Picky eaters...when did it end?

[Sasha]

My DD is 2.5 and she refuses to try new food. We're very stuck in the land of typical toddler foods....peanut butter, mac & cheese, pizza, etc. When I put something new in front of her, she freaks and absolutely refuses to even have it on her plate. On the rare occassions that she does actually try it, she inevitably spits it back out and tells me, "I don't like it." Even things that any kid would like, such as a corn muffin.

One of my new year's resolutions has been to give her a new food for dinner one night a week, and if she doesn't eat it, then so be it, I am not going to be her short order cook. We had success with meatballs (although they were something she used to eat in the past) but zero luck with quesadillas. If your child was a picky eater, when did the phase of refusing to try something new end? And how did you get it to end?

(I know there is a picky eaters thread buried in the 12-36 month section, but I am looking for advice from those who have gotten past the problem).

[emschwar]

I don't know. We're not there yet.

We started a "food passport" with Noah. When he eats a new food, he gets a sticker in his passport (pocket sized notebook). When he gets 3 stickers, he gets a "goody" (a m&m) and when he gets 15 stickers, he gets a trip to Krispy Kreme. So far, we've been to KK twice, and we've been doing this since June. We frequently ask him if he wants to try a new food. If he says no, we press a little, talking up how close he is to a goody or trip to KK, but if he still refuses, we drop it. We've gotten him to try quite a few new things this way, though usually, he tastes it once, says how good it is, then refuses to ever eat it again. :rolleyes:

[Ferris]

The last few months we have been telling DS that certain foods are Thomas and his friends (the trains) favorite things to eat. We tell him that "Percy loves the Salmon" and he actually tries it and usually will eat more!

I have also been coming up with other things to call the foods. Like Mashed potatoes were clouds, etc. I feel kinda bad about doing it, but he's been eating Salmon, pork, shredded beef, chicken, asparagus, broccolini, and many more foods that he would have never eaten before!!

The last few nights I haven't had to tell him it's a trains favorite, he's been trying them on his own!! I am amazed that that worked. It has made dinner so much easier!

[Renrel]

My mom has a theory that picky eating is some sort of a built in protection from an earlier time. As children became more independant and were not always under mom or dad's watchful eye pickiness in eating made them less likely to eat something poisoness. Thus the attraction to sweet and red foods were tend to be safe and the adversion to green and bitter which are more likely to be found in poisoness foods (as well of course as many good for you foods.) Just an interesting thought. I don't have an answer the the question. DS is not very picky but for where he is picky he still is at age 4. Though he will try new foods when he is in the right mood and with some encouragement.

[PG-rated]

Well, my DH is still one of the pickiest eaters I know at age 31, and I'm convinced it's because when he rejected something as a toddler, his mom just never served it to him again. She made him separate dinners until he was old enough to cook for himself. So I definitely encourage you to keep trying. Your future daughter-in-law will thank you. :)

[Sasha]

emschwar - I've tried a sticker chart briefly for PT'ing but only had mild success with it. But it has been awhile, so maybe it would be worth re-visiting the chart again for this issue. Thanks.

Ferris - Hmm, maybe I should tell her that Sleeping Beauty loves eggs, etc. And I like your idea about naming foods other things (although I picture us at a restaurant and her asking for clouds, LOL). Definitely going to give both a shot!

PG-rated - That was my fear, that I'd be making DD separate dinners until she is 10! ;)

[littlemia]

My friend calls everything noodles- green noodles for zucchini, for example. Works for her.

I haven't dealt with toddler food aversions, but I've done some reading on it since I have an infant with feeding issues and one of the things I came across was that you often have to offer a food at least 10 times before the child will eat it. Another thing I saw recommended was to offer a food with no expectation that it will be eaten. Start small and and try to just see if the child can tolerate having the food on her plate. Then after time the hope is that the child will taste the food.

[ManteoChik]

Never. :p

I'm in my 20's and still a picky eater.

Seriously though, I was in high school when my sister was born and her mother (my stepmom) always tried to avoid fixing the typical toddler foods - and had her eating whatever their dinner was. As she's gotten older, she eats a lot of things that even I don't eat - certain veggies, tomatoes, onions, and other things.

[catmom]

My almost-3 year old has recently become more on the picky side. What I've found with her is that mealtime is not the best time to introduce a new food. What works really well is if I have the food on my own as a snack. If she happens to come into the kitchen and sees me eating something, she *has* to share it with me. It works better if I wait for her to ask before I offer it :).

[Renrel]

On catmom's suggestion I also find that DS likes to sample things that he sees on the counter while we are cooking.

