Food Fight! Toddlers and Picky Eating