So sick of my child’s picky eating

[Anonymous]

I have a pro tip: don't take picky eating advice from picky eaters. That's like taking alcoholism advice from an alcoholic. Gee, I wonder what they will say?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he’s hungry he will eat. Seriously. When he’s hungry enough he will eat.

This. Let him taste hunger. If he doesn't eat any dinner put plastic wrap on it and it becomes breakfast.

This is absolutely cruel to a kid who is gagging even trying a new food. I promise y no professional who works with picky eaters espouses this philosophy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an adult picky eater, please know your son doesn't WANT to be this way. I'm sure he wishes he liked more, that he didn't worry when going to restaurants, or to people's homes, etc.

I was just somehow born like this, and although I eat more than the four things I ate at age 2 (yogurt, grilled cheese, pb&j, and I forget the other), I am still distinctly picky. Wish I weren't, but I truly hate a lot of foods.

Unless your son is a brilliant psychopath, he's NOT doing this to drive you crazy.

+10000

I’m an adult picky eater, too. It is not my choice. I have spent the greater part of 4 decades trying to be more flexible with food. It is awful. No kid chooses this.

The best suggestion I have is to bridge foods. For instance, I would eat baked potatoes. My best friend in college convinced me that kidney beans were basically Lilliputian baked potatoes. She even broke one open, fluffed up the white insides, and prepared it like a mini baked potato. And after years of literally gagging and vomiting when trying beans, I ate my first one. Then they became some of my favorite foods! (I’m trying to eat low carb now or I’d eat bean chili all day every day.)

For me, it’s about safe foods. Foods that don’t put me in a panic.

And in what kind of therapy are you to try to help yourself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an adult picky eater, please know your son doesn't WANT to be this way. I'm sure he wishes he liked more, that he didn't worry when going to restaurants, or to people's homes, etc.

I was just somehow born like this, and although I eat more than the four things I ate at age 2 (yogurt, grilled cheese, pb&j, and I forget the other), I am still distinctly picky. Wish I weren't, but I truly hate a lot of foods.

Unless your son is a brilliant psychopath, he's NOT doing this to drive you crazy.

+10000

I’m an adult picky eater, too. It is not my choice. I have spent the greater part of 4 decades trying to be more flexible with food. It is awful. No kid chooses this.

The best suggestion I have is to bridge foods. For instance, I would eat baked potatoes. My best friend in college convinced me that kidney beans were basically Lilliputian baked potatoes. She even broke one open, fluffed up the white insides, and prepared it like a mini baked potato. And after years of literally gagging and vomiting when trying beans, I ate my first one. Then they became some of my favorite foods! (I’m trying to eat low carb now or I’d eat bean chili all day every day.)

For me, it’s about safe foods. Foods that don’t put me in a panic.

You understand that what you described is a serious disorder, likely not of a physical kind? We are presuming that OP's kid doesn't have an eating disorder or she would have said so.

[Anonymous]

Drop the rope. I love cooking and trying new foods. The glad to that my kids reject 90% if things I make used to sting. But I have let it go for the sake of our relationship.

Talk to your Ped or a nutritionist and see if they meet the criteria of needing food / eating therapy. If they don’t, just eat colorful, healthy food and let them eat their foods.

My kids eat the same apple slices and raw spinach leaves every night accompanied by cheese and crackers, bagel and cream cheese, noodles and hummus, fish sticks, chicken nuggets, or cheese quesadilla. They eat almost 0 takeout food. They don’t eat mash potatoes or plain rice. One of my kids will sometimes eat corn dogs or plain grilled chicken, neither has ever had a hamburger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Drop the rope. I love cooking and trying new foods. The glad to that my kids reject 90% if things I make used to sting. But I have let it go for the sake of our relationship.

Talk to your Ped or a nutritionist and see if they meet the criteria of needing food / eating therapy. If they don’t, just eat colorful, healthy food and let them eat their foods.

My kids eat the same apple slices and raw spinach leaves every night accompanied by cheese and crackers, bagel and cream cheese, noodles and hummus, fish sticks, chicken nuggets, or cheese quesadilla. They eat almost 0 takeout food. They don’t eat mash potatoes or plain rice. One of my kids will sometimes eat corn dogs or plain grilled chicken, neither has ever had a hamburger.

Also OP - kids are going through a lot right now with the pandemic. Change is scary and things change slowly. I remember going on a beach house vacation when my son was 4 and packing a weeks worth of protein bars, Annie’s mac and cheese, and baby food pouches. At that time he didn’t eat pizza or quesadilla. If we went to a restaurant, I would need to know they had milkshakes or smoothies. When your kid accepts 1-2 convenience foods it is life changing! Especially if you have a school age kid who mainly lives on peanut butter but has to exist in nut-free environments.

[Anonymous]

I don’t agree that it’s for attention, or at least that’s not a common reason. The PP was generalizing her nephew’s situation to all picky kids.

My now 17 year old was really picky for years, and now he’ll eat just about anything (except seafood).

