My Picky 4 Year Old- Dinner Time Solutions

Reading through questions here, I found one that reminded me of our food issue at home, Food Ideas for a Picky 4 Year Old. This is how we worked out our dinner time problems. My 4 year old daughter is a brilliant drama queen. In fact, I predict she’ll be an amazing actress some day. The only problem is the drama queen act at dinner time is not so cute or ear pleasing. She used to eat everything. Veggies were her favorite. She loved broccoli so much that for a while she wanted it every day. But then something happened.

One day she plain and simple refused it all. Her wishes were candy, cereal, cookies and all the other things she shouldn’t have in large amounts. Picky eating will happen- I expected as much, because her daddy is a picky eater at 33. My cooking skills are put to the test each day of the week as I battle the picky eating in our house. For a while I didn’t know how to make it fun for her. How to make her want to eat? Anything that resembled a dinner on her plate was out of the question.

I tried fun-shaped sandwiches (but truth be told she was never a big fan of sandwiches). We have a vegetable garden in our back yard and even though I planted way too many choices and she loves helping out and taking care of it, when it comes to eating she would have a bite of cucumber, maybe a cherry tomato and dinner time would be done.

And then it hit me. I went into the store, bought some BBQ kebab sticks and served my daughter’s dinner like that. I would make it fun. On one stick I would put bite size pieces of meat, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers or pepper whatever we would have for dinner would be on the stick. It was interesting for her just seeing it all lined up and in many colors. It made her try it, and if nothing else a bite of everything. You can find kebab sticks in any food store, made of wood or plastic. I never expect her to eat everything on her plate. But the rule is always to try, and if she really doesn’t like it I don’t force her to eat.

Not all of us like all of the foods all the time. In our house we went through weeks of no meat, no cheese, no eggs, no veggies and we went through extremes when all my child would eat for days was macaroni. Plain macaroni with no cheese or anything added but a little salt. I found that she would consider foods when they are served to her in the unexpected dishes or in strange shapes. I would put soup in a cup, or make smiley or other faces on her plate. When I serve her rice I place it in a small plastic cup and then turn it over on her plate to make mountains. I would let her eat cubes of cheese and meat on a paper plate with a plastic toothpick. She would pretend to be in a restaurant or a party and it was cool to her. I serve her lunch on the patio. We make tea parties with lots of yummy foods.

Another thing I discovered, pizza is a perfect meal to sneak in veggies. Kids like the idea of pizza and if they don’t like seeing the big chunks of veggies, you can always blend them and mix them up with a sauce. Kids love to play, and when you make it fun they will try anything.

So next time your little one gives you a hard time at dinner time pretend to be a chef in a restaurant, talk in the funny accent and serve them some smiles. I also know how not always we feel up to the dinner or meal time play after a long day, but if it helps just remember kids grow up so fast and soon we’ll miss those fun times and memories.

Suzana is a stay at home mom to a 4 year old Princess, wife to a wonderful Hubby, daughter, sister, friend…you name it! Her days are full of playing, coloring, cooking, cleaning, chasing, shopping, supplying, answering, writing, teaching… not tired yet?