Picky eating child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP.
what foods does she eat willingly?
I don’t think you give in to junk food and give up on all fruits/veggies but there is a happy medium.
So like if I was serving a casserole that I wasn’t sure my kid would eat, I might also do bread, and fruit, available to everyone. So at least my kid will have bread and fruit and not go hungry.

Op - yes she likes fruit and pasta. Pretty much no protein other than chicken nuggets (gross) and bacon. Sometimes rice. Other than that she likes snacks. I try and limit those as much as possible. She just is getting such horrible nutrition I am worried! No vegetables at all! I try and make her eat them and she gags.

If she eats multiple colors of fruit, stop worrying about vegetables. This was the advice our developmental ped gave us. Some starches, some fruits and one protein is actually just fine. Let it go. Take the advice from others about trusting your kid.

[Anonymous]

Our picky eater just doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite. So he doesn’t ask for different food or complain about being hungry, he just won’t eat it if he doesn’t like it. And even if he does like it he won’t eat very much. I honestly wish he would devour pasta and chicken fingers because then it would at least be easier to get him enough calories!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP.
what foods does she eat willingly?
I don’t think you give in to junk food and give up on all fruits/veggies but there is a happy medium.
So like if I was serving a casserole that I wasn’t sure my kid would eat, I might also do bread, and fruit, available to everyone. So at least my kid will have bread and fruit and not go hungry.

Op - yes she likes fruit and pasta. Pretty much no protein other than chicken nuggets (gross) and bacon. Sometimes rice. Other than that she likes snacks. I try and limit those as much as possible. She just is getting such horrible nutrition I am worried! No vegetables at all! I try and make her eat them and she gags.

If she eats multiple colors of fruit, stop worrying about vegetables. This was the advice our developmental ped gave us. Some starches, some fruits and one protein is actually just fine. Let it go. Take the advice from others about trusting your kid.

+1, our pediatrician did recommend a vitamin with iron because of the absence of meat in her diet but she eats plenty of dairy and legumes so not a big deal.

Regarding vegetables, one thing that helped me let this go was actually paying attention to how much vegetables the non-picky eating kids I know eat. Guess what, it's not a lot for most of them. Sure there are some outliers who will happily eat a serving of green beans or broccoli, but most kids are eating very small servings of vegetables. I also talked to a nutritionist who explained in detail how taste buds develop and how normal it is for kids to reject vegetables because bitter is such a strong and negative taste for young kids, even when you do things to counteract the bitterness in your preparation. It's really NOT uncommon for kids to reject most vegetables because of the bitter flavor. It's like coffee -- you have to be older to acquire a taste for it because when you are younger your taste buds are overwhelmed by the bitterness.

We have had some luck getting our picky eater to eat peas and corn. Peas are great because they also have protein in them. I prepare both with plenty of butter and also some salt which brings out the sweetness. I also serve them frozen in the summer -- playing around with temperature and texture can help a lot with picky eaters. In order to expand the number of fruits she eats, we get dried and frozen fruit as well -- she'll eat dried cherries, mandarin oranges, and mangos but not fresh, and she likes frozen blueberries but not fresh. We do fresh apples, strawberries, and bananas. She eats several servings of fruit every day. It's pretty nutritious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our picky eater just doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite. So he doesn’t ask for different food or complain about being hungry, he just won’t eat it if he doesn’t like it. And even if he does like it he won’t eat very much. I honestly wish he would devour pasta and chicken fingers because then it would at least be easier to get him enough calories!

Same. We have been working on accepting when she eats very small servings and just trusting her to figure it out. It can be hard, especially when sometimes it's a pragmatic issue, like wanting her to eat a meal before a physical activity so that she is starving AND to avoid her becoming super hangry afterwards. But we've learned to just pack healthy snacks and make sure they are available when she's ready. She might pick at or skip the bowl of pasta before swim class, but if she then eats sliced apples and peanut butter on the way home, good enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our picky eater just doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite. So he doesn’t ask for different food or complain about being hungry, he just won’t eat it if he doesn’t like it. And even if he does like it he won’t eat very much. I honestly wish he would devour pasta and chicken fingers because then it would at least be easier to get him enough calories!

