Limiting Liquids

Many years ago my mother had the same problem with my younger sister, her Dr. said children will not starve , they will eat when ready. I worked in a day care and I suggested kid friendly food, and it worked. I would have them fry hambuger and mix in pork and beans and tell the kids it was cowboy food, they loved it.

I would stop buying juice all together. If it's not in the house, she can't have it. It is much easier to get your kid to stop begging for something if it is simply not available to them.

I would cut down the juice all together first. that is empty calories. start by saying only at breakfast and then begin to dilute ( unless you already do that) if you dont then start by adding 10% water and increasing it every other day until you get 50-50 mix. as far as milk she only needs 2 glasses a day. the rest of the time is water and that isnt going to stop her from eating. you can also make her a nutrient dense smoothie in the morning with frozen fruit, veggies, ground up flax seeds and such. I am sure you can google some healthy recipes. as far as doing this without a meltdown? not sure if that is possible but after a few days of seeing that all that drama isnt working she isnt going to bother anymore. give in and she is going to continue it because it works. good luck. also get rid of straw or sippy cups and only use an open top cup, much harder to suck things down with an open top cup. you are also not going to let her wander the house with an open top cup so that will also require her to go to table to drink.

What we generally do is keep the juice out of the house. Juice increases the risk of cavaties, and even 100% fruit juice is loaded with extra sugar and calories. At a seminar I went to on child nutrition (I do home day care for a living, so have been to several), the speaker made a good point that 3 oranges might go into a glass of orange juice, but one is not likely to sit down and eat 3 oranges at once, so it just encourages a less balanced diet with those extra sugars and calories at once and the whole fruits offer more nutrition and the fibers and such so better to eat the fruit and drink the water instead of putting it together in juice. Also, I've known many kids who stop enjoying water after getting used to juice (main reason I've limited juice being in the house from the beginning because I knew this could happen easily enough...my older son had juice first as a potty incentive...tasted yummy as a treat and gave him ammunition to go, so it was our potty treat and then I stopped buying it again). So what I would do is eliminate the availability of juice, so it's not even in the house and with milk, have a glass at each meal time with the food. If still thirsty after the milk, water and water between meals. This will allow for the appetite to have a chance to get hungry. It is your job is to provide the nutrition, it is her responsibility to then consume what she wants from what is available :)
All that being said, a son of mine has sensory integration/processing disorder. Food has ALWAYS been a challenge for him since he is a sensory avoider. We've finally gotten used to a good system that really helps tremendously with him now that we've gotten to the point that he'll come in the same ROOM as foods that are not ok with him (by look, texture, color or what not). We have a box with food labels and pictures of foods that are okay by him to eat and acceptable by me for him to eat for nutrition, so he can choose something from that box if we are having things that repulse him. He's begun to be a little more open to trying new things and we get excited to add a new food to the box of his foods. So, if it IS a sensory issue, slow steps in the right direction work and I could share more ideas with you on that if you are interested.
Best wishes to you!

Can you try an in-between thing like a fruit smoothie and vegetable soup? That's healthier than straight juice and not quite the same as solid foods and has some texture to it if it's the texture that bothers her...

(you also didn't mention this but if your daughter has something like autism or sensory integration disorder that could be causing the pickyness... it's related)

Give up the juice. She doesn't need it. Even pure fruit juice is mostly sugar, which satisifies her appetite. Stick with milk and water. When she asks for juice, look sad and tell her "sorry, it's all gone --here's (insert substitute)."If she likes juice, she should like fruit, and it's more nutritious.

Hi R.,

Peg M. is right on target. Slowly but surely with confidence you can calmly switch her to better choices. This too shall pass.

We had neighbors who went through the same thing with their daughter and she was older, 4-5 when this was happening. All she wanted was milk and then she would drink so much that she said she was too full to eat. She was extremely thin; it almost looked like you could see through her skin. They bribed her and it worked but it took a long time before she was really eating enough. They did let her have milk when she wanted it but they did things like "if you don't have some pizza, cake, etc. at this birthday party, in addition to your milk, we are leaving". That would get her to eat but they literally started out with "you need to eat 2 bites" and that was all she would eat. She is fine & healthy now. Maybe, through trial and error, you will just need to find what motivates her to eat. I know she is young but kids do seem more interested in eating if they can help shop for or prepare the food. We have another neighbor with a 6 year old daughter who actually is in therapy because she doesn't want to eat. She had stomach flu a few times in the winter & is scared she may throw up if she eats but has also expressed concerns about "getting fat". She is very thin; smaller than her 4 year old sister who is probably a normal weight for a 4 year old. Their Mom is very concerned about working out, not eating sweets, etc. so she may be getting some of the "getting fat" concerns from Mom. Hopefully this is just a phase at 3 and maybe your daughter's way of having control over something in her life, which they seem to enjoy at that age. Good Luck and I hope it doesn't turn into anything more serious.

We allow our grandsons to drink all of the "green smoothies" they want. Green smoothies are made with kale, spinach, a fruit (low carb such as strawberries, blueberries, or blackberries), about an eight of a cup of heavy whipping cream and 1 tablespoon splenda- blended until they are liquid and frothy. At first they would not drink them, but we ended up adding a 1/2 pack of the "water-bottle" sized Ocean Spray cranberry lemonade packets to the blender to make it taste like a shake. Google Green Smoothies. Sounds yucky, but they get about 3 servings of veggies/fruit per drink, so well worth the work.