3 Year Old Doesn't Eat

What does his pediatrician recommend? Also, was or is he in an intervention program? If it is a sensory issue he could see the textures and tastes of new foods as an aversion and of course be upset. Keep introducing new foods..I would find out what his doctor recommends and if he is in some type of occupational therapy what they would do. Also, if you are cooking or baking, get him involved in helping you prepare some of these foods...He might be interested if he is part of the process...Just some tips...Good luck!

1 mom found this helpful

Most toddlers are picky eaters to the point where you are....seems like they don't eat a THING! It sounds like he is eating enough. I would just be careful about the crackers, cookies and candy and try to get some fruits and veggies in. I always found that if you make it fun....it MIGHT make it to the mouth....carrots with peanut butter to dip, apples to dip in yogurt, a cup of frozen peas makes a great "walk-around" snack that isn't messy, a banana cut to look like a dolphin or spread w/peanut butter and raisins for "ants on a hill". My experience has been (my girls are 27, 29 and 32) that he will eventually try it and like it...keep it light and fun! No worries. Hope this helps. I forgot my big old standby...I have always made spaghetti sauce with V-8 added in....sneaking in a bunch of veggies. Most toddlers love pasta!

1 mom found this helpful

Wow, I had to double check to make sure I didn't write this! My son is also three and I think I can count on one hand the number of times in his life that he has said he is hungry or asked for food. I don't think he's a picky eater, I think he's a non-eater.

His playgroups are amazed at how he doesn't go for the snacks, his teachers make a point to mention whether he ate anything at lunch, we practically do the happy dance if a serving of anything is consumed throughout the day. He is on the small side (27 lbs) and has always been since birth so it's nothing new. He barely ate anything as an infant, either, maybe a max of 20 oz or so a day at his high points. However, he is quite healthy, and like your son, seems advanced with speech and logic. His sensory issues are mostly centered around sight and sound - no large TVs or loud noises (other than what he makes on his own!) - and as far as I've noticed, not textures of food.

The mere mention of lunch or dinner makes him cry, mostly because it means having to stop his playtime. I started calling everything "snack" to at least get him over to the table for a bit. Oh, and he has his own little table for breakfast. He occasionally will eat there b/c it's kind of fun. I just sit on the floor next to him and eat. I've noticed he's a bit of a social eater - eats more when friends are around and eating, too. We almost always eat with him and we all eat the same thing.

I took him to a nutritionist at the children's hospital at around 2 years to see if she had any ideas. The only thing she could tell us was that he either simply wasn't hungry or was never given the opportunity to be hungry - e.g. we gave him some milk in the morning so that curbed any hunger he had and made him not want breakfast. By the time snack came, he had a few bites or sips of something like a smoothie to "top off". Ditto with lunch. And the next snack. And dinner. Basically, giving him the milk before any food first thing in the day set off a chain of tiny top offs all day long where he never experienced true hunger. We were told to limit his milk/smoothie intake to 4 oz. max each time and try to wait until after he had a bite of something. That was to get him to recognize his hunger cues. Oh, and to only feed him at the table - no grazing, no chasing him around with food, no snacking in the stroller.

That kind of worked. But seriously, anytime he even expresses an interest in food, I'm all over it! Mangia, bambino, mangia!

She did warn us against a liquid diet like the formulas or juices to get him to learn healthy, realistic eating habits. There's a chance you might have to stop giving those to your little one to awaken his hunger and interest in satisfying it. But oh, how can you deprive them of calories when you know they'll eat it?! So hard. After all, the only go-to things I know of are ice cream and chocolate, but I can't teach him to live like that.

In all reality, my husband and I had to get over our issues with his not eating and just serve the food, give him the chance to eat it and not remark on how every. single. bite. was left and hope for better luck next meal.

1 mom found this helpful

Get rid of the toddler formula and wait till he is hungry - real food has got to be better than a high calorie shake - if he is filling up on that he will never learn to eat properly.....Yes it will be hard and yes he will resist but who is the boss here?

1 mom found this helpful

We are living in a parallel universe.

Our son goes to preschool 3 days a week and he never eats lunch there. It's to the point that when we ask he looks at us like we are crazy.

Your son's diet is the same as ours. What we have found that is starting to work, (at home, we don't expect them to push it at school), is we let him eat what he wants--with the deal that if he doesn't eat XXXX then he gets no snacks/dessert. He fought it for a few days, but is starting to understand and go with it. I figure if we can start there, then we can introduce new foods once we have the parameters down.

Your son not wanting to eat is tough however. We supplement our son's diet with the Ensure shakes, make sure he gets a vitamin so he's getting his iron and try things like smoothies or v-8 Fushion juice to get him some fruit and veggies. Maybe that will hekp?

My daughter (3.5 years old) has always been a picky eater but in the past few months it's gotten worse! I've found that she doesn't like most meats - we make her try a taste of it and if she doesn't like it, she doesn't have to eat it. But most chicken (other than chicken nuggets) she won't eat....no pork, ground beef (except in cheeseburger form or meatballs) and only will eat turkey or ham lunchmeat. She will eat a few veggies (cucumbers, lettuce only, broccoli and green beans but all but broccoli have to have ranch with them!). She's always been my dairy baby and would drink milk, eat yogurt, pudding, cheese and ice cream all day long if I let her! She, too, will eat candy all the time if we let her. She asked me for sugar the other day because 'it tastes good!' As far as fruits go - again she'll eat most but not all - mostly strawberries and grapes. Occasionally bananas, apples, etc. I bought kiwi and gave it to her last night but she didn't like it. I wonder if it's a texture thing? We ensure she gets enough fruits/veggies by supplementing her food with V8 Fusion juice (1/2 water / 1/2 juice) and give her regular juice if needed as well as ovaltine chocolate mix in her Vitamin D milk. I'm not as worried about carbs/dairy because I feel like she gets enough of that.

