I know most of my blog reading friends out there have small kids like mine, and I want to know how y'all handle this situation with your picky eaters. Let me back up first and start from the beginning. Bella is almost 4, and from the get-go she was a great eater with a hearty appetite (I actually thought it was because I was such a great mom!) Then there's Rowan. He's 17 months and totally picky! It drives me crazy. Come on, now who doesn't like chicken?! But every time I try to feed him a little bit of it, the second it touches his tongue, he recoils in horror. Whips his head back and forth, face all distorted. Then he's instantly mad, and will usually cry at this point, then swat at any plate, cup, or person in his reach. It's pretty much this same game with any food besides A) toast, B) scrambled eggs, and C) bananas. Now, in his defense, he is a great kid otherwise (very sweet and affectionate) but with food it's where we battle.
So here is where I want to know how you handle it. I always give in and make him his monochromatic eggs/toast/banana meal. But Dale is wanting to put a stop to that. He says I am rewarding him for his nightly dinner fit, and that if that's how he chooses to treat his food, than he shouldn't get anything beyond that. Honestly, I agree, but the nurturing mother inside of me just can't let him go hungry. It's so hard for me!
So what do you do?
Ok, here's what my pediatrician told me (Zoe is my picky one) - It is our jobs as parents to give them a well-balenced meal and it is their job to eat it. If you give a plate with chicken, banana, peas and they only eat the banana - fine. But don't give more of what they only want to eat. They may have a couple of meals like that but they will eventually learn to do their job - eating the healthy choices you are providing. Yes, it is hard; you think you are starving them but they will come around. Keep us posted on what you do and how it goes!!
ReplyDeleteJess, Maybe chicken to him is like liver to us. He doesn't like it.On chicken night give him something else. Mom
ReplyDeleteI say roll with it. Let's face it, eggs, bananas and toast is not the worst meal in the world. At least it isn't ice cream and french fries. He's little. Keep offering other foods. Slowly but surely he'll probably add some more in. Maybe offer veggies and meat first and then the regulars. I don't know. I've never met a 30 year old man that would only eat eggs, bananas and toast. He WILL eat something else eventually. Even if just to throw you off and make you crazy. Someday he'll probably throw the eggs right back at you and decide he hates them. Oh how you'll long for the days when all he would eat was eggs, bananas and toast! :) ha ha
ReplyDeleteLove ya! Miss ya!
Kaylee
I know it is hard, but I take the hard road with my kids. They eat whatever I give them, if they decide not to eat, then they go hungry. Tough love huh
ReplyDeleteI realize you have no idea who I am, but I'm a friend of Melissa's who forwarded me your blog. So, I'm going to put my two cents in, for what it's worth. My 15 month old is a pretty good eater - significantly better since we amp'd up the flavor of her food. I didn't think she'd be all about the curry and spicy salsa, but whatever works! And we still have a lot of weeks where I swear all she eats is eggs and apples.
ReplyDeleteThis is the stuff I learned from other parents as a preschool teacher:
- pick one meal a day to start with in introducing new foods. If dinner time is hectic and it's stressful that he's not eating, that might not be the best time to change his eating habits because of other dynamics in your house. Maybe snack or breakfast is better.
- keep a list of what he does eat. Mostly that's for you so you can see where he's making progress and you don't feel so frustrated.
- make sure there's at least one familiar thing on his tray.
- we always have better luck if we give Guthrie something she likes first- usually we'll put some raisins or whatever on her tray while I'm getting the rest of the food to the table.
And I think the thing to remember is that it's not like you're saying, oh you don't want chicken? here eat cake instead!, you're still providing him with healthy food. But, I know it can be so frustrating. He might just grow out of it.
Like when he's 30 :)
But, seriously, like Melissa said, he'll figure it out and he'll start to enjoy the same foods you guys do because there's nothing cooler than eating what mom and dad eat.
PS - I'm extra-jealous of the slide on your stairs and I keep showing it to all my friends-- they're jealous too.
Kids only eat when they're hungry. I suggest giving him the same foods you're eating and let him eat what he wants from the plate. No "more" of one food unless the other foods are finished. Have you tried ground chicken? Maybe it's just the texture.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have to tell you the story of when I was about 6 years old and my parents demanded that I eat peas at dinner or else I wasn't leaving the table. I sat and sat. They watched and waited. I finally caved, took a bite of peas and promptly threw up. Never had to eat peas again!
Don't worry. Rowan's healthy and he'll get over being picky.
Hey Jess! I believe food issues are the reason we have such trouble with our kids today...Court and I fight over this one all the time (he puts something in front of Camryn "makes" her eat - I know what she wants and help her from there). I agree with Kaylee, what he likes is actually good stuff...Cam would have eaten that all day everyday if we would have let her. I agree that we are the parents but I listen to my Mom and boss recall horror stories from their youth regarding food and now both have battled their weight for years....I think you can mess a kid up if you force something they don't want :)
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain woman! Nixon is picky for sure. If it were up to him, his daily meals would only include: blueberries, waffles, and maybe a little jello or cheese. Oh, and about a gallon of milk. The kid would drink milk all day if I let him. I go day to day at this point. I think at this age, he's really testing me...and I have failed his tests plenty of times. After a half hour of throwing food off his tray I'm like, whatever, here is your damn waffle. But, I'm working on being more consistant and not giving in. His punishment to me for this action? Waking up hungry at 3 or 4 am. To summerize, I clearly do not have the answer! Let me know when you do ok. Thanks, haha!
ReplyDeleteeh, let me throw you a few curves here.
ReplyDeletefirst, john was my picky eater (magnifying glass and all; he drove me NUTS) and at 33 he is still a very picky eater. thing is, he's been right about every single one of his food neurosis since day one... i do think he taught himself to read, in his crib, using ingredient labels from baby food jars. dan was much different, rather happily eating any and everything. at rowan's age, he was slurping down fiery hot salsa w/o shedding even a single tear. and while i'd have sworn john had a "problem", it turned out that dan did.
dan had a medical problem: ear, nose, and throat. he could not taste or smell any food. the hot salsa was all he could detect flavour in. next time rowan has a check-up, maybe have a more thorough en&t exam done. dan had tubes in his ears at rowan's age; somewhere in his early 20s he outgrew his allergies.
too, like your mom says, rowan may just flat out not like chicken. i just flat out never have liked spaghetti and all efforts to get me to eat it resulted in me throwing up on the table every single time. (i can eat it today if it is basil free.)
what my mom says: 1) never force kids to eat. 2) never trade-off ugly healthy food for attractive unhealthy food. kids'll eat the amount their own particular body requires when they're hungry... make sure that when they are, only healthy foods are available. mom was a real sickly feather of a child. your great-grampa worried to the point of almost force feeding her (he lost a 15 yr-old daughter, to malnutrition, during the depression). mom learned to clean her plate to please her dad (and cos all those kids in china were starving) and mom has suffered from a weight problem ever since. the same happened to one of my nieces and is now happening to another.
btw, your grampa pitched the same kind of rowan fit over your grandma's chicken ;)
good luck, jess, the fun has just begun! :)
I just read an article that said that if you force your child to eat it will make them more hesitant to eat. this is one thing he knows he has control over and he is not going to starve to death if he misses a meal. Leah has missed plenty. good luck and keep us updated.
ReplyDelete