5 Year Old Picky Eater!! Need Help Before He Has to Eat Lunch at School!

Stop feeding him nothing but junk and then expecting him to eat healthy. He is 5--if you don't buy or prepare frozen pizza, poptarts, or sugary cereal he won't have a choice. He will not starve. Going without dinner for one night or throwing a tantrum for a few meals in a row, is not starving--not even close! He throws a fit to get what he wants and you give in. No need to bribe, punish, etc. . . make a healthy meal and serve it. If he doesn't eat it or throws a tantrum that is fine--let him go to his room. I would not be losing this battle of wills with a 5 year old. You are the mom. Sounds like a bit of tough love is in order for both of you.

Sounds like you will have pack his lunch everyday.

UPDATE: You haven't tried hard enough. Kids only do what they are allowed to do - you allowed him to eat the way he is eating. You are still making excuses.

It is hard to feel like your child will not eat unless you feed from his list, but guess what? They will not starve.. Ask the Pediatrician and they will tell you this is the truth..

YOU need to be strong and be willing to have him miss a few meals till he gets used to the fact that he is going to be served what you cook or he will not eat.. If you cannot or are not willing, be prepared to just continue as you are until he decides he wants to try other things.. He will be in charge of what you are allowed to feed him..

If you are truly ready to help him expand his food intake I am sure you will get great advice.

Here is what we always did. I made one meal for lunch and dinner, I made it healthy and if our daughter ate it great, if not great. I made sure it included at least one the fruits and veggies she liked and milk.. Then I served her a small serving of what we ate.. We learned that she is not crazy about mixed up foods like casseroles. I always placed a small spoonful on her plate so if she wanted to be a "Brave Taster" she could give it a try. We complimented her when she tried a taste, but did not say anything if she didn't. ..

So before I mixed it all together, I would keep the veggies, meat and starches separate for her.. So plain rice, plain chicken, plain peas, plain shredded cheese.. Same with spaghetti.. She liked the pasta plain, the sauce on the side and the meatball on the side..

We also had a rule about not making ugly comments or sounds and no ugly faces about things we did not like. If she did not eat she did not eat, but no snacks till the next meal.

As she got older I made a rule if you did not want to eat what was served, you were allowed to make a bowl on non sugar cereal.. There were times, that I ate cereal, because after the planning, purchasing and preparing the meal, I just could not face it myself..

It was amazing to me that at daycare she pretty much ate what they served.. beets, lima beans, and other food, I do not eat.. I guess since all of the other kids were eating, she ate..

I will be sending you strength.. Parenting is not for the faint of heart.. Be strong..

I would start by explaining to him that you are changing how the family eats. From now on you and DH/DP will be making one dinner for the three of you to eat together as a family. That will be what is available to eat at that meal. I would just make sure that what you are serving is healthy and that you include fruits and vegetables at each meal. I would either do fruit for dessert or not do dessert at the beginning since you don't want that to be all he eats. Same thing for lunch. I would not bribe him, punish him or make a big deal about it. This is what we are having for dinner, period. If he eats, great, if he does not, he will likely eat at the next meal. When it comes time to pack him a lunch, you will have plenty of options from what he will be eating at home by then. I would also start incorporating fruit and some whole grain options (whole grain pancakes, whole grain cereals) into his breakfast.
Good luck. You are starting him on a lifelong path of healthy eating and trying new things.

Well you need to either put your foot down and let him be hungry and refuse to eat what you feed him or just give him what he wants to eat. Bribing him, threatening him and punishing him is not going to work. It will cause a bigger problem than you have now. If sometimes you feed him what he likes and then make him eat what he doesn't, that is just confusing and unfair to him. Be one way or another and stick to it.
I was a very picky eater and my mom fed me what I wanted to eat. As I got older I ate more and more different kinds of food and today I will just about eat anything. I love ALL kinds of foods. Food was not a struggle for my family it was enjoyed. I have one picky son that is now 6 and lives off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese and crackers and pizza. Doesn't bother me, maybe because I was the same way and tend to parent like my mom did. If we are going somewhere where they do not have anything he likes I pack him a lunch. He is now trying new food on his own in his own time. Do you have foods that you don't like? Think about how it would feel if someone was trying to make you eat it. Yes your list is probably smaller than his is but his world is also alot smaller than yours right now. Sometimes it's not about taste but about smells or textures.
I would just say that whatever you decide be consistent and he will follow your lead.
Best Regards,
C.