Same. We have been working on accepting when she eats very small servings and just trusting her to figure it out. It can be hard, especially when sometimes it's a pragmatic issue, like wanting her to eat a meal before a physical activity so that she is starving AND to avoid her becoming super hangry afterwards. But we've learned to just pack healthy snacks and make sure they are available when she's ready. She might pick at or skip the bowl of pasta before swim class, but if she then eats sliced apples and peanut butter on the way home, good enough.

What kind of snacks does she like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Op - yes she likes fruit and pasta. Pretty much no protein other than chicken nuggets (gross) and bacon. Sometimes rice. Other than that she likes snacks. I try and limit those as much as possible. She just is getting such horrible nutrition I am worried! No vegetables at all! I try and make her eat them and she gags.

I am the Satter poster, and I missed this.

I don't know whether she's school age, but I'm going to imagine all your kids are school aged kids who packs lunch, and come home right after school.

I would start with structure. So, make sure that you're sitting down together at the table and eating together for breakfast, an after school snack and dinner each day. If your schedule makes dinner early (e.g. you eat dinner and then go to soccer practice) then maybe an additional snack before bed. The kitchen is closed, except for water, outside those times.

Then put out several foods that together make something of a cohesive meal, and that includes 1 or 2 things she'll eat, and put them out on the table, and let her choose a combination that works for her. Don't comment on what she eats or doesn't eat, don't offer alternatives not on the table, just put it out, let her eat her fill of one or more things, and then clear the table. I'd also establish some rules. One thing that made a difference for quality of our life as a family is that there's no complaining about food at the table, and no commenting on what other people eat. We don't do any kind of consequences for eating or not eating, other than natural consequences of feeling fuller or hungrier during the interval between meals and snacks, but I'm happy to implement a consequence for telling me the food I made is gross, or for whining.

I would also change up combinations. So, instead of thinking of pancakes and bacon as the one "meal" she likes, maybe one day you serve bacon and toast, or pancakes and scrambled eggs, and maybe you make the pancakes and scrambled eggs breakfast for dinner, and that day you serve yogurt with fruit on the side for breakfast, even if she'll just eat the fruit.

You also really have to be OK with her eating just one food. So, if dinner is pasta, with some delicious sauce on the side, and roasted broccoli, and all she eats is pasta. That's fine. In the short term it won't hurt her, and you're playing a long game here. If breakfast is yogurt and berries on the side, and she just eats berries, that's fine too. If she has a fit because it's yogurt and berries and she wants pancakes and bacon, that's fine too. She can have a fit and go to school hungry, and then tomorrow you'll calmly serve something else.

I would pack a lunch that contains a couple foods that she's likely to eat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our picky eater just doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite. So he doesn’t ask for different food or complain about being hungry, he just won’t eat it if he doesn’t like it. And even if he does like it he won’t eat very much. I honestly wish he would devour pasta and chicken fingers because then it would at least be easier to get him enough calories!

Same. We have been working on accepting when she eats very small servings and just trusting her to figure it out. It can be hard, especially when sometimes it's a pragmatic issue, like wanting her to eat a meal before a physical activity so that she is starving AND to avoid her becoming super hangry afterwards. But we've learned to just pack healthy snacks and make sure they are available when she's ready. She might pick at or skip the bowl of pasta before swim class, but if she then eats sliced apples and peanut butter on the way home, good enough.

From the Satter-following mom with kids now in college who actually eat everything. A smaller appetite is certainly important to consider. our expectations of what is enough may be really out of line with what they need. Ultimately, if they are growing appropriately then not eating much is fine. My son has never had a big appetite. Even in the teen years when he was shooting up to 6'2", and ate a wide variety of foods, he never seemed to eat a ton. We never went through huge grocery bills people led us to expect with a hungry, growing boy.

[Anonymous]

I was a picky eater and still am. I didn’t like pasta sauce so my mother would set aside mine and put a little butter on mine. She baked or roasted chickens, basic, plain, my favorite. Have you tried those?