Good luck!

I've found right now her favorites are: meatballs with sauce, mac and cheese (any brand), cheeseburgers, yogurt, pudding, waffles (frozen or cooked), scrambled eggs, ravioli, cinnamon / sugar toast or bread and that is about it! I just try to make sure she has fruit/veg on her plate for each meal (not veggies for breakfast) and if she eats it, great. If not, I don't make a huge deal about it.

He is doing good with dairy, but he needs fruit/veggie and protein, so think of ways to work on those to appeal to him. One thing my boys love, it oatmeal, with fresh fruit thrown in. I add in some fiber and wheat germ to hide in extra nutrients (fiber is good esp if he is not eating any veggies).

I was a very bad eater, even worse than your son, and I also had sensory issues. It did effect my growth as my Dr.s predicted it would, but I finally eat fine now, some 20 years later. The Dr's told me they would have to start feeding me via iv tube if i didn't start eating, and that helped encourage me.

I was given a diet of carnation instant breakfast drinks and bars and pretty much forced to eat them. I had things i would eat, so long as they were prepared to my sensory issues... hamburgers okay, so long as they were dry, spaghetti okay, so long as no sauce, lettuce and carrots okay, so long as I could dip them. Food could not touch on my plate....

Keep offering new foods, even if he refuses them, keep offering them. I make my kids eat... they can eat 3 big bites or 10 little bites, but they have to eat at least something from each portion of the meal. No candy, no desert, no tv, no toys, if they do not eat, they go to bed. They can go sit in their room for a time out to think about if they want to eat or not, then they come back to the table and eat their dinner. We make it as pleasant as possible and then we do something as a family afterward.

Also, I do not prepare different food for them, and I don't make another meal for them later if they are hungry. I don't make dinner and then a pb&j sandwich if they cant handle what I have made. Overall, my kids are now wonderful eaters. But I also make sure my meals are not only healthy, but also tasty and appealing.

My sister does none of this, she doesn't cook dinner, and if her kids don't want to eat what she does offer, she gives them a giant brownie or lollipops instead. I don;t think her 3 year old has ever had a proper meal.

You've described my 3 y/o daughter perfectly! :( When you say your son has 'lots of sensory issues', what exactly does that mean? My daughter was in EI from 16 mos. of age until 2 1/2 with feeding & sensory issues. She HATED the textures of most foods except for just a few. Her feeding therapist pretty much worked on letting her 'play' in the food. Have you tried this with your son? I've been able to introduce her to new foods with success when we 'play' in the food for awhile. She doesn't like to get messy, so this can be a challenge. I have small paint brushes that we use only for food, and so she's not directly touching them at first, she can 'paint' with the foods. I also stick with things that don't have a strong smell, as she's very sensitive to smells. Bland foods work best. As a side note, most 3 year olds are VERY picky with a limited diet. The bigger deal you make out of eating, the more a problem it becomes. It takes alot of work & patience with introducing new foods, but playing in them until their comfortable eating them, really does work for us. Good luck & I share your frustrations.

My son is 3 and he is going through the phase where he could eat PB&J at every meal. I think it's normal for their age. But we limit how much he drinks because he does tend to fill up on milk. We make him try things but will serve him a PB&J after he's tried it. Another note, we took a toddler class at the hospital where I delivered both of our boys. And the nurse told us that kids have to try food 40 times before they know if they like. A lot of that is texture based. If he has sensory issues, that may be part of the problem.
Good luck!

Just a thought, have you tried putting him around other kids that eat well? Sometimes my oldest won't try something until she sees other kids eating it. Then she'll dig in and normally like it.

All three of my kids went through stages of not wanting to eat. They all grew out of it over time. I would just keep introducing foods to him, I would not make special meals for him. He will not starve himself. Just make sure all the food you are offering are healthy. he has sensory issues is he autistic? My oldest daughter is and always had issues when new foods smells/textures were first introduced

I'd do 2 things. I'd blend veggies into sweet, tasty fruit and try to create a juice he will like. I'd put him in control of this as much as possible by letting him help me prepare food (plastic knife to cut kiwi, avocado, cheese etc.) and eat finger food he chooses. I'd avoid junk food as much as you can so he isn't eating empty calories just to eat something. He needs to feel hungry enough to eat. If you make or buy sweets, they should have protein, fiber, and fruit in them. Maybe he can help you plant veggies this spring and harvest & wash them. A pizza garden is something kiddies like - planting pizza items in the shape of a pizza. Also letting beans grow on a teepee of wooden stakes to create a little hideout for him. Get him involved in the shopping for healthy food too - a big produce market might be fun. My grandson, who had no physical challenges, seemed to live on air for years. If he hadn't been breastfed till 3, he wouldn't have survived. He's a senior in HS - still quite slender - and runs cross-country and played as a hockey goalie until this year. He's an honor student, president of the spirit club at school and just got accepted to MSU' honors science & math program. He's still a picky eater. Has never liked meat much. We always had to get a fast-food burger without the meat or any condiments but catsup for him or he wouldn't touch it! Hang in there, Mama! He'll make it!