[twainny]

first off, my DH is 30 and he is a picky eater - so it NEVER ends!!!

My DS is only a picky eater for ME!! He won't eat carrots for me/us. He sees one and says "YUCKY!" But we went out to eat with some friends, and they order a veggie plate and DS ate like 5 carrots!!! I was like WTF! (granted I was soo happy, I just don't get it).

I try not to let him snack too much. And if he doesn't eat dinner he doesn't get dessert. When DH is around, DS has to eat all his sandwich in order to get chips. DH will say "oh look, hurry up, mommy is almost done with her sandwich... she is going to get the chips!!" DS will eat faster (ie, not watch tv or play with his toys). He will say "no eating mommy..." When I am done with my sandwich, DH says. "look!! mommy is done, now she gets chips" It is sort of a game. (the point of the game being to eat his sandwich and not just chips).

I also let DS decide what he wants for dinner. And I make him what he wants and then I tell him he has to eat it cause he picked it. (I usually only do that when DH is out of town. And we usually end up having waffles or pasta). DS likes "helping" too.

Can you give him dip... that might help. (catsup, ranch dressing, etc) My DS LOVES to dip his food in something.

Good Luck!

[jay&erinn]

Both my kids are picky eaters. I try not to make it a battle since that only makes it worse. Limiting snacks helps to some degree. The hungrier the better at meal time. I find that if they've had a snack an hour ago they have no problem refusing dinner.
Letting 4 year old DD help make dinner helps. She'll usually try whatever she helps cooks. Of course, I don't always have the extra time to let her help either. Weekends are good for that. I'm going to let her start planning dinner one night a week too to see if that helps- helping her choose a meat (chicken or fish), a veggie and another side- hoping that'll help her branch out a little, or at least have one meal a week that she'll probably eat. We have kids cookbooks and those are good to choose from.
We usually put a little of everything on the girls' plates. They don't have to eat it but they do have to try it. Once they've tried everything (if they don't like it) they can have a substitute dinner of pasta (there's always leftovers in the fridge), cereal, toaster waffle or soup. Something easy and nothing that's going to take more than 2-3 minutes to prepare.
I also try to be a little accommodating when I make dinner. DD hates salad, but will eat baby carrots and cucumbers. I'll put those on her plate instead of a whole salad. She also hates Salmon so I will make fish sticks on those nights for the girls (I hated "real" fish at their age too).
I wish I could say it gets better, but it really hasn't, I think we've just found better ways to deal with it.

[Sasha]

These are some great suggestions, thanks. The biggest problem I encounter is the absolute freak out DD has if something new is on her plate. She gets hysterical and won't eat anything (even things she likes that are on the same plate) until it is removed far enough away from her. Last night DH and I had ribs for dinner so I put one on a plate for her, just so she could see it, but she had her normal hysteria. Sigh....

We do lot of dips, mainly ketchup and ranch.

And even if she sees me or DH eating something, regardless of mealtime or a snack, she always just says, "I don't like it." She is absolutely not interested in eating what we eat.

I tried calling mashed potatoes "clouds" the other day, and she wasn't having any of it. :rolleyes:

[nancy drew]

can you put the new food on a separate plate for her so its still there but its not "poisoning" the other food ;) ? maybe that will curb some of the freak outs.

dd is quite picky, and she will be 4 next month. things she used to love as a baby or toddler are now "yucky" and she will not eat them. chicken nuggets from a restaurant = yummy, chicken nuggets from home (same ones they serve at the restaurant) = "disgusting". she wouldnt eat hot dogs for about 6 months because they were "too skinny", which means they had skin on them. i think things generally get better as they start eating among their peers. dd eats lunch at school 3 days a week and her appetite has expanded a lot, presumably as a result of peer influence. the other thing that seems to work is just not offering the new food at all, and letting them ask for it. it may only work 15% of the time, but still thats more luck than ive had from any other method ive tried. and if its *their* choice to try it, its more likely to be accepted.

2 examples from our house: dd had never eaten a raw carrot or celery at home. but one day we were at the zoo and the kids meal came with raw carrots. i took the bag off her tray, thinking "she will never eat this anyway, i might as well just take it home and eat them later". but she protested, and told me she wanted to eat them. sure enough, she ate half the bag :eek:. i had never offered her celery, and i hate it myself so it has never been in our house. they made "ants on a log" or something at school, and she decided celery wasnt so bad, then i think a friend had celery at lunch or something and now she wants celery all the time.

yes, it stinks being a short order chef and making separate meals, so i try to include one thing i know she will eat at every meal. if im not sure she will eat the chicken, ill make plain noodles and green beans and offer fruit for dessert, which she will eat. sometimes she will surprise me and eat everything, sometimes its "yucky".

ds has his picky moments and will not eat any vegetables, but maybe one day peer pressure will help him along, too. actually, he will chew a carrot if he sees big sister eating them and enjoying them, but then he spits them out. im hopeful that one day he will get used to the taste and actually eat them. maybe by the time he is a teenager ;).

