Seeking Moms' Who Have Picky Eaters and How They Were Able to Get Them to Eat

I had a problem with my youngest child with this problem. The trick is either to "sneak" things into their foods or make the presentation so good they can't resist! You can sneak so many different things in their food. Use a blender and put fruits and vegetables in his pancake mix. If it's blended up well, he won't be able to see it. The sauce he uses for his chicken nugget can be "homemade" and have (again) fruits and veggies in it.
If the food looks "fun" they are more apt to eat it. I used to let my toddler help me make some of her meals. She loved eating something SHE cooked! Use a cookie cutter and make sandwhiches out of fun shapes. Same thing for a piece of cheese. Put Fruit Loops/Cherrios on a string, like a necklace, and let them bite them off. There are so many fun things to do with food. I don't know if there's a book out there on the subject or not. ( I do know there's a book on sneaking foods in with a blender!) My ideas may be old fashioned because it's been so long ago that I used them, but they may come in handi. Hope I've been of some help. Best of luck.

I have a 6 year old that has been this way for years! If it doesn't have a chicken nugget, hot dog or bologna in it... its a battle. We went as far as taking him to the dr because he kept loosing so much weight. Dr. basically told us to let him eat what he wants to eat, at least that way he is getting food into him. Also we give him 3 Carnation instant breakfast drinks a day. This helps him get all the nutrients he is needing. I was told he would grow out of it... still waiting for that to happen! Good luck!

Get rid of every sugar and refined carb item in the house. He has a sugar addiction. When children are introduced to cereal and fruit first, as is typical of pediatric advice, the sugar taste buds take over. The stimulation of the pancreas to release insulin causes sugar highs and lows, craving more sugar. But this leads to obesity and diabetes. Have fresh fruit, vegetables available. Fix meals also without bread, pasta, rice. Potatoes are okay as long as they aren't fried, and he doesn't make his entire meal potatoes. Serve the meal. If he doesn't eat, it's okay. Tell him the next meal will be served at X o'clock. Have fruit available for a snack if he wants it. Then offer the next meal at a regular time, again make it healthy.

It will take about a week for the taste buds to recognize something other than sugar. When there is so much sugar in the diet (or refined carbs that turn to sugar), other foods taste like cardboard. But after a week, vegetables will taste good. And I can guarantee hunger will win out. Carrots, raw or cooked are a good vegetable to start with, because they are naturally sweet.

Good luck.

L. S. Cheek
www.sevenpillarstotalhealth.com

My daughter would do the same thing if we let her. But, unfortunately, it took us almost three years (she'll be three next month) to figure this out. Not so much she is a picky eater, but she sometimes will have the plate put in front of her and she says, "I'm done" before we could sit down (and she hadn't had anything to eat for a few hours). We put something down in front of her and she'll eventually eat it or she gets nothing (no snack, dessert, another meal, etc.) She'll just be hungry for breakfast inthe morning. Sometimes, if it's chicken (which 97% of the time it is), we'll put ketchup on it and she'll gobble it right up - what kid wouldn't? I was telling another mom that she'll eat some veggies, but not all the time so in order for her to get her recommended servings of veggies, we sneak in V8 Fusion juice and she loves it. Little does she know she's drinking veggies, too (he he). As for lunches, pack him what you need to pack him and eventually he's going to realize that that's what is there for him to eat and nothing else (like you said...a rude awakening). Another thing is that if we are out, a lot of the kids menus consits of chicken nuggets, hot dogs, mac and cheese, etc. with fries...not the healthiest thing in the world for them. However, our little munchkin would go for the fries first and go right to the applesauce that comes with it and not eat the protein we had ordered. So, what we do is when it comes out...immediately remove the fries and applesauce and only put the protein in front of her. Then, she has to eat all (or most) of that and then she gets the fries and applesauce. It took us about three years to figure this one out. Works like a charm. Unfortunately, it's that "tough love" so to speak that has to come out and "discipline" them into their eating habits. I hope this helps you out a bit with some ideas. Good luck!

First of all he can't go grocery shopping on his own or purchase his own snacks so you are totally in control. He can't just eat chicken nuggets, fruit snacks and doritos if they aren't given to him. You need to stock your kitchen with healthy foods and pack them in his lunch. He may reject them at first, it can take up to 15 tries of having a food before the kiddo can actually eat it. Eventually his tastes will change and he will eat healthy foods without much effort. You are your child's advocate of health, take responsibility as a parent and set your child up for a long and healthy life!

