Very Picky Eater - Naperville,IL

It sounds like you have some good advice. I wanted to warn you about giving grapes and hot dogs. They are both choking hazards. Please cut them up into quarters and remove casing from hot dogs, if you're not already. Good luck!

first off, if he likes breakfast foods, go with those... will he do scrambled eggs? my daughter loves both those and hard boiled eggs (aka "whole eggs"). she's not a huge fan of meat based protiens either and when i voiced my concern to our doctor at her 2-year check up, this is what she told us: "at this age, we're looking for them to hit each of the food groups ONCE A WEEK!" that made me feel better. they go through phases of what the like so don't worry too much. he'll eat when he's hungry; just keep offering different foods! you're doing fine!!

My picky eater is now 5 1/2 and still a picky eater. My ped. told us if we wanted to nip it in the bud, to do the following, but ONLY if we had the conviction to stick to our guns. It won't work if you give in just once. At every meal, put one bite of everything you are serving on their plate. Do not offer anything to drink except water. If the child wants more of anything, they may have it only if they finish what's on their plate first, then they get a refill of another bite of each food offered at the meal. If they refuse to eat, don't get upset, just excuse them from the table to play or whatever. Kids will eat when they are hungry. Our doc said this method works within a day or two for most kids. He said his own daughter was the "record holder" and went 3 days without eating much of anything before she finally gave in and ate what was on her plate. That's tough for moms to do, I know. I couldn't. My daughter would go to bed without eating, but then wake in the middle of the night hungry. I wish I would've stuck to my guns. Now I am making her take one bite of what I want her to try at dinner. She cannot leave the table unless she takes the one bite. It's not fun, but within an hour or so she will finally give in and have her one bite. She would live on breakfast food and fruit. She finally now will eat carrots (and enjoy them, but only raw) and sometimes raw spinach and romaine lettuce. She would never eat even plain noodles, but now she'll eat most noodles with butter (we're branching out - it used to be only shell shaped noodles, now we do rigatoni and spaghetti too).

Good luck!

D.,

I have an 18 mos. old daughter that is basically the same way. The advice I got from our pediatrician, was to keep offering a variety of foods to her. He also said to look at what they eat on a weekly basis, as opposed to daily consumption. At this age their growth really has slowed down & they don't need as much as WE think they do. As long as your son is eating everyday, even if just a little & drinking well & has lots of energy I wouldn't be that worried. I have been offering my daughter new things to try & have made some progress. I'm sure when your son gets a bit older you won't be able to keep enough food in the house for him! :) I hear boys are big eaters! Good luck & keep triing with him.

Slice skinny strips of beef (or buy pepper steak strips from deli) and bread them and bake them in oven. Be sure to season well and don't tell him it's not chicken. Ignore him when you put it on his plate. Let him see you and hubby enjoying it. Mashed potatoes can be made from steamed or cooked cauliflower. Agin, season well and mash like potatoes (butter and milk or cream). A little slice of carrot cake or zucchini cake buttered is a nice dessert. You have to use your imagination. Good luck

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.

My pickiest eater will be 17 in September. Within the last two years he's finally open to trying more foods, but for the longest time I claimed his food groups to be pizza, hamburgers and fish sticks because it was all he'd eat regularly.

Luckily he's my third child and I'd already experienced this with my oldest and had gotten the best advice from my pediatrician - don't cater to it, and don't force it. Both things actually don't lead to a child who will never eat, but are found to be contributing factors to adult obesity.

A child always catered to will not learn to appreciate a variety of foods and many times what they want is high in fat and calories, and not the best in nutrition. So they continue into adulthood eating this way. A child forced to always clean their plate will be in the habit of doing that even when they begin to enjoy different foods and can get to the point of not realizing where that natural "full" gauge line is and overeat because they have this mindset that the plate has to be clean. The habits you're teaching your son while he's growing up will stick with him and be very hard for him to break later. So chose the battles wisely and fight the ones that are most important to you, leave the rest on the battlefield in defeat.

It takes patience to get through the picky eater phase, but as long as you get one good meal into your son, he's going to be fine. Be warned though, he may not grow out of it for a long time. My oldest picky eater was in college before he starting eating a wider variety of food and as I mentioned above, my pickiest eater probably didn't start to expand his food horizons until he was close to 15,

Know the most important thing is that there isn't a toddler on record who starved themselves to death, they will eat when they're hungry enough and as with SO many things when it comes to raising kids, if you don't make a big deal out of it, either will they.

Best of Luck!
S.

Here is my advice after i made a mistake with this issue and my first daughter. she was very picky and i let her stay on baby food way too long because she enjoyed it and i figured she was getting everything she needed to grow. she only enjoyed a few simple foods and would never eat what we had. the dr. say to just wait it out and she will eventually eat what she is given. well she is pretty strong willed and could go without dinner for days on end and i was weak. i gave her her ow meals and we ate ours. now she is the same way at 5 1/2. Its awful so please stick to your guns on this now and hopefully you break the habit before it goes any further. best of luck.

