picky, picky kids!!

[lttlesweetbaby]

Please help I could really use some tips on how to over come a suddenly very picky toddler! Any tips or advice on how to get my almost two year old to eat something other than pb&j's? I hate feeding them to her, but when she actually started losing weight our doctor said to let her eat them if thats all she'd eat. I feel like such a failure she's just a little girl why can't i convince her to eat anything healthy? I mean after all I'm supposed to be the one in charge, right? :help

[Heidi3]

Re: picky, picky kids!!

Please help I could really use some tips on how to over come a suddenly very picky toddler! Any tips or advice on how to get my almost two year old to eat something other than pb&j's? I hate feeding them to her, but when she actually started losing weight our doctor said to let her eat them if thats all she'd eat. I feel like such a failure she's just a little girl why can't i convince her to eat anything healthy? I mean after all I'm supposed to be the one in charge, right? :help

Ok you asked for it....number one she is controling you and number two you need to know she will not starve (in ten years of pediatrics I never lost a kid to self induced starvation...sure it could happen ...but not likely)....choose your battles as them come and stick by the ones you think are the most important....and if she wins and you are pissed she knows it...control!...so just take it easy and let it go....she is a strong and smart little girl it sounds like enjoy her life is very short and they grow up too fast!!!!!.....

[Desertthorn]

While I love nurselady's advise and agree she is controling you, peanut butter is filled with transfats which are really not good for her. So buy the natural stuff, which she probably won't like but at least its better for her. Also switch the bread to whole wheat and not white.
The doctors advise was pretty bad, children can't live by peanut butter and jelly alone.
She needs a balanced diet

[4myself4mykids]

First off, I feel for ya littlesweetbaby, I feel for you....I have a 7 yr old who started this same stuff at about 2, after a year of his fav foods being steamed broccoli and cauliflower and carrots and boiled chicken. Poof he started in with chronic ear inf and vomiting almost every time he took the antibiotics so he quit eating. Dr said to feed him his favorites-didn't work so we worked on trying to find new favorites. He started loving chicken nuggets, bologna and hotdogs.....NOW 5 yrs later its a fight every night. He knows that he has to eat a spoon full of every veggie served and meat, whether it be a bite or a whole piece he has to try it. He does, but its a struggle and not pleasant at dinner. I tried the "he'll eat when he's hungry"----he went 5 days without so much as a morsel--drank water all along and milk after 3 days. I can't do a lot about what he does at school now, he refuses to eat anything off the school lunch plate-he goes to private school and they have good food and fairly well balanced. I paid for lunches for a month and nothing got touched-ever. He was watched by his teacher. I send bologna, crackers, cheese, applesauce every day now. You'd think he'd get tired of the same thing! He recently went to his first sleepover-a 2pm start time until 1030 am the next morning at church. I dropped him off, told the mom that he's picky and if he doesn't eat what you serve-DONT cater to him. She looked at me like I was horrible, and I said-really, dont cater to him, he'll eat what you serve or he won't eat. She returned him the next day saying that he hadn't eaten since I left him and that he really is picky isnt he? I said yes, you tried to cater to him, didn't you? and she said yes, but he refused everything. LOL,I told her if you try too hard he knows he's gotcha and you're doomed. If you leave him alone eventually he will pick at something that was served. My hindsight advice.....feed your sweet girl whatever is served. She may play with it, she may throw it, but most likely she will eat a bite or two and will get used to eating what is served. If she doesn't there's always snack-try to make those nutricious as you can (she likes pnut butter-try natural on apple slices-JUST a little smear!) fresh fruit and cheese, whatever you feel is nutricious. This is the only advice I can give you and it's from experience. I wish I had never listened to the Dr to try to find "favorites" and feed those. And please, please, please, dont ever make a child "clean" their plate! BTW, my 2 yr old DD will eat almost anything and TRIED to do this to me, but I didn't buy into it and she got over herself and is back to eating what is served. Good luck!

[Slim74]

wow Julia - thanks! This is happening to me right now with my 2 year old. Waffles, bologna, hot dogs, french fries, and chicken nuggets are about it. I know that he is not eating properly and have tried the "he will eat when he is hungry", but it has not worked. I am hoping that it is a phase. My pediatrician said to not play his game - he eats what we eat or he does not eat at all. That seems so cruel to me....I don't know what to do...

[Desertthorn]

Slim, its called tough love. If he wanted to eat poison you wouldn't let him, no matter what, why would you let him put junk food into his mouth when you know that its killing his health.

[sugarfree-girl]

.....feed your sweet girl whatever is served. She may play with it, she may throw it, but most likely she will eat a bite or two and will get used to eating what is served.

This is exactally how I'm treating my 16 month old. He was never picky before and always ate whatever was served to him. All of a sudden in the past few weeks he's gotten very picky. But I won't make him a seperate meal. (I'm lazy!) He's a little overweight as it is and maybe I would worry more if he was thin, but some days he barely eats at all. Maybe just some cereal and fruit.

I was actaully thinking about kids vitamins. Anyone give their kids vitamins?

[ElwayFan1965]

We baby-sit our Goddaughter 4 to 5 nights a week and have done so since she was 6 months old...We have introduced many new foods to her and to this day she will eat them with us at dinner time. Some of the foods she just loves are avocados, black olives, tomatoes, cumbers, broccoli and even Niño's mock mashed potatoes :yes ! She even tried my pizza tonight and just loved it! :joy

[Shay]

I give my kids vitamins.

They are 4 and 2 years old. My 2 years old has taking them since about 18 months old, my 4 year old since he was about 2.