You have two choices - make him what he likes and let him eat it without fighting about it, or make healthy food for the family and that's what he can eat without fighting about it. Personally, I would go with the second option, but a lot of people don't want the fight, and that's their perogetive.

The rule in our house is that you can sit at the table politely, or you can go to your room and cry. If you make something for dinner and he throws a fit, the issue is his throwing the fit, not the lack of eating.

No matter what you do know that a) he really won't starve and b) something's got to give, because the pattern that you have right now isn't working for either of you or the parent/child relationship.

I read this out loud to my husband because we have been there with our daughters, at various ages. My 3 yr old just recently had a HUGE fit about roasted cauliflower on her plate. She threw her fork down, which got a reprimand, and then stomped around the table screaming, "I will not eat it- I will NOT!" and we ignored that part. After maybe 5 minutes of this (seems longer in the moment!) she sat down and ate them.

We've drastically changed our diet this past year, for the whole family, and seen what a difference it has made for all of us. One thing we noticed is that our kids were drawn to sugar and carbs. When we stopped offering those, and offering protein, it perpetuated itself that they didn't crave as many carbs and craved more protein. Breakfast is setting him up for the rest of the day, so he definitely does need protein there. Do you make pancakes yourself? You can make a high-protein pancake that will have a similar texture to what he is used to, and similar taste.

Anyway, I could go on and on about things you can try, but the first thing to do is try not to react- not with bribes, anger, etc. Just be matter-of-fact about it and he WILL eat. If he is really "addicted" to carbs (like it looks) he may have an underlying problem like gluten-intolerance or Celiac's. One thing I have gotten from all my reading is that our bodies will usually crave the one thing that is problematic for us (go figure!)

It's OKAY for him to cry, and it's okay for him to cry to the point of having a headache. Going through this for a few days will certainly feel endless, but the reward of him trying new foods at the end (for you and for him and his health!) will be very worth it in the long run. Stay strong and get these things out of your house. It's easier to go cold-turkey, in my experience. If the child knows it's just not there, it takes away some of their power. And believe it or not, kids want US to have the power- that is how they feel safe and secure. (Weird, I know, but lots of studies back this up!)

Let me know if I can help you tweak a recipe. I'm certainly not saying he can never have pizza again or pancakes... there are just ways to make this healthier for him, and I would start with a protein-dense meal for breakfast.

M.

(My family's food journey and food blog is here, if you are interested:
www.chickiepea.wordpress.com)

PS- If it is a texture thing, then he may qualify for something like Early Intervention with a Occupational Therapist to help with that.

Just think of how things were before we had all this processed junk food. Our parents (or our parents - parents, I'm 46 with a 4 year old), pretty much just made a meal for EVERYONE, and if you didn't like it. TOUGH. And it was usually somewhat healthy. Not full of chemicals and devoid of vitamins and fiber.

I think that lunch is an excellent time for you to get your son to eat something healthy during the day. Your doctor is right he WILL eventually eat if he is hungry. I would just give him his lunch, don't make concessions, he will eat it eventually, and the good thing is he will be at school, so without the mother/son dynamic he will probably see other kids eating the same thing and think nothing of it. My daughter eats all sort of things at school and at playdates that she would never eat at home. (I hear about it from her friends' mother, and the preschool teachers tell me if she doesn't eat lunch.)

He might just be fighting about what to eat because children at this age want SOME kind of power and this is something he has learned he can control. What you might need to do is give him more independence in some other area and he might loosen up a bit. Give him choices in other areas that will not hurt his health.

