Coping with a Very Picky 19 Month Old Eater

Can't help much with the picky eater--beyond the just keep introducing healthy choices and keep portions small so it is not overwhelming to him.
As for the food before bed, when mine are hungry they can choose from a cheese stick or a piece of fruit. No mess, no clean up.

S.- I am dealing with the same issue with my (almost) 3 year old. While I believe ofeering her a choice at dinner (only 2 options), she still will not eat every time. I am sure to offer fruit and crackers as a last resort. If she doesn't have a full dinner, I offer her a banana and milk right before bed. I have read that those fill their bellies well!
Good luck!

My son eats most everything. But some food suggestions to get the vitamins in him.

Mac n cheese with spinach. We boil the spinach with the noodles and then mix it all together.

Beans. We make them in the crock pot. He loves them, he eats them like they are candy. Great Northern white beans dried pkg, soak them over night. Rinse them. Put some ham and water and the beans and put them in the crock pot. They are a great source of protein.

I know that we are very fortunate that my son eats most everything in front of him.

You can also try a little oat meal before bed. If he likes it. We do give my son the flavored instant ones for breakfast from time to time.

See what textures he is looking for? Teething can also change what they want to eat. My son will eat baby carrots not cooked, because they feel good on his teeth. I think his 2 yr molers are on their way in.

you can also try creative ways of feeding him.. We take my son out to a place and I use chopsticks and he loves to eat the food off of them. (Mongolian BBQ, it is a make your own stir fry place).

Good luck.

My daughter was a preemie and always very small, so we often panicked about her picky eating! However, a few things worked:
1-stop fighting/battling - it never will work.
2-serve fruit/veggies first
3-bribery is OK! Let them have a small amount of something they like - ie mac n cheese AFTER they eat a bowl of green beans
4-try no sodium shake of butter flakes
5-start small then gradually increase the amount of the "good" stuff he must eat before he gets what he wants
6-keep trying things, again and again and again
7-let him pick favorite movie to watch if he eats his carrots
8-continous positive reinforcement and don't ever give up!
My daughter now eats LOTS and almost everything (even things I won't eat!)!

There is a great book by William G Wilkoff, MD called Coping with a Picky Eater that every parent or provider of kids should read and have a copy of. http://www.amazon.com/Coping-Picky-Eater-Perplexed-Parent...

This book has what I call the Picky Eater Plan. I have used this plan with kids that literally threw up at the sight of food and within 2 weeks they were eating normal amounts of everything and trying every food.

First you need to get everyone who deals with the child on board. If you are a provider it's ok to make this the rule at your house and not have the parents follow through but you wont' see as good results as what I described up above.

The plan is to limit the quantities of food you give the kid. When I first start with a child I give them literally ONE bite worth of each food I am serving. The book suggests that every time you feed the kids (breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner) you give all 4 food groups. So, for lunch today I would have given the child one tiny piece of strawberry, one spoonful of applesauce, 3 macaroni noodles with cheese on them, and 2 oz of milk. Only after they ate ALL of what was on their plate would you give them anything else. They can have the same amounts for seconds. If they only want more mac and cheese, they only get 3 noodles then they would have to have more of all the other foods in order to get more than that. If they don't eat, fine. If they don't finish, fine. Don't make a big deal out of it, just make them stay at the table until everyone else is done eating. They don't get more food until they are sat at the next meal and they only get what you serve. When I first do this with a child I don't serve sweets at all. So no animal crackers for snack but rather a carrot for snack. Or one of each of those. I don't make it easy for them to gorge on bad foods in other words. Now if they had a meal where they ate great then I might make the snack be a yummy one cause I know they filled up on good foods.

Even at snacks you have to limit quantities of the good stuff or else they will hold out for snack and just eat those snacky foods. I never give a picky eater the reward of a yummy snack unless they had that great lunch prior to it.

It really is that easy.

I got told when I was going through this that it takes 10-12 offerings of a food for a child to actually decide if they like it or not, their tastebuds are a little more energized than ours are so any strong tastes are even stronger for them examples: salt, garlic, pepper, spices all need to be added in smaller amounts for their portion. I also got told that no child will starve with food in front of him and don't play the oooh your hungry at night game as it will let them know who is boss in the house by feeding them at their convenience. I have 3 kids the last one is 24 months and I started to get soft on the but he woke and I think he is hungry until I realized that I offered him food from 5am until 9pm and he should not need food for those hours in the middle of the night. Good luck.

Will he drink a yogurt/fruit smoothie? those are easy to make and pretty healthy. My girls don't like veggies and I've had good luck getting them to drink the juice that has hidden veggies but tastes like fruit juice. One thing that my youngest surprisingly LOVES is a tortilla with refried beans spread on it with a little cheese. Sometimes a new presentation gets them interested... you can use a cookie cutter to make pancakes or sandwiches into different shapes. I know it's frustrating. Good luck!

Hi S. try giving him some PediaSure. It's very nutritious. But check with his pediatrican first.

Hi S., Just going through some old emails and came across your situation. Does your son show any discomfort when eating? It could be something physical or perhaps a sensory issue. There is a book called Food Chaining that might help you figure out why your son is refusing so many foods. One of the authors is Dr. Fishbein who is a feeding specialist at Central DuPage hospital. We saw him and he helped us find a feeding therapist near us (in the city). There are many techniques that they can show you that can help. Look up "SOS feeding approach" in Google. My son is now almost 4 years old and we are still struggling with these issues but therapy definitely helped. Oh and one other thing, Pediasure is great but expensive. We did use the older toddler formulas until my son was two. After that we moved to whole milk (and still use it). Instead of Pediasure Dr. Fishbein recommended adding carnation instant breakfast to my son's milk to add calories. We use the vanilla carnation and put about 1/4 of a packet in 8 oz. of milk. Feel free to contact me if you would like to bat some other ideas around or just need a sympathetic ear. I KNOW how FRUSTRATING, CONCERNING, ANNOYING, UPSETTING and EXHAUSTING it can be. Beth