Hi Y.,

I have a few picky eaters myself. My youngest loves chicken also and I ended up putting strips of chicken in pita bread with lettuce and cucumbers to get her to eat it. In addition, I would give her a meal shake to drink at school to fill her up when she would'nt eat that much. Best of luck

www.jenniferzaranis.com
www.northmetrodcmommies.com

You've already gotten some good advice about foods to eat, but I just wanted to add that my kids eat MUCH better at school (daycare) than they do at home. Go ahead and pack foods that you think he might not eat, and you may be surprised what he does when his "peers" around him are also eating. I can't get my son to try many new foods at home, but at daycare he'll try all kinds of new foods when the other kids around him are also eating. It blew my mind yesterday when they told me he gobbled up a BBQ beef sandwich -- crazy! I could NEVER get him to eat that at home.

Peer pressure can sometimes be a GOOD thing, LOL. Go ahead and try packing things that you normally wouldn't expect him to eat, and ask his teachers how he's doing with them. I'll bet he surprises you!

You could put hit foods in foil or a thermos to keep them warm. Otherwise, you just have to keep trying and encouraging him to try new things.

My son is also a bit over 3 and a fast food junkie :) Two things, 1. Your child will become someone elses child at daycare...they will eat veggies, take naps without argument, etc :) 2. My son will make his own sandwich like it is cool if I give him 2 pieces of bread, the a couple slices of meat, and cheese with a plate, he puts it together and then eats it like a champ!!
Good Luck!!

I have a 2 year old who would not eat anything! Especially vegetables. We fed (well sometimes forced fed) him gerber vegetables until he was about 20 months. I had to stop that. What I did to get him to eat a variety of food was what is for dinner is for dinner. If he didn't eat it, he would go hungry that night. No night time snack and no warm milk before bed. It takes time, but eventually he started to eat. You may think your child is starving because they are not eating, but if they are hungry they will eat. He is now eating brocolli, asparagus, carrots, beans, sweet potatoes, squash, and even mushrooms. I am very concious of what my family eats, especially for my kids. My two year old gets no chips, no chicken nuggets, no fries. However, I do put a twist on them. I make him grilled chicken, sweet potato fries and he does get whole wheat pretzels. It is totally doable! Good luck!!

the best way to start is to get rid of all that processed stuff. don't even keep it in the house. doritos, chicken nuggets and french fries are just bad food. if you quit putting it in front of him, i promise you he won't starve. it takes almost no more time to make your own chicken, healthy and simple (and cheap!) ONLY allow fresh fruit, cheese, whole grain crackers and breads for snacks. fruit snacks are almost entirely corn syrup. homemade yogurt is incredibly easy. so are OCCASIONAL homemade treats made from whole grain flour, real sugar and cream, and fruits. cook veggies until they're soft, puree, and freeze in ice cube trays, then add them to hamburgers, sauces and soups. no child will voluntarily starve to death if deprived of crappy food when delicious healthy food is available. i promise.
khairete
S.

Mr. Picky Eater may go hungry for awhile but then he will decide other foods are ok too. Kids eat when they are really hungry. Also he will watch what others eat and want to copy them. AF

My daughters do this with my in-laws and so does my husband for that matter. My mother-in-law acts like a short order cook and makes separate meals for everyone. At my house, I cook and they eat or go hungry. She is trying to break the habit she started and can sympathize with your situation. However, you have a golden opportunity to make this change. I would suggest sitting him down and explaining that these are the rules of the preschool. Give him two or three options that fall in those rules and let him choose what he wants. Tell him you want to start now so he can get used to the new schedule. This way he feels he still gets to choose what he wants to eat but he is eating more. When he starts school, ask him if his new friends are eating things he would like to try. I have also found that making the food fun is a great way to get kids to try stuff. For example, making shapes with sandwiches using cookie cutters. There are lots of cookbooks out there with great recipes. Include him in the preparation as much as possible. Kids like to eat things they make. In the end, my girls stomachs aren't as stubborn as me. Besides, if they don't eat it then I put it away or eat it myself. I don't force them to eat things they really don't like, but they must try everything. They also fix their own plates. They must eat what they take or at least a good portion of it. Best of luck and God bless.

P.

Y.,

This won't solve the everyday drama, but for one or two meals a week you might try something my girls love. "turkey-cheese" is what they term any kind of lunch meat and cheese. Pick out the best kind you can find and afford and give him slices of cheese. Roll them together in little tubes. It is our standby lunch when we are running late and don't have time to cook eggs or soup, etc. Good luck. We were lucky enough to find a provider that has Meals on Wheels deliver food daily. My picky eater will eat there, but gives us a fit at home...like another mother said, she is someones elses child at daycare...

S.

My now 16 year old went to pre-school eating triscuits with peanut butter on them, cubes of cheese, and hot dogs cut up into small pieces. He had fig newtons for dessert. When they put the no peanut butter rule in, he took triscuits, cheese, hotdogs, and fig newtons. He took this every single day...

One day I ran out of hot dogs and put in ham rollups cut small. He ate them. Then I tried salami. He ate it. He did not eat any carrots or fruit I put in there. Still won't!

Send finger foods. He'll eat when he's hungry.
Peer pressure - it's a good thing when it comes to food.
YMMV
LBC

We make it rule in the house...you cant say you dont like something until you try it. And every one has to try a little bit of everything mom makes... At first I always made things I knew he would like...like sweet potatoes with sweetern, and a yellow squash cassirole with sour cream/butter (recipt I have)...and believe it or not...a tuna pattie melt (got the kids to eat tuna!) Then when he likes it...I'd say see...I always make things you like...and repeat this at each eatting...Now he believes me and is empowered knowing even though he has to try it...he gets to choose if he likes it and wants to eat more....its worked for us... And then as he grows..I tell him how thes taste buds are know to change every 3-5 years...so you periodoically want to re-try things...Good luck I know its not easy!
M.

I just wanted to tell you that you didn't go wrong letting your son feed himself. Personally I think letting little kids use their hands to eat fosters their independence. As far as being picky, I don't have any better advice than what you've already gotten here. You're doing a good job!

Y., The only advice I can give for this is exactly what Christy said. My Dr. also said to let them eat what they want, as long as you give them vitamins and try some of the nutri-pals drinks n snacks from the grocery store. Also I've added in as far as juice/drinks go I always buy the V8 Splash, because it doesn't taste like veggies and tastes like fruit my kids love this juice over an kind of juice and in every 8 oz. it's a full serving of fruit n veggies so that's a plus. My twins are almost 4 and they sound like just your son, I think it's just something some kids kids go through and eventually grow out of.

I wish you luck. My son is now 11 and I am unsure how he survives on his limited diet but he not only survives, he thrives. I have made a no-thankyou bite mandatory so that he at least tries new things but most are met with gagging as he already has in his mind that he does not like it before he even tries. Be sure he gets a multi-vitamin and don't give up. Neither of mine will eat sandwiches which makes lunch packing a challenge but my daughter has a thermos for soup that she takes everyday and my son likes rolls and butter, a bag of peanuts and apple sauce (that has an amazing amount of cinimon added). You may need to be creative when you pack for your little guy and send non-traditional lunch food. Good luck!

How well I identify with this request! My own son, now 7, is still among the world's pickiest eaters! Thank goodness he has expanded his menu choices a bit since he was your son's age, and will now eat a few fruits and vegetables. He still refuses meat except for a small bit of chicken now and then. Trying to draw his appetite away from the carbs to which he is naturally attracted has been a difficult process. It takes a long time to make a little progress, and in our family, time is always in short supply!

Here are a couple of things we have tried over the years. As a result of these food games, he will now happily eat broccoli (only raw, never steamed, and it must be untouched by any cheese or dip!) and cantaloupe -- two foods that most young picky eaters tend to avoid. He learned to eat bananas with these food games, and many of the other limited food items he now enjoys were first tried in this manner. Maybe you will have a little success, too.

A warning: These techniques require allowing the child to play with his food, so if that bugs you, these techniques will not work for you! My very good friend could not stand to see anyone play with food, and she was appalled by what we did at our table. But then she was never desperate; her kids ate brussel sprouts, beets and spinach from the time they were old enough to sit at the table. :) Personally, I never thought a messy and creative table was half as bad as a poopy diaper, and I saw plenty of those.

THE FARMER GAME: My son really liked to drive little cars and tractors around so I let him bring them to the table for the farmer game. We put vegetables out in the "fields" and I let him drive the (washed) tractor around for the farmer to harvest the peas and corn and carrots and other vegetables and deliver them to his plate. He never did eat the peas, but the other vegetables did get tried. He liked the broccoli best, because he liked to chop down the trees, eat all the leaves off first, and then tackle the trunk. He still laughs about eating "little trees." You may be washing mashed potatoes out of the back of little tractors for a couple of years, but if it's worth to you to get your son to try new foods, go for it!

FOOD FACES: This one is a tried-and-true food game. Set out a variety of foods and use them to create funny faces -- then try to eat the parts of the face. If your son is like most little boys, he'll giggle and be entranced by the notion of eating hair and eyes and ears, etc. The first few times you do this, make sure to use something sweet and tempting to your son as part of the face. Switch out the food items every time you do this so that he will be exposed to many different food items. Eventually, when you serve your son carrots, you will be able to refer to them as "noses" and when you serve him bean sprouts, you will be able to call it "hair." He will laugh and laugh when you say, "Are you going to eat hair or ears for dinner tonight?" If you slice bananas in small circles one time and use them for eyes, and leave them in long lengths the next time to become a mouth, you can eventually get to the point where you hold up bananas in the grocery store and ask your son, "Hmmmm. Eyeballs or lips?" He'll giggle along with you at the joke.

Eventually, when you are packing his lunch for school, you can ask questions like, "Would you like me to send noses or ears into school with your eyeballs today?"

Use a sugar cookie or a pancake for your first face to whet his interest and attract his sweet tooth, but don't keep using sugar cookies and pancakes or you will defeat the whole purpose! As soon as you find some other face part that he likes, move on and substitue pita circles or rice cakes to build the faces. Tell your son your goal is to create 100 different faces using 100 different food items --and when you reach your goal, you'll go see a movie or take a trip to the toy store.

Here are some food face ideas:

Funny Hair:
Bean Sprouts
Pasta died with food coloring
Broccoli or cauliflower flowerets
Baby spinach leaves

Eyes:
Chocolate Covered Raisins centered on circle-shaped banana slices. (Make the eyes "cry" with drops of honey. Most young kids love to do this!) You can also draw on eyebrows or eyelashes with chocolate syrup. But again, it's good to start with the sweet stuff and quickly move on to try to create eyebrows out of vegetables...
Cucumbers
Round scoops of cantaloupe or honeydew melon
Grapes

Mouths:
Cantaloupe slices
Banana lengths
Cherry Tomato halves
Red bell pepper strips

Noses:
Carrots
Canned pear (Shaped a lot like a nose, actually -- and since these are sweet, this a good one to start with)

I don't mean to sound disgusting, but little boys in particular are fascinated by gross humor, and this really peaks at ages 6 to 8. Many of them love to play around with Food Faces by adding raisins to the noses to become (you guessed it!) "boogers" or adding a little "nose hair" by sprinkling shredded cheese pieces on a sliced pear. Then it's fun to eat the gross face created. Shredded cheese is always good for becoming "whiskers" on funny faces.

Good luck to you in your quest to expand your son's menu choices. Remember, here in the trenches of mommyhood it takes a cast iron stomach, steely resolve, creativity and a bit of time to accomplish a goal-- and it sometimes helps to know there are many other moms in the trenches with you!

Hi~
Wow! A couple of these responses are pretty harsh. Please don't beat yourself up over anything. Some kids are picky eaters. My 4 year old is so picky we had his blood tested at one point to make sure he was getting enough nutrition. He was. My 2 year old will try anything. He doesn't eat everything, but he usually tries it. Bottom line is, keep trying new foods... I really liked the advice about the food faces and farmer games. Another thing to try is the V8 juice that tastes like fruit juice but has veggies instead. It didn't work with my guy, but it's worth a try. (My 4 year old doesn't even drink sweet fruit juice, except apple juice sometimes.) He still eats the same things he ate at 2 years old: Chicken nuggets (only the bake at home kind - Perdue - not from McD's or anything.), yogurt, bananas, grapes, peanut butter crackers (Ritz sandwiches, not Nutter Butter), goldfish, graham crackers, and for dessert, Mini Nillas and milk... or a milk shake - again, only the kind I make from home with ice cream and milk. The only thing he eats from fast food is the french fries, so we make that an occasional treat.

Our pediatrician said he's doing fine. He's been growing and is tops in his class (preschool!;). I decided long ago that this would be one of those battles I would not fight, as long as he's eating nutritious foods for the most part.

Good luck. Don't stress out.

My daughter is a lot like your son. And we have tried almost everything to get her to eat differently. For lunches, she used to take the nuggets and eat them cold. For the past 2 yrs her lunch is a granola bar (she likes Earths Best with the big bird or grover on the cover) a cup of yogart, juice, and some cheeseits. Despite her eating, she has maintained weight. We just started therapy and her therapist has assigned 1 poker chip per bite she will take of foods we want her to eat. Then all of her privelidges have a value of pocker chips and she has to pay for them. It worked well for a while but she is starting to not care as much. He explained that some kids are just super sensitive to new tastes and foods and develop a mental block and they need to practice to start eating the foods again.