'd just remind her she had her choice, and send her to her room if she keeps it up.

I pretty much do what you do as well. However, at dinner I will offer a supplemental option of cheese, applesauce or yogurt if my kids absolutely don't want what I cooked. I make sure that I make at least one item of dinner that I know they like and other than that, they can have one of those items. I'm not into battling over food but I also want them to be full. So, that's my solution! It works for us and I haven't had any "hungry" issues after dinner, unless it's an obvious stall tactic for bed time! ;)

I just pretty much make what i know my two year old will eat.
I do in my regretful fog in the morning often ask her if she wants cereal, usually because i don't want to cook (lol) or if she wants eggs or oatmeal, but if I make it and she does not want it, we go through the song and dance of me doing what you do, so most of the time i make sure its something she wants, so my suggestion is mom just tell her no that you are not making anything else. She will cry she will kick and then eventually she will eat...I told my son the other day when he turned down his sack lunch at day camp that no kid i ever heard of died from missing one meal and that he was not starving, because it would take a lot more than missing one meal to starve! lol but he's 8 and i opened upa whole can of worms of questions after that one, he asked, "how many meals would i have to miss to starve?" well my point is just leave it there, she will eventually eat it, if not then she will eat the next meal. but I know what you go through.

In child care we are not allowed to go for more than 3 hours without having a meal or some sort of snack.

So this is the meal time schedule at our house.

Until 8am they can eat breakfast. I do not cook for breakfast unless it's the weekend and I feel the need to cook pancakes.

Around 10 we have a small snack. Not anything more than some graham crackers and juice or a granola bar.

Lunch is around noon.

Naptime.....

Around 2:30-3:15pm it's afternoon snack. If you eat dinner late or have school kids coming in then this snack needs to be a small meal with both complex carbohydrates and protein. It must be able to sustain them until dinner. If they are school kids they may not have had time to eat their entire lunch, they may have drank their milk then thrown the rest away so they could go play, they may have run out of what they like at lunch, often kids do not get a healthy lunch no matter what is put in front of them.

Then dinner. Regular meal with at least one item they always love to eat.

Around 8:30pm or 9pm a bedtime snack. This can be light. Like yogurt and some granola on it, more graham crackers with perhaps 1/4 of a peach. Something light that won't give them a gassy stomach all night.

This should carry them over. Please google the food pyramid to get proper serving sizes. It is a common issue that parents give their kids way too much food. Think about their stomach like their hands in a fist shape pushed together. Like praying hands but bunched up together. That's the maximum of how big their tummy's are. They do not need more than that for their first serving of any plate of food.

I let my 3.5 year old pick out everything but dinner. She either finishes what she picked or she doesn't. If she doesn't, that's fine, but she's not getting anything else until the next meal/snack time as decided on by me. My daughter's main M.O. is to not finish her oatmeal (if that's what she picked for breakfast) then asking for a snack 5 minutes after she's set it on the table. "No. It's not snack time yet." Initially she asked quite a bit, but just be consistent and it should eventually slow down.