I have found that letting my daughter help out with dinner makes her more interested in eating, or at least trying it.

Before school starts next year, I would try making dinner a "no choice" meal. Just make what you want to make for the entire family, and that is dinner. No substitutions. Let him cry and whine. He can't keep it up forever. It could take a week, who knows. If he is really hungry before bed offer him a piece of fruit, like a banana so he doesn't go to sleep hungry.

Have some ice cream in the freezer and I hate to tell you to "bribe" him, but if he tries something he would normally not eat, maybe have some dessert after dinner.

Good luck!! They can be obstinate little creatures!!

My son is like that.... I wonder too, how he will do and eat, once he starts school.
Or you just pack your son, home lunches.
That is what my friend does, for her picky son, who is in school.

ABC News, did an episode on "Food Neophobia."
Here is the link:
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Recipes/extremely-picky-e...

all the best,
Susan

I understand that your son is picky but I always wonder how they came to the preference of apple jacks and pop tarts to begin with? If people would give their children a healthy base of food BEFORE they introduce this kind of food, then there wouldn't be a problem of their child only preferring them over all other foods. Poptarts are horrible nutritionally, and should truly be a once in a while thing. First and foremost I would recommend just trying to even out his nutritional needs (because he's not getting them all if that's all he will eat.) Puree some veggies and put it under the cheese in his pizza... try to get him to participate in making homemade pizzas because you can start adding more things to it. Same with the gc sammies...slowly start adding miniscule little bits of other flavors, barely perceptible, until you can increase. Definitely check with your doctor about ruling out sensory issues. He may need OT.

The doctor is right. Get rid of all the starchy junk and have proteins, fruits and veggies available. Amazingly enough, he WILL eat some of it eventually, and he won't starve to death beforehand. Yes, you're going to have to listen to some whining and begging, but just tell him you want him to be bright and quick -not slow and dull, because eating the diet you described above is not going to do him any favors. As far as school goes -pack his lunch and only use the cafeteria for emergencies. Most school breakfast and lunch food is disgusting and filled with needless amounts of fat, sodium and carbs. You may want to check out a book on healthy eating for kids and/or families. Make snacks like hummus and carrot sticks available or even a multi-grain tortilla smeared with hummus and rolled around some veggies or turkey -that kind of thing. Ditch the Apple Jacks and Poptarts for oatmeal and regular Cheerios or healthy granola and flavored yogurt. He'll develop a taste for it! Dried fruit is great too. My 2 year old firmly believes it's candy.

I'm a picky eater myself. I was forced to eat at least a few bites of the meat served (steak, pork chops) but I would cover it completly in ketchup so I didn't have to taste it. I still don't eat those two things and won't eat just plain meat. I would scrape everything off my pizza and eat only crust. Tacos were just the shells. Forcing me to eat didn't help. I would just sit there all night or take mouthfulls to the bathroom and spit it out.

Have you though about trying to healify the things he will eat? Instead of grilled cheese or frozen pizza, make a whole grain tortilla in a pan w/ cheese on it (quesidilla). Buy a Boboli whole grain pizza crust and the two of you can make a pizza together.

Veggies: have you tried them different ways? My daughter loves her veggies, but she will only eat them some ways. Broccoli and cauliflower have to be cooked (frozen veggie nuked). Sugar snap peas and green beans are great raw. Make it fun. Have him pop out the pea or bean. Give him dip (chip dip if he doesn't like veggie dip) to dip raw veggies in.

What about frozen Eggo nutri grain waffles? Put some Peanut Butter on them for lunch or breakfast. Applesauce? Motts makes some great no sugar added flavors. Yougurt? Stonybrook makes a banilla yogurt that almost tastes like pudding.

