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[quote=Anonymous]My 4 year DS old has become a fairly severe picky eater. It started out as regular picky eating, and we unintentionally made it much worse. He is just SO STUBBORN!! We're at the point now where he will only eat one brand of chicken nugget (barely), box mac and cheese and no other type, etc. and its getting hard to go out because he never eats anything! Even things he used to eat he won't anymore and his list of acceptable foods is getting smaller. His 6 year old brother is also pickyish but not nearly as bad. I've realized much of the problem is I've been giving him way too many snacks in between meals so he wasn't hungry enough at meal time. He mealtimes were basically the snack times. We have a new plan but need some help figuring out the details please!

I am giving less snack in between meals and offering healthier snacks. For lunch (SAHM so this is at home everyday after preschool) I've been setting a timer and he has to sit at the table for 10 minutes and I say nothing about how much or what he eats. I usually go do the dishes because otherwise he will complain to me nonstop about the food. I've made slight changes to familiar food items so it is similar to what he likes but not exact. We've made great progress and in 3 days we went from eating almost nothing to today almost clearing his plate!

Dinner I'm having a harder time because I'm cooking for the whole family not just him.  We always eat the same meal together, and we used to have the policy that we don't care what or how much you eat from your plate, you just have to stay at the table for the meal. But DS4 would never, ever, ever try anything besides the few tried and true things. Even after a year of this. So we started a policy where we will all have a small dessert every night (like, a hershey kiss) and everyone has to have one bite of everything on their plate to get dessert. If they don't want to try a bite thats totally fine, but you don't get dessert. I feel like this is creating too much arguing over food which is not what we want, but at least he is trying things. However, nothing we force him to try he decides he likes and will voluntarily have later. What's a better way to do this?

Also, I've always made sure there were things present at the table that the kids would eat. For example, if I was making grilled pork chops I would make macaroni and cheese as a side knowing they would not eat the pork chops and only the macaroni and cheese. Or if I was making spaghetti I would make some plain with butter for DS6. Sometime if the main course is for sure a no-go (something spicy like curry) I will put yogurt on their plates so they can at least have that and some rice. Is this catering to their picky eating too much? How much catering is reasonable? For dinner tonight we had grilled porkchops, roasted fingerling potatoes, corn niblets, and applesauce. DS4 had applesauce only and couldn't choke down the potato or grilled pork chop at all. DS6 had one bite of pork chop, one bite of potato, applesauce, and all the corn. Was this meal too "difficult" for DS4, or is it reasonable to expect him to be able to eat this? For snack before bed they could choose one container of yogurt or a peanut butter sandwich. Both were still hungry after. I said if they were hungry they could have leftovers. No one had any and they went to bed hungry. Good or no?

And what do you do when they don't stay at the table for their meal? What is the consequence?

If you got this far, thank you. I appreciate any advice or tips!
 
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