I don’t feel like cooking any more

I have 5 kids. Ages 1-6. I’m getting extremely frustrated that my kids do not want to eat their dinner. I make a variety of foods. Here’s a short list of meals I make: chicken Alfredo with broccoli. Chow mein. Orange chicken. Albóndigas (meatball soup), chicken soup, tacos, quesadillas, fajitas, burritos, potstickers, fried rice, sopes, burgers. I make all types of food. I even make homemade pizza. I make the dough and sauce myself and my kids will not eat it. It’s very infuriating because they will eat frozen pizza but not homemade pizza. One of my kids does not like lunch meat, ground meat nor hot dogs. That fine, that doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is that my kids would prefer to eat store bought or from restaurant/fast food place vs homemade. I make 2-3 meals a day. Breakfast, lunch & dinner. Breakfast is cereal, scrambled/boiled eggs, pancakes or waffles with fruit. At lunch is where I let them decide what to eat. At dinner it’s what I’ve planned for the week. Which usually needs a bit of prep. Some days no one will eat at all. I do not cave at dinner. If they ask for anything that is not what I’ve made, they can leave the table and not eat. I’ll leave the plate on the counter if they’d like to eat later. My 1 y/o doesn’t fuss. He’s still too little to have a problem with vegetables. My problem is mostly with my 6, 5 & 4 year olds. Like I said, not even homemade pizza. It’s driving me crazy. What’s even more irritating is that my mom is always judging. “It’s b/c you give them yogurt as a snack”. “You gave them pb&j? That’s so unhealthy”. Yet when my kids go to her house, it’s always take out, yogurt, juice, pizza, candy, soda, milkshakes, cereal.,Etc. I do not buy soda. My kids have juice 1x a day. No more. I don’t give them candy. There are no snacks in between meals for the reason that they won’t eat at the next meal (not like it makes much of a difference anyhow). They eat fruits. All types of fruits. They will eat cucumbers with lime/lemon juice and salt. Berries being everyone’s favorites, I buy those very week. I have no problem with fruits. But vegetables and dinner. Ugh. Plus the negativity from my mom, triple ugh D: via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2I76t8L