[emschwar]

Noah's still a really picky child, but I'll throw this out there.

For hanukkah, he got C is for Cooking (http://www.constantchatter.com/shop/0471791016/C_is_for_Cooking_Recipes_from_the_Street.html), and we've been making some of the things in it. I haven't tried anything totally wild, but the book has gotten him to eat non-nugget chicken, cous cous, and tonight, he ate SQUASH! Sure, it was loaded with brown sugar and cinnamon, but still, the kid ate squash! And declared it yummy! The book is practically my new best friend. And even better, the recipes are tasty to people over the age of 5 as well. Ernie's Roast Lemon Chicken is some of the best chicken I've ever had!

[Renrel]

For those of you with picky eatters who don't get enough protein I remember as a kid my mom would put raw eggs in milk shakes. Obviously that does not work anymore but I think the prepared egg mixs, like egg beaters could be added to a milk shake or smoothy. There are also dryed egg whites for baking that could be reconstituted with a bit of water and added as well.

And of older kids my mom did fondue with the rule that you had to eat what you cooked. We all thought it was fun to cook in the little pot on that table so we would eat the meat we normally refused. Of course this only works when you kid is old enough to be trusted around a sterno type heat source.

[Sasha]

Emschwar - That books looks neat, thanks for the suggestion. I just need to find a way to convince DD to actually try the new food...once I can get over that hurdle, I think things would be easier.

[MrsT]

My friend calls everything noodles- green noodles for zucchini, for example. Works for her.



My friend does a similar thing and calls anything with tomato sauce "pizza". Her 2.5 year old buys it :D

[ellybelle]

DD has gotten a little better over the past year -- I think the hardest time was when she was around 36-38 months.

We've started asking her to take "just one bite" and that seems to help. I don't push vegetables or "different" meats with her, but I do ask her to try one bite every so often. I also make sure we have plenty of healthy snacks around that she does like -- e.g. berries, bananas, yoghurt, beans, hummus, etc.....

I've been using some of the recipes in Jessica Seinfeld's books (yes, I know it's partially plagiarized, but it was a bargain at Costco!), and I've found other simple ways to add more veggies. For example, she'll eat pesto pasta and lasagna, so I add extra veggies to both (I puree greens to add to the pesto, or roast veggies for the lasagna). I might make crustless pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread (since she's such a sweettooth).

Finally, growing a little garden seems to help. Last year she really liked going out and picking and eating the baby carrots and cherry tomatoes she'd helped to plant. This year I'm going to add sugar peas and beans to the mix!

[Bucktown]

I'm bumping this up because I'm getting concerned.

My DS will be 4 this June. A few months ago I brought him to the peds office to have him weighed/measured and talked to the doc about starting to offer him 'our' meals and if he refused to eat it it was his choice and mealtime was over (no other food was offered). She gave us approval and said that he'll eat when he's hungry enough, don't make it into a power struggle, etc.

It was going well, he would try some things, liked some things, hated others and on meals I knew would be a battle (like lentil chili) I made him a separate option. Now the kid is refusing to eat/try most dinners and is not eating 4 nights --maybe more-- out of the week. It's spilling over to some lunches too. It's as if he doesn't need to eat.

I don't give him snacks anywhere close to dinner time and milk is only 20ozs per day & it's skim.

I guess my question is, when do I give in? I don't want to short order cook for him and I've got a 7m/o who I don't want to expect the same freakin' restaurant service my DS had been getting when she starts eating meals.

I will discuss this with my sons ped at his 4y/o WBV but anyone have any thoughts? Each ped I've talked too says the same thing, eventually the child will eat. I'm afraid mine won't. :(


ETA~ I wanted to add that this all started because my DH works till 7pm M-F and DS had to eat way before that time. Instead of me making the meal for me & DS to eat and have DH reheat it when he got home I made DS crap that I knew he would eat. Mainly chix nuggets/hotdogs, etc. because there was no battle after a 12 hour day by myself with him. I hate myself for starting this and am trying to correct it but it's not working so well.