Take him shopping with you. Let him pick out fresh fruits and veggies that look interesting to him. Have him help you cook the foods. Give him a tasty dip with raw veggie sticks. For meals, provide him with three or four different foods (pasta, green beans, and chicken, for example). Give him a few bites of each food, and he doesn't get anything more to eat until all of it is eaten. Once he eats it all, give him a second plate with a few bites of each food and repeat the process. If he doesn't eat anything, then he doesn't eat anything. Kids are amazingly resilient and they will eat what is available to them in order to survive. Let him give himself and headache and make himself sick. But don't give in. He can eat the food you choose and prepare, at meal times, from a plate, while sitting at the table. That is the only option. If he doesn't eat his dinner in a timely fashion, then he must wait until breakfast, when you give him a plate of three HEALTHY options to try again. If he doesn't eat that, then nothing until snack time or lunch time (whichever comes first). Parenting is 95% persistence. Just keep at it and don't give in. He'll eat.

you can keep the same pattern and just send him with a lunch bag next year, he will not die if doesn't' eat half day.. I had the same problem with my 7 year old , but her pediatrician always told me if is food in the house she will never starve, and says A toddler can go up to 4 days with out food...I always try to give her "something " like cokies or wherever she likes but is soooo wrong.....so is up to you to change him or to work on his favor...you can put fresh fruit on the kitchen and let him know when his hungry he can go and have a banana or some grapes....and don't worrie to much anyway is not getting anything nutritious from POP tarts or sugar and flours.

Your son sounds similar to my daughter, who will be 6 years old next month. It may be that your son has some sensory processing issues, particularly oral oversensitivity. We took our daughter to Arlington Pediatric Therapy in Arlington Heights, where she participated in a "feeding" group with other kids who had similar issues with food. It was led by some speech therapists and an occupational therapist from what I remember. They had a method of teaching the kids to try different foods. It may be worthwhile for you to look into. Good luck!

Have you looked at the "Sneaky Chef" cookbooks? Check with your library and see if they have them.

Try having your son help you in the kitchen. Many times, if they are involved in the process, they are more open to trying new things. Keep offering, too. You never know when they may take you up on a new food.

Once your son is in school, he will see what other kids are eating and he may be encouraged to try new things by his friends.

Good luck, I know this is hard, but you will get through it!

Hi Ann,

First of all, I have noticed that some people responding on this website are quick to give advice in a not so friendly way. I think if someone has not been able to relate to you, it is easy for them to give quick advice, not ever living through the situation themself, a this is what I would do if I were you, not actually going though it is so different. I can offer you two sides. My son is just like your son, but my daughter will try, eat and love everything. Funny how two siblings can be SO different. I don't know if this is the case with your son, but our son will actually throw up on many foods. The dentist said he will outgrow this by the age of 6 at the latest. (let's hope) Certain textures bother him. His ped. also agreed. We work with a speech therapist for feeding as well, I am not sure if that is something you might want to try. Just wanting to wish you well :) I did put my son in a day care setting during lunch time so that he would see the other kids eating and would hopefully try some foods too. So far, it has not worked, but I am hoping in time it may :) Good luck :)

J

Kids will eat what everyone else is eating at school. My kids eat everything at school including things they won't touch at home like brocolli! My daughter won't eat buns or sandwich bread at home but eats it at school. I've actually been at school and seen it. Wierd!
Can you afford to put him in childcare a couple days a week? Maybe just a couple half days where he can eat lunch with other kids?
All kids go through the phases where they love something then hate it the next day. My daughter who is 3 will say she doesn't like something if she just doesn't want to eat it anymore whether it's because she's stuffed or more likely because she is distracted and wants to get up from the table.
It can get out of control though so I would suggest you figure out where to draw the line. I put my foot down about a month ago when my daughter was playing us a little too much. She would barely eat dinner then when it was time for bed and she was in bed she would ask her daddy for a snack and this is when she would eat then she wouldn't be falling asleep until 9:30 or later. I was bummed out by daddy saying "take 2 more bites" then you can be done when she hadn't eaten anything so that's why I put my foot down. I figured out that her eating patterns stemmed from being distracted so I get her attention and give her a bite to get her back on track. I do this when she asks if she can be excused and a lot of times she just continues to eat and forgets she asked if she can leave the table.
My little ones don't always like what we're eating for dinner but I do try to get them to try it. We always have veggies that they like and fruit at hand whether it's fresh or more often canned in juice or apple sauce with our meals. The only thing they have that's different may be the main dish.
I definitely am not one who sits there and goes back and forth though if I make them something I know they like such as mac and cheese and they suddenly "don't like it" especially if I've made that because they don't like the main dish. I will then tell them to eat the stuff they do like such as the pears and corn. That usually distracts them and eventually they'll take a bite of the mac & cheese and once they do, they end up eating it.