We decided not to make mealtime a power struggle; I wanted it to be a peaceful, enjoyable time. So we would make what we wanted to make and always had something on the side our DS would eat. We never made a big deal about it - kept it chill and relaxed. We tried to buy the healthiest version/ingredients of his preferred foods and eventually tried the “bridge” technique…he really loved nuggets so we bridged that into chicken cutlets, he liked pasta sauce and cheese so another bridge was chicken Parmesan, he loved hamburgers so we segued into meatloaf, etc. It took time and honestly some of it was just maturity, influence of peers, learning about healthy eating at school, etc.

[Anonymous]

My son is moderately picky but genuinely excited to try new things. When he has friends over, it's just EYEROLL city.

Something about elementary boys these days? One of them called macaroni and cheese "too cheesy" and visibly blanched at mixed fruits and banana bread.

I'm so sorry you have to put up with this. Since their not my kids, I humor them and have hotdogs and chix nuggets or plain noodles.

They ALL are very interested in junk food and candy. That seems to be all they want. Again their not my kids but I still limit it to "one dessert" or "one sweet treat" same as my kids, but they do obsess about our candy bowl (which is pretty much stale candy from halloween and christmas that doesn't interest anyone in our house-- guess I should throw it out because it's too distracting)

[Anonymous]

omg I can't believe I put "their" in there twice. Need coffee..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an adult picky eater, please know your son doesn't WANT to be this way. I'm sure he wishes he liked more, that he didn't worry when going to restaurants, or to people's homes, etc.

I was just somehow born like this, and although I eat more than the four things I ate at age 2 (yogurt, grilled cheese, pb&j, and I forget the other), I am still distinctly picky. Wish I weren't, but I truly hate a lot of foods.

Unless your son is a brilliant psychopath, he's NOT doing this to drive you crazy.

+10000

I’m an adult picky eater, too. It is not my choice. I have spent the greater part of 4 decades trying to be more flexible with food. It is awful. No kid chooses this.

The best suggestion I have is to bridge foods. For instance, I would eat baked potatoes. My best friend in college convinced me that kidney beans were basically Lilliputian baked potatoes. She even broke one open, fluffed up the white insides, and prepared it like a mini baked potato. And after years of literally gagging and vomiting when trying beans, I ate my first one. Then they became some of my favorite foods! (I’m trying to eat low carb now or I’d eat bean chili all day every day.)

For me, it’s about safe foods. Foods that don’t put me in a panic.

You understand that what you described is a serious disorder, likely not of a physical kind? We are presuming that OP's kid doesn't have an eating disorder or she would have said so.

There is a very newly classified disorder called Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) which overlaps but is not the same as extreme picky eating. I highly encourage any adult picky eaters who find their life affected by their limited diet or stress around eating to look into it. If you WANT help there are just now some research based approaches to treatment, some based in CBT.

My child has ARFID and we aggressively sought help well right around the time this disorder was identified. I am so thankful to have a name to put with our struggle but despite my child having a fairly extreme case (and us proactively seeking help) it took over two years to get that diagnosis. OP’s child may not YET have an identified eating issue but it doesn’t mean there is no problem there.

For what it’s worth many (but not all) children including my own have some underlying physical/medical issue that contributes to the development of ARFID, including undiagnosed food allergies or problems swallowing etc.

[Anonymous]

Hey OP, first of all, giving you a hug. This is hard.

I was a very picky eater and have two kids in early teens who are now recovering picky eaters. So, I have different perspectives on this.

Things that worked for us (but were hard to implement):
- step away from the battle, the power struggle. Either they eat, or they don't. Your kid is not an infant anymore, so he will not die. I know it feels overwhelming to send them to school or to bed hungry, or they would be super disruptive if hungry, but, maybe just do it... Some of this is in YOUR head at this point. Just walk away from it. Maybe get counseling yourself. Dont get me wrong, I am not saying you have the problem. Not at all. But years of battling picky eating as a parent does things to you. So try to reframe your own mind. This shift, once I achieved it, helped everyone in the family immensely. We all dug out of the trenches.

Another thing that helped was change. I noticed travel helped, being out of routine (the trenches idea again). Or going over to other people's houses. They would try things that they would never eat at home. Or coming back home from vacation was sometimes a reset. Can you create or seize these opportunities? Or change the placement of the table. Or meal set up. I know it may sound simplistic, but sometimes this is all it took.

Good luck to you!

[Anonymous]

My kid has sensory processing issues and chewing and swallowing certain textures is a major issue for her.

[Anonymous]

Did OP ever reply with what foods her kid does eat?

[Anonymous]

Op here! DS is right on his growth curve so we’re not overly concerned about his weight or height. We’ve decided to just let it go and enjoy our mealtimes for now, as many of you suggested. It’s been nice to let go of the power struggle the last few days. Thank you all for your advice and commiseration!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he’s hungry he will eat. Seriously. When he’s hungry enough he will eat.

This. Let him taste hunger. If he doesn't eat any dinner put plastic wrap on it and it becomes breakfast.

Yeah, no. This is bad parenting from the last generation. We know better now, so we do better.