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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think there is an in between.  I would always include something she will eat and hope for the best for the rest.  I do not think you can force a kid to eat and I do not think meals should be a battle time.  [/quote]

This. You keep at it offering foods you know she'll eat and also foods she is resistant to (but you don't make her eat them -- I often view it as a victory that my child will accept a meal with foods she doesn't like on the table or on her plate because it at least acclimates her to seeing and smelling them). Exposure counts for a kid like this. We also talk to ours about how part of our goal is to make it easier for her to eat at a friend's house or at a restaurant. She can decline food at those places but she needs safe foods so she doesn't starve (even if it's just bread and butter) and she needs to be able to function around the sight and smell of foods she doesn't like or otherwise she can't eat in public or in anyone else's home. She understands this at least and that makes her more amenable to rules like having to eat at the table with us even if she isn't eating the same food, and being willing to accept small servings of foods she doesn't like even if she is not expected to eat them.

I just want to validate how stressful it is to have a kid like this, though, and how draining. And how advice like your mom's to just "force" your kid to eat food she does not want to eat is incredibly unhelpful and just makes you feel like you are failing when you are actually working harder than most parents with non-picky eaters with providing your child with healthy, balanced meals.

People who don't have kids like this just don't get it. Sometimes I'll say something like "so your suggestion is that I what? Hold her mouth open while my DH shoves food in it and we force her to chew and swallow? Is that your actual advice?" People shut up when you explain this.[/quote]

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