They take the flinstones vitamins and love them. Our ped recommends giving them.

[nikegirl]

Don't cater to them!! I personally don't have any kids but have watched my sister cater to her kids (she has 4) Her oldest is the worst at age 7 1/2. So picky and her diet sucks, hot dogs, pizza, chips, and then start the cycle again. IT is ridiculous!! My niece is going to be ruined for life and I hate it! My sister says, I don't know what to do. I tell her, you're the mom, stay tough, but she always caves in. The funny part is, when my niece stays with me, she knows she can't get away with it and will eat different food at my house that she won't touch at hers.

I'm of the opinion kids will eat when they get hungry enough :yes

[womanpraised]

Re: picky, picky kids!!

My kids eat what is on the table, financial and time necesity. They have to eat their meat first, and then the veggies... adn then whatever else there is. While I dont agree with finding favorites and ONLY feeding them those, there are a few things that can make it easier. **I** have foods I like, and those I cant stand, regardless of how good they are for me, my kids must be the same... For example , I send a sandwich, fruit, veggie and treat with my kids for lunch. When I started I sent carrots with dip and celery and peanut butter as the veggies. Standard lunch. Two of my three dont really like those. What we have found that they will eat is raw green beans, salad or cucumbers. So I am kind of catering to them, but not in a way I feel bad about. If that makes sense? Maybe it is finding something you can both live with. Will she dip veggies in dressing? Apples or celery in PB? Maybe a homemade oatmeal and raisin muffin/cookie? My thoughts.. for what they are. OH! The other thing we LOVE, for the kids anyways, is smoothies.. cottage cheese, yogurt (low sugar kind), DIET V8 splash, and frozen berries (high antioxidants), bananas (that go brown on the counter), or any other frozen fruit. The sugar count is Okay for kids, not too high, protein rich, if it replaces a meal, I add some protien powder, gets in some veggie vitamins and yummy...

[skinnyby25]

Re: picky, picky kids!!

I can't really complain about my 2 year old eating nothing but crap food. Since he started on solids, he would eat what my husband & I ate, just pureed. Now, he still has his miniature plate of what Mommy & Daddy have. If he doesn't eat that, there is nothing else. We don't prepare seperate meals unless it's something that makes him sick. We're carful with seafood because I'm allergic to some. (He literally gags on mashed potatoes so if we have mashed, he has a few cubes! He also pukes up eggs for no apparent reason.) Other than that, he's a great eater. Of course, being 2 he goes through his favorites. He'll snack on European weiners until his blue in the face, but he'll still eat his dinner.

He's also quite heavy for his age but the doctor has never told me to cut back on anything. To look at him, you wouldn't know he was overweight. (DH is the same way, he's 210 but feels more like 250, more solid, he feels very muscular.) He's always been in the high percentile even though he was a 5 pound preemie. He weighs 37.5 at 27 months old but he's tall too. At his last check up, he was 3' tall but he's grown since then. He's really evening out.

My point is, don't give in! Yes, you'll argue but it's better in the long run. We don't keep crap food in the house, so Lucas doesn't want it. We don't buy hot dogs, mac & cheese (unless it's homemade), & he's not allowed to have any kind of soda. (I cringe when I see kids with sippy cups of Coke or a can of Root Beer in their hand. I'm going to hold off soda until I can't possibly hold off any more!) If he's thirsty, he gets water, he asks for it constantly. We give him 1 cup of 100% juice during the day with lunch & he has milk before bed or with breakfast.

Trust me, when they're hungry....they'll eat what's given to them.

/KIM

[lbrowne]

Re: picky, picky kids!!

Even 2 yr olds can help in the kitchen with making salads and other foods. You can chop up the foods while they scoop and mix things. Whether or not you decide to force the issue with having he/she eat what everyone else is, exposing them to the foods up close and having them help can make a big difference. Especially if the family enjoys what he/she helped to prepare!

Visiting "pick your own" farms and orchards along with farmer's markets and maybe a friend's or neighbors garden to help with garden work and seeing the food up close and personal while it grows may gain some of their interest also.

There's a 5+ A Day site that may be useful. http://www.5aday.co.nz/5aday/index.html

Maybe even arts and crafts at home with real fruits and veggies and cut out images? You could hide these under shoe boxes and make a game out of them, etc. Even if he or she isn't *eating* the foods, you could slice and dice and make pictures with them on plates and dunk them to eat them. Take him or him eating the foods out of the focus of it. Simply talk about foods and colors and have some fun.

....just some ideas. Maybe something there might help. Wishing any of you with picky eaters much luck!

~ Linda

[shelbyquinn03079]

Re: picky, picky kids!!

I have read a lot about this lately because my 14 month old is starting to not eat things she liked before. I have read everything I can get my hands on and the experts seem to agree for the most part on this matter. What I have read says not to make them seperate meals ( as others have said) but to feed them what you eat and maybe add something you know they like as a part of the meal. They say keep offering the different foods to them and don't make a huge fight about it every meal. They said don't give up though.


I guess it is very normal for them to start to start to explore their independence this way. I have a friend who makes three different meals for every meal. One for her and her husband and then one for each of her kids. She herself told me to learn from her mistakes. It is very frustration though.

My daughter used to love her tomatos and now she might eat one and then throws the rest on the floor. I keep trying though. She is the same as most kids though, hot dogs, chicken nuggets pasta etc... BUT if she gets those things she also always has a veggie, a fruit, and milk and I try and get her to eat all the veggie first.