Picky eater to the extreme

[andrea910]

Hi all-

I'm calling out a total mommy mayday. I know lots of moms have dealt with a picky eater, especially in the toddler stage. But my 2 year old really wont eat much of anything. He eats a handful of things (cheerios, crackers, oatmeal, yogurt) but that's it. And it's been like this for about a year. The docs keep saying he'll eventually come around. He drinks a pediasure or instant breakfast with liquid vitamins everyday to at least get some nutrition. I would LOVE some advice from some of you who have been there. I feel like I've tried everything under the moon. He actually gets down right insulted if you offer him something new. He won't even take a taste. Help!!!

[usbornelynsey]

Fruit is both tasty and nutritious. My kids cannot resist the colorful and fragrant "treats" I buy at the farmer's market. In season is best. Just keep trying and remember, he will not starve himself.

[Audrey]

Andrea,

This is an article I wrote on picky eating:

Tips to Try and Help Your Picky Eater

You’re sitting at the dinner table and you put 3 or 4 different foods on your toddler’s high chair tray. Not only does your child not eat any of the 3 foods, but your toddler starts throwing the food out of boredom. Sound familiar?

I too had a picky eater. There are many foods and ideas worth trying when you have a picky eater. I also suggest you involve your pediatrician. Your pediatrician can tell you if any type of vitamin or supplement is necessary. Your pediatrician can also tell you if there is a problem more complex than picky eating.

I should tell you that stress will affect your child. If you are stressed at every meal, your child will sense this. Also, if you are stressed at every meal, your child will begin to dislike meal time, and dislike eating.

I found the simplest solution for us when my daughter was quite young was to offer a variety of foods and let her choose the foods she wanted. When she could speak, I could verbally make offers to her and see if any of my choices appealed to her. Again, my goal was to keep both her and me stress free.

Some kids need their mouths stimulated. This can be accomplished through crunchy foods, or through very well seasoned foods, seasonings such as sour or even slightly spicy. We found that my daughter would eat many foods as long as she could dip them. We offered her ketchup, ranch, sweet and sour sauce, BBQ sauce and salsa. These dips were offered as she got a bit older. She would dip literally everything in these sauces. I would make her toast and she’d want a dip. It was hard not to chuckle at her breaking the toast and dipping it in ketchup.

When we were invited to anyone’s home, we always packed her meal. I always told our host up front that I would be bringing my daughter’s meal. If the host was upset, offended or asked me not to do so, we would decline the invitation. Most folks were willing to accommodate us. By packing her meal and not having to hope she’d eat what was served, it caused much less stress on everyone and made the entire day or evening much more enjoyable.

Have you ever had tempura? It’s a very light coating on the food, and then you fry the food. Because tempura is crunchy, we found my daughter would eat some foods as long as we coated them and fried them. One of her favorites was tempura hot dogs with tempura sweet potato. We cut both into bit size pieces, coated them and then served them. Yes, we would offer a dip also if she wanted.

As my daughter got older, she would go to the grocery store with me and she began to help prepare meals. She ate a lot of chicken fingers for dinners. Again, they were crunchy. She also ate fish sticks with their crunchy coating. Both foods could be dipped in sauces. Very often we made her one main course and the rest of the family a different main course. As adults, we are almost never put in a position where we MUST eat a certain meal, and where we don’t have an option to say “no thank you”. By allowing our children that same option we do them a greater service than if we argue, fight, bribe, threaten etc. Some picky eaters do outgrow their pickiness. Other kids carry this pickiness into adulthood. I know there are certain foods I still don’t eat as an adult.

If you believe there is a true medical problem, see your doctor. If you believe you have a picky eater, I strongly suggest offering choices and options to keep the stress out of meals.

****
Audrey Okaneko is mom to two girls. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or visited at http://mytupperware.com/audreyoka

[andrea910]

That is great advice Audrey! It gives me some hope. I'll give the tempura a try and see what happens.

Thanks!!

[Audrey]

I haven't made tempura for a while, but my kids actually used to request it. A few veggie ideas:

1. puree veggies into your pasta sauces
2. make veggie dips
3. make ranch dressing and let the kid dip veggies into the dressing

Just a few ideas

[WorkAtHomeSpace]

You can also try making the food fun...for breads or pitas and cheeses, cut them or use a cookie cutter to make fun shapes, make "sandwiches" out of cheese and luncheon meat -- can also make fun shapes out of these.

[honey415]

My best friends son used to be like that and the doctors told her the same thing.

And sure enough he did come around, now he doesnt want to stop eating.

[andrea910]

You guys are giving me hope!

[MaryAnn]

I think we, as moms, worry about it more than we should. In fact, you could make things worse trying to force the child to eat foods he doesn't want.

Let him eat what makes him happy. He will eventually start eating other things. When I was little, my sister would only eat hot dogs (that was wayyyyy back before we knew they weren't really all that good for you). She is now grown, healthy and eats a variety of foods.

My daughter would only eat canned corn for a veggie when she was little. Now she is grown with her own home and actually makes green vegetables LOL!! She eats salads and winter squash and brussle sprouts LOL!! I'm amazed. When I asked her about it, she said that when you have a tight budget, you eat what's on sale and what you can afford - see, they do grow up!!

Don't worry about it. You are not a bad mom if your child only wants cheerios and yogurt. Just offer him whatever you have and let him decide if he wants to try or not.

[redheadskater]

I just wanted to chime in here since I am a mom of a special needs child -

You may want to be on the lookout for tactile sensititives. She may be restricting her diet because she can't handle a certain texture (say, the slippery-slimy jello or something of a pudding texture).

This is not to say that she is a special needs child or that only special needs children have this problem, but it is one avenue you can look at.

My son also severely limits his food menu. He is 5 now and the dr's kept telling me "just keep offering him different foods" and he'll come around. He never has and I don't believe he ever will.

He currently only eats chicken nuggets, potato chips, tostitos and very occasionally, vanilla soft-serve DQ ice cream.

So the fact that your child is getting some nutrition from pediasure is a good thing (I can't get my son to drink a smoothie or anything similar to that). As long as she does that, I wouldn't be too concerned.

You need to start worrying if she fails to gain weight or experiences an overall decline in health. That'll be your indicator that this needs some serious intervention (occupational therapy).

So I hope you take some comfort knowing there is another mom out there wh has it rougher than you! :D

Lisa

[andrea910]

Thank you so much for your input Lisa. A texture sensitivity is definitely something I've been thinking about. For a while he wasn't gaining much weight and actually started to lose a little. That's when I freaked out a little bit and we started him on the Pediasure. Since then, he's started gaining again and will occasionally try something new, but that is pretty rare.

I'm trying to just chill out a bit, keep offering new things and just watch and wait. But I am definitely feeling better after hearing from you guys. Thank you all so much, I appreciate it more than you know.

[Lori]

My picky guy seems to do better if I put small portions on his plate. I think it gives him a sense of accomplishment to finish -- and then he can get seconds on what he really likes.

A big plate full can seem overwhelming!

[Audrey]

Lori,

That's an excellent idea. Small portions of everything then seconds of the good stuff :) I love it.