Even if it’s just chicken nuggets they have some excellent quality organic ones now. If you hate the breading just scrape some off and they aren’t bad for her at all.

My son growing up was on the white diet. Plain bagels, cheese, chicken nuggets. He’s now a normal eater.

Will she eat raw carrots , cucumbers, peppers? Those are pretty basic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to introduce new foods up to 11 times, then it will be accepted. Avoid pancakes and bacon. She won’t starve, she will eat. Have her choose veg at the store, choose a recipe for the family and prepare it with you.

These posts always make me chuckle. Look Billy we are having broccoli. I hope you have forgotten the other 10 tries and are willing to try it again. Does any kid every go for this??

Mine do. For example I put cherry tomatoes on the table in a bowl about 10ish times before my toddler ever tried one. He loves them now. But it will not work for every food. Both of my kids hate avocados and so they’re never going to eat them.

[Anonymous]

I have a truly picky child, and I feel your pain. It is not you!! I paid for and did the Better Bites program (https://kidseatincolor.com/product/picky-eating-course/) which helped a little but honestly the only thing that really helped was going to a feeding therapist. He will try things with the feeding therapist that he would not try at home no matter what I tried. Having the structure of Better Bites plus the feeding therapist is finally moving he needle but if I could back I would skip the online program and just do the feeding therapist. He will now eat chicken nuggets, bell peppers, carrots. We do have to pay out of pocket for the feeding therapist, though. Its $70 for a half hour and we just moved from weekly to biweekly. Sigh.

I always make sure there is one thing on the table I know he can eat (sometimes this is just rolls and cheese honestly), one thing that he is working on or will sometimes eat, and 1 thing that is just exposure but I know he won't eat.

It is so hard- people whose kids without eating difficulty just don't understand how hard and exhausting it is!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what you do depends a lot on her weight and growth curve. If her percentiles are remaining consistent, maybe she won’t starve herself. But it isn’t true that all kids will eat when they get hungry enough to

This. I hate this argument from parents who think they have picky eaters. They have no idea what an actual picky eater is.

Seconded. If you've never watched your child tearfully attempt to put served food in their mouth while gagging, then crying quietly and saying "never mind, I'm not hungry," then might I suggest that you don't have the experience or knowledge to contribute meaningfully to this conversation.

Picky eaters have a handful of things they will eat. If you’re serving something that’s not one of those things of course they would gag. It’s a pretty common thing.

[Anonymous]

My mother told me she always complained to the doctor that we didn’t eat and we had toothpick limbs. He told her over and over that healthy children will not starve themselves. And we never did.

Now that people make money from it, “feeding specialists” they will create new names for it.

[Anonymous]

We worked with a wonderful feeding therapist in McLean. Her name is Elizabeth MacKenzie. She helped me examine the way I was approaching food with my kid and she gave me better language and strategies to use with food. Her approach was gradual and gentle, which was a really good fit for my kid. I wasn't wanting to pay for weekly sessions so she met with us every six weeks and gave us homework to do. My DD is by no means an adventurous eater now, but she will explore/try anything that we put in front of her and will talk to us about why she doesn't care for something. She knows she has to tolerate food on her plate an stay at the table (big issue for us before), and when we go on vacation or to parties, she will find something to eat. Its alleviated a lot of drama in our house.

[Anonymous]

This is my son. Head over to the special needs forum. We’ve done feeding therapy three times (useless), OT, specialists, and the feeding disorders clinic at CNMC. They made sure he was getting his basic nutrition requirements met and said to feed him what he will eat. That is what you do, don’t make it a battleground.

[Anonymous]

PP - I have literally begged my son to eat pizza, French fries, chicken nuggets, and Mac and cheese and cried because he wouldn’t eat ice cream or a milkshake. If you haven’t done this you shouldn’t be weighing in on this thread. The feeding littles person and Ellen Satter and their nonsense advice just don’t apply in these severe picky eating situations. It’s a sensory issue that can’t be overcome easily and it’s not anyone’s fault.