I can totally relate. You can't push him to eat foods he won't eat. My son is 4 and has sensory processing disorder and it is struggle to get him to eat. I make sure he has a good multi-vitamin everyday and will make him a fruit smoothie that he sucks with a straw (make it interesting). My son only eats about 4 foods and pop-tarts is one of them - I just buy the back to nature brand since it is slightly healthier than the alternative. You can't make them eat what you want them to eat, it just won't work. I would put food in his lunch bag that you know that he will eat otherwise it will just end up in the trash and then your kid will go hungry which is worse. My son gets SUPER cranky if he doesn't eat. I think that would be worse.

Good luck!

My son is 11 and is the same way, he's been this way since he was a baby. There's a name for it, "food neophobia". Some people are afraid of flying, our kids are afraid of eating. Mine has about 5 foods he'll eat and will the do the same. He used to eat kraft mac and cheese every night, now he won't touch it. He will go all day without eating until he's throwing up from being so hungry if I don't allow him to eat the foods he likes. Bribing doesn't work. Parents who don't have kids like ours don't get it. So to solve the lunch issue, give him a pop tart (if he'll eat it cold) and apple jacks cereal for lunch. You have to give him what he'll eat or he won't eat anything. He won't look at other kids eating and start eating the same foods. I hope he is able to eat with other kids. Mine had some issues with that as it was a big turn off to look at and smell everyone elses lunch.

Feel free to contact me directly if you'd like more advice. ____@____.com, there is a good book called Food Chaining. It gets kids to try new foods by taking what they'll eat and changing it ever so slightly. Like a new flavor of pop tarts. It will show you how to play games with him. Put something in his mouth just to spit it out and make a basket in a trash can. That way he's not eating it but hopefully putting it in his mouth. Huge step for kids like ours.Good luck!

Have you read the book "Feeding with Love and Good Sense" by Ellyn Satter. She is a pediatric dietician. Pretty interesting.

8

I can totally relate. My advice is just to keep trying new foods, because he refuses one day doesn't mean he will refuse it the next. My 5 year old daughter is my picky one. The only meat she will eat is hotdogs and chicken nuggets...if that even counts as meat....I make a healthier version of the chicken nuggets. She does like hard boiled eggs, so I make these quite often for her for protein. I do not give these to her for a meal, instead I will add them to her plate to go along with her meal. Some days she will at least try the food on her plate, some days she wont'. I wouldn't make a special meal for him every meal, he should have what your eating, but instead put something you know he likes (something healthy) and put it on his plate as a side, that wya you know he is at least eating something. Yes, you need to win the battle, but I definitely don't think that letting him not eat for 2 days is the answer (as a previous poster suggested). I know with my daughter, she is already underweight that not eating for a few days because we are in some kind of war is just not good for her...or any child for that matter. She is very good about eating fruits, not so much with the veggies, but they are alwasy offered, I will hide them in foods...someone suggested "the sneaky chef". The foods that he will eat maybe try to make a bit healthier. Pizza isn't bad, but maybe in the sauce add a spinach puree and use whole wheat crust, get creative with the toppings as well. With the grilled cheese you can add a squash or caulflower puree. Seriously, I know how hard it is, but all you can do is keep trying. Once he is in school, if he is going to do hot lunch, he will have to make a choice and thats what he gets. This could be good for him and it may help him to try new things, especialy if all of his friends at lunch are eating it. Good luck!! I know how difficult having a picky eater is....just keep offering new things, and make what he will eat healthier.