After reading the other posts I can see you're getting the message: there is not a trick that will turn a picky eater into a member of the clean plate club. So how about a little humor?

My oldest was very picky and he drove me to the wall trying to get him to eat. I was cooking separate dinners for him (if you can call boiling a hot dog "cooking"). Dinner time became a battle ground every night. I was really losing it. Then one night when he was about 4 we were having tacos - one of the "approved" foods as long as it was just the meat and soft shell. He was eating and most of the meat fell out and onto his plate. After a few minutes I realized he wasn't eating the meat. It turns out the meat was "no good" once it falls out of the shell and hits the plate. Well.....I snapped. I grabbed the plate from him and marched over to the backyard door to the deck, opened it and flung the plate and meat and all like a frisbee into the neighbors yard. (AAh it still feels good to remember it!)

So my daughter and my husband spent the next several minutes looking around the neighbor's yard (it was dark) because, yes, the plate involved was a "special plate" he had made at preschool with his name on it!

SO...by way of cautionary tale....do what you can but don't end up in the mental institute trying to get a picky eater to eat!!!

Hi D.,

It could very well be a phase your son is going through, but I also wanted to give you another take on this as well. He could have sensory issues. My daughter, who is 4 years old now, has sensory issues, mostly involving the tactile sense (touch), and one of those areas is oral. She has been a picky eater all her life. If things don't improve in the next 6 months or so, you may want to have him evaluated through Early Intervention (a state program that provides free evaluation for ages 0 to 3 years). Just ask your pediatrician about it. Anyway, good luck!

M.

I have a child who has always been a picky eater. He is 12 years old, 5 feet 5 inches and weighs 110 pounds. You can't pinch an inch on him, he is solid!

Somehow only eating what he wanted, he's managed to gain weight and develop just fine. Keep at it with introducing new foods. One thing we do at my house is make the kids (all of them) take a "no thank you" taste. It's a small taste of whatever they don't want to eat. So it's not a huge amount, but at least you are getting something in there!

Stick with it, it will get better. Maybe try one of those cookbooks like Deceptively Delicious where you sneak the healthy stuff in their food. I wish that was out when Tom was little.

M.

Unless you want him to remain a picky eater for years to come I suggest you give him his good breakfast of what he likes, but offer him the same thing you are making for the rest of the family (cut up specially for him of course - no choking). At this age they can survive on sunshine as the doctors say. So if they don't eat at lunch or dinner, they are going to be fine. If he's hungry enough he'll eat what's offered.

We always offered our kids everything we ate and they are wonderful eaters. But I rarely would make something special for them - even now that they are in their teens, If they don't eat what's for dinner they don't eat or they make a pb&j sandwich.

Praise him for trying new things, make sure he sees you enjoying your food (just like he should see you enjoy reading a book/newspaper, etc.). Eventually he'll come out of this stage and be the better for it.

You could be describing my daughter, and I made a similar post a couple of weeks ago. I can't get over how she won't even put the food in her mouth to try it! The main advice I was given was to keep offering her what we eat during the meal, with some other things she will eat. She might pick up and taste what it is you are eating. Our ped. said that as long as our daughter is getting one good meal (usually breakfast in our case) and 2-3 healthy snacks (she loves yogurt, all fruits, cheese, etc.) throughout the day, that she is doing fine. She had actually started to reject some things she had previously been eating, but just this week started eating them again...so frustrating, but I assume teething is also part of the reason for her eating "habits". Good luck!

It's so frustrating right?! ugh. I used to get so upset. It makes you feel like as a mom youre not doing everything right! but after researching online and listening to my ped as well as other moms, it is sooooo common. Just keep putting other things on his plate with the things he likes and he will eventually touch them. He may not eat a lot of the new stuff, but usually will "try" things once they appear on his plate over and over. I think my son had green beans on his plate everyday for a month before he actually picked up a piece and ate one. Everytime I'd put one down he'd pick it up and say "go"! Not even wanting it on his tray. But I would just tell him to leave it and eventually he tasted it. Now when I ask if he wants green beans, he says "no". It's kind of funny. We still make a point to having some form of vegi on his plate.

Also, to make myself feel better I guess, I bought a whole food supplement for kids. Amazing Grass for Kidz. I mix it in his milk in the morning and he LOVES it. It has lots of vitamins all from whole food sources and it makes me feel like he is getting some nutrition during the day. Just an idea. And if youre ready for a mess, give him a spoon with some things like yogurt or thick soup. My son reached an independant stage around 18 months and wanted to do it all himself.

Dont worry! If he is growing and active he's doing great! Consider yourself lucky, I wish my son would eat bananas, grapes, strawberries and cheese!

Good luck!

My son was the same way and it lasted until he was 6 or 7. He is still picky but not as bad. He will not touch strawberries or anything with tomato sauce. The doc just said to make sure he is getting balanced nutrition. We never had problems with him eating veggies so it was just making sure he got the right mix and some protein. You will see times where he barely eats and then all of a sudden you can't stop him. Then watch out for growth spurts. I always knew we were going to have to go shopping for new clothes soon when that happened. Just keep offering.