I sit across from the little boy at my kitchen table. His parents are here too. A full plate of delicious food in front of him and he won’t eat.
His parents push, bribe, and coax him to eat.
“I’ll give you a cookie if you just have one bite of chicken…come on just one bite”
“Why won’t you eat?”
“Come on buddy, you have to eat!”
The 3 year old boy fiercely shakes his head and refuses.
I feel for the parents, I really do. I can tell that they worry about their son’s nutrition and are concerned that he doesn’t seem to need food to function.
Mealtimes are a battle pretty much every day for this family.
Why Won’t My Child Eat?
Before we can talk about how to handle picky eaters, it’s important to look at why a child won’t eat. Let’s start off easy.
Is it normal?
Young children, especially toddlers go through picky eating stages. It’s a normal stage that most children have. Also, right around the age of two, children start eating significantly less than they had been over the past year. They aren’t growing as fast, and they don’t require as many calories as before. So keep that in mind.
Is it a hunger issue?
How long has it been since your child ate? If he had a big snack an hour before dinner, he might not be hungry enough to eat. So, plan out snack times so that they are set parts of the day and won’t interfere with mealtimes.
Is it a sensory issue?
Sometimes certain textures make it harder for children to eat. For example, my older son refuses mashed potatoes, but loves whole roasted or broiled potatoes. My other son won’t eat loose kernels of corn and will only eat corn on the cob. So practice with different textures of foods to see what your child likes and doesn’t like.
Is it a control issue?
This is the biggie my friends. There are really very few things in a child’s life that they have full control over. But the two big ones that we, as parents, have no control over are eating and to the bathroom. So, when a child feels a loss of control or power in their lives, they will often times control those two things.
Feel free to read more about this concept on my post “How To Avoid Power Struggles: Choices”
So, if you’re in a battle over food, read the suggestions below.
How Do I Get My Child to Eat?
Give Choices
When preparing meals, ask your child for their input. “Do you want broccoli or green beans?” Give them two choices that you are okay with them having. A child is more likely to eat something that he chose himself. It gives him a sense of control over what he eats.
I even allow my child to pick between two or three things for breakfast and lunch. He gets to help me decide on vegetable sides for dinner, but I decide on the rest of the meal.
Involve Them In Meal Prep
Often times, it makes a child feel proud to be a part of preparing foods for their family to eat. So they will be more likely to eat it if they prepared it. They want to taste what they made.
Prepare Only One Meal
Make meals for the entire family where you all eat the same thing. If you continually prepare a separate dish for your children, then they will learn to expect the foods that they want and will refuse to eat meals that they didn’t chose. So, if you ever do want your child to eat what the whole family eats, then begin that way.
To make this easier, include a food or two in the meal that you know your child will like. That way, there is something that they can eat, even if they don’t like the rest of the meal.
I started this when my children were infants by using baby-led weaning
Don’t Force the Issue
“Let it go! Let it go!” Sing along with me…
Truly though, Mama, you can’t control if your child eats or not, so don’t try to force the issue. The more we push to get our children to eat, the more they will clamp shut and not eat. It’s something called counterwill...and we all have it.
So, even though you might be boiling inside, put the choice on your child. “It looks like you don’t really want to eat, and that’s okay. If you chose not to eat, I’ll make sure you have a good breakfast in the morning.”
Take a Try Bite
Anytime I introduce a new food to my kids, all I ask is that they take a “try bite”. The bite doesn’t have to be big, just a little taste. I remind them that it could taste really awesome and they’d never know if they didn’t try. If they try and don’t like it, then I don’t force them to eat any more of it.
I do not get into a power struggle about this with my kids, but it’s not usually an issue. I believe that the fact that I don’t keep forcing them to eat something that they don’t like makes it easier for them to just try it…or maybe it’s just my kids.
No Late Night Snacks
One of the biggest and worst pitfalls we can get into is giving children who refuse to eat snacks (or entire meals) after dinner and before bed. Why in the world would a child eat their good healthy dinner when they know they can get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a few hours?
Trust me, I know why parents do it. We don’t like sending our children to bed hungry. But, they will quickly learn that to not have that hungry feeling at bedtime, they need to eat their dinner.
So those are my tips, but I’d love to know what you think. Have you tried anything that works for you and your kids?
This was such a great question that came up in the Bon Bon Break chat. I love it! Textures seem to make a huge difference. My son is very picky sometimes, and funny enough it has nothing to do with the taste of the food and everything about the texture. I also love the idea of choices. Choices are really important, but keeping it to just a few choices seems to offer enough control without ruining the whole meal searching for an acceptable food to eat. Love this post.
Lauren
Thanks for watching the chat! It was a question that I thought needed a bit more clarification…feel like I could have answered it a bit better. So glad you liked the post.
Even with the children I’m childminding, I just trust, that no child would starve themselves. If they really don’t like something, then they’ll get more of what they like. If, however, they just refuse to eat, or keep picking things from their bread, asking for more without eating the bread, they might get up hungry!
Good tips… but giving a child choices isn’t always an option. For example, I have two kids. If I give two or three choices, invariably they will choose different things. So then I either break the “make only one meal” rule, or I take away their choice. Most of the time, it’s the choice that goes out the window.
We also require two bites of a new food (and even an old food that they’ve said they don’t like). The first bite is usually just a tiny nibble, and then the second one is more substantial. The reason we have them try old foods again is that tastes change, and sometimes they’ve tried something on a day that they’re just not open to new ideas (we all have those days) and they might like it if they’re in a better mood. The only food I don’t require try bites of is cooked carrots. They give my son the whole-body shivers, he hates them so much. So he doesn’t have to try them. But when we’re having something with carrots in it, I try to at least keep out a couple of uncooked carrot slices for him to have. He usually insists that he doesn’t like them, but then he’ll try one and remember that he actually does.
Thank you for this post, it is good to be reminded of these things. I was getting really frustrated with my son, so I swapped with my husband, he handles meals and I do the dishes most days. So now when I am alone with my son meals are much easier.
I really like your blog. x
Enjoyed reading your tips, and coming from a picky eater myself when I was a child. I not only understand the tips, I practice them. My 6 year-old hardly eats dinner, and I don’t bother because he eats breakfast like a champ. It’s my husband who I struggle with. Any time our son refuses to eat, my husband has a fit. And yet my husband is the one who makes our son a bowl of cereal when he asks. My husband thinks my methods are too harsh, and yet my husband thinks I spoil our son more.
I guess I want to add a disclaimer. These are great tips but there are kids that will allow themselves to starve, holding out for only certain foods. I work with them. I am a preschool special ed teacher. If you use these strategies and your child still has less then 20 foods then it is time to seek a professionals opinion. Believe it or not but a lot of texture sensitivity can be solved by letting kids play with different textures. I just feel like early intervention in feeding disorders are key.
Thank you for this! I agree there are just stubborn kids out there who are making eating a power struggle, but as a mom of a 4 year old adopted son who has severe eating issues, I want to encourage anyone whose child refuses most foods to seek help from a professional. Up until almost 24 months old my son refused ALL foods and would only take liquids. He has gradually added some foods over the two years but it has been a long process of trial and error with help. In the end, go with what feels right for you and your child and your family. I have six kids and my oldest 5 would have never gotten a different meal out of me, but my sixth NEEDED other foods. I would much rather feed my child a jelly sandwich than have him think I am withholding the food HE needs to survive. There is always the exception to the rule and I have one to prove it! Also, if they do like a certain texture or flavor try to find similar foods. My son will not eat meat but loves spicy salsa. I found spicy nuts and so now he loves those because they are spicy and he gets protein! Be creative and spend time in your grocery store looking at foods you might not normally buy! GOOD LUCK!
I have a 4 yr old that is incredibly picky nd stubborn. I have the ” just a few bites” method, which will sometimes work. Other times, he simply refuses. He will go to bed early rather than take those 4 bites of food(one bite for each year of age). He will eat chicken nuggets, fish sticks, cheese pizza, waffles(homemade), granola bars, pb, cheese, yogurt, applesauce, hot dogs, popcorn,spaghettios(w/o meatballs), bacon, apples(no skin &only if sliced), occasionally bananas and he will drink milk. This looks like a pretty decent list, until you try to eek out 3 decent meals a day with some nutritional value. He takes vitamins, his juice is 100% fruit & vegies but that really doesn’t satisfy what he needs. He refuses to eat hamburger, Mac & Cheese, meatloaf, spaghetti, any chicken that isn’t a nugget, fish that isn’t a stick, no pork, no eggs, no tuna, no potatoes, rice. I am truly at a loss as to how to sneak healthy things I to his diet when he is so limited in what he will try. He has no health issues. My older boys were never like this.
Sending your kid to bed hungry is one of the *worst* things you can do. They will not sleep well, and you’ll have an exhausted, famished and irritable child in the morning. If it’s a morning where there is a lot of rushing to get out the door, the kid will be miserable all day, possibly all *week* if you keep up this utterly ridiculous behavior. A good night’s sleep is far and away more important for a kid than preserving your ego. If you think you aren’t engaging in a power struggle by making the kid go hungry, you are as wrong as it’s possible to be. Instead of being a control freak, when the kid doesn’t want to eat, wrap up their food and stick it in the fridge. Tell them it’s there for them when they get hungry.
I was an incredibly picky eater when I was a child. Most of the issue was texture and I feel like I would have out grown most of it but at one point I was teased by my older brothers too much and they even attempted to force feed me. So, I have never outgrown most of my food aversions and I’m 22 years old. Please, don’t try to force kids. I was a kid that would have starved rather than eat a food I didn’t like. I would go for days when I wouldn’t eat dinner and it didn’t really bother me.
Good information, but my 5 year old is a severe picky eater! He only eats pb&j sandwich, pancakes, and crackers. I can’t get him to eat anything else, we’ve tried everything, even taken him to a specialist and nothing. He has been this way since he was about 1.5 years old.
I have a ten year old step daughter who visits my partner and I every other week. When she is at her mother’s house she gets to eat a separate meal and is allowed to snack all the time. When she is at our house she refuses to eat at all. This has happened for over two years now. She will say how gross the food is. We have tried many things to include all the things listed above.
Caroline, I have to respond to you. I feel your frustration and fear that you child will not learn to eat nutritionally.
I am a speech therapist who works as pediatric feeding-swallowing therapist and a mother of a grown daughter who had feeding issues that started at 9 months of age.
I want to encourage you to get other opinions for what is going on with your child. Eating, chewing, swallowing, digesting are all very complex processes. Go to another feeding therapist, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist or a feeding team that has a gastroenterologist and a pediatric dietitian. the feeding program use seek should be child-family centered, sensory-play based and fun. Keep exposing your child to new foods at hungry non-meal (snack) times with the expectation of JUST LEARNING about new foods. good luck! do not stop seeking information until your child can eat successfully with your family. pass this info to other mothers if you can
Cheryl Pelletier, MS/CCC-SLP and MOM
Another thing to keep in mind is this too, shall pass. Our three are grown, all three were very picky eaters. I never ran a short order kitchen and worked to avoid power struggles but broke all the rules at one time or another. The oldest two are great eaters, now encouraging me to buy organic and be more experimental! The jury is still out on the youngest, still in college, but I feel pretty sure time will move her away from a pizza based diet.
I always allowed my girls to have a list of 3 things that they refused to eat. If they came up with a new food they refused to eat, they had to start eating one of the other 3 things on the list to replace it. This gave the control over their list. I started doing when I noticed they were refusing things that their friends were refusing just to be like them. It was really getting out of control but was immediately corrected when I made this rule. It worked even through their teen years. We never had a problem after that.
Mia~I love that idea! I struggle with my 9 year old daughter, and her habits have started affecting the way my younger children eat. Thank you for sharing, I’m going to try that.
My son is a picky eater and it drives me nuts! Thanks for sharing some tips.
One word: SMOOTHIES.
Our daughter is shockingly choosy about what and when she’ll eat, often changing her mind from one week to the next. When we’re just about to panic that she’ll be malnourished, my husband whips up a batch of smoothies, and sneaks in all kinds of foods that otherwise would be out of the question. In smoothie-form, our daughter will eat kale, spinach, beets, squash, tomatoes, carrots (steamed or juiced)… provided, of course, that he includes a healthy dose of berries and yogurt.
Thanks! I’m going to try this. I’ve tried sneaking things in other ways and hasn’t worked. I think this might really work with my 4-yr-old daughter.
Any suggestions for the child that refuses to eat dinner repeatedly? I have read about letting them go to bed without dinner and it won’t last long. Well my 5 year old if he doesn’t like dinner, will not eat and he will do this almost every night depending what we have for dinner (if he likes it or not)
I have skipped afternoon snack, involved him in planning and preparing the meal. We don’t force him to eat the whole thing either. We say he needs to take 5 bites and if he doesn’t like it he can have something else. Would appreciate any more suggestions! Just worried about him getting enough since he is underweight for his age. Thanks- love your website! 🙂
You sou d as if you are in the same boat as I am. My 4 yr old is at a healthy, altho low end, weight, but I worry about the nutritional deficits longterm.
Good tips in general but how do you use these tips when your toddler has Type 1 Diabetes?
I wish I knew the answer to this, but I don’t know anything about Diabetes.
Hi my son stopped eating fruits when he was 2 years old now hes 2 years and 7 months and still not eating any kind of fuit. Je only drinks orange juice from time to time. I am worried about his health because fruits are essential and important. I would like to ask for your help and what can i do to make him eat fruits. If I try any fruit or any juice other than orange juice he starts feeling nausea. Thank you for your help
Let you kids to eat whatever they want, still nicely suggest having some new foods , no pushing.