Monday, March 5, 2007

Help with Picky Eater

Do any of you have a picky eater? I have not had one before and my four boys have always eaten almost anything that I make. They love vegetables and salads and we have only occasionally had a child not want to eat a meal but in the end they have at least tried a bite. I have always heard Moms talk of their picky eaters and was very thankful that my children were not that at all! I did think some of it had to do with parents giving into their children's demands.

Now I have a picky eater of my own and she is only 16 months old! Missy Blue Eyes loves yogurt, blueberries, cheerios, and bread and that is mainly all,  unless her great-grandpa feeds her dessert for a treat. To make sure that she eats I have been serving a variety for meals and we are happy if she eats at least one of those items. However, lately she looks for the bread with a meal and shakes her head at any other food we present her with (for the most part). The thing is that she has no idea if she likes it and it is really bothering me. With our older children we would not give them anything else until they tried what was on their plate but weren't sure if we should do this with a 16 month old. Tonight we tried it and would not give her bread until she ate any of the other items on her plate which consisted of cucumbers (she has eaten in the past), chicken, and broccoli. I have yet to get her to eat chicken that is not mixed well with another item. So she did not eat but had some milk and cried on and off. We saved her plate for when she was really hungry but unfortunately it was drowned in milk that was spilled. So she ended up getting bread. Missy Blue also refuses to eat oatmeal but yet has never tried it.

I am getting frustrated and will not be a short-order cook! I continue to think back to Little House on the Prairie Days and know that Ma wouldn't have crackers or cheerios in her cupboard to give a baby who didn't want to eat. Any suggestions??

4 comments:

eclecticeducation said...

Welcome to the Club!!!!! Both of my boys are picky and for the most part, eat different things. But I'm picky myself so I'm pretty sympathic. We usually fix our kids something else that they will eat, but is something easy to make. We fix stuff like PB& J or chicken nuggets for them when they don't like what we are having. When they got around 2 1/2 or 3, one thing that helped, some, was to refuse to let them have it. We'd tell it's ok, they aren't big enough for it anyways. Then they would beg to try it and we would "give in". It didn't work all the time, but it did get them to try a few things they wouldn't have normally tried. Good luck!

AHappyHome said...

I dunno. But, when you figure it out, will you share the answer? I've dealt with it on and off with all of the children; they seem to grow out of it if I am consistent with NOT being the short order cook, as you say. I am currently in this with my almost 3 year old: bananas, cheese, raisins, bananas, apples, eggs, bananas (not even bread!).


Blessings to you (and thanks for coming by to visit me, also!)

Keri

Anonymous said...

We have that issue with Harry. Iris is great, she'll eat anything. She does have her girly-short lived-fussiness where one day she absolutely LIVES for a certain food and then the next day she declares it "gross". But she eats a very varied diet.


We have a lot of issues with Harrison, and the fact that he is so petite and thin led me to give in to him too often. I was just happy if he'd eat something! Now we are living with the consequences. I have a couple good books, and we could definitely talk in more detail, but my advice is to keep up what you're doing. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The same goes for toddlers. You control only the "what" that goes into the meal, you can't force feed them.


What's working better for us is only offering food at designated snack and meal times, and making sure he gets more gross motor activity to stimulate appetite. It's still an uphill battle.


We can talk. It'd be great to get ideas from you too, since we're in a similar boat.

Anonymous said...

We have that issue with Harry. Iris is great, she'll eat anything. She does have her girly-short lived-fussiness where one day she absolutely LIVES for a certain food and then the next day she declares it "gross". But she eats a very varied diet.


We have a lot of issues with Harrison, and the fact that he is so petite and thin led me to give in to him too often. I was just happy if he'd eat something! Now we are living with the consequences. I have a couple good books, and we could definitely talk in more detail, but my advice is to keep up what you're doing. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The same goes for toddlers. You control only the "what" that goes into the meal, you can't force feed them.


What's working better for us is only offering food at designated snack and meal times, and making sure he gets more gross motor activity to stimulate appetite. It's still an uphill battle.


We can talk. It'd be great to get ideas from you too, since we're in a similar boat.


Amy

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