What would you do - fussy dinner time

DS is 15mths and has always been good with his finger food but at dinner time he hardly eats anything if I get him to do it himself or if its anything out of the ordinary. He loves loves loves mashed potato / sweet potato / pumpkin and will eat a normal size cereal / desert bowl full with a saucy thing with it. He eats so much and really enjoys it but I cant really just give him that every night can I???

Last night he had mashed potato with a cheese sauce that had mashed corgette, onion and peas in it and he adored it. Same sauce tonight with pasta in was the devils food apparently. Its just so frustrating, half of me thinks why bother doing anything different and just stick to the stuff I know he likes but then that will in all likelihood make him more fussy in the longer term I guess.

He has 2 weetbix with milk and yogurt for breakfast feeds himself, used to have toast too but has gone off that. Lunch is a mix of cheese cubes, avocado, cracker with marmite/p butter, chunks of chicken, omelette, fish fingers, fruit etc etc and he eats it all himself. But if I try to do finger food type things at dinner he tries a couple of mouthfulls and then biffs it over the side.

So do I mostly stick with the stuff he likes or keep trying with the other stuff and he'll catch on that not eating it means he goes hungry?? What do you think??

Maybe change what you offer for dinner based on how well he's been eating during the day? So if he eats well at lunch, maybe offer something different (that he might bot eat), but if he hasn't had much to eat during the day, give him something you know he'll eat for dinner!

something I was reading said that generally toddlers can have 2 'good' meals where they eat well, and the third where they can just fluff around.

My friend (and neighbour) has just gone through this over the past couple of months. Her wee boy was 16m when he started getting picky with chunky or finger foods after they got back from a 7 week trip home to the UK. They decided to feed him what he would eat and keep offering bits of the other stuff. They also ate their own meals with him as much as possible (usually jsut breakfast and lunch). It lasted about 6-8 weeks, during which time he cut a couple of new molars and of course adjusted back to a new time zone.

He would sometimes ask for fruit that C was eating if he was here or if we were out and then about a week ago he asked for his Dad's noodles at lunch time and since then he's been getting back into "real" food again.

So I wouldn't necessarily get too stressed about a fussy stage. I thought blondy's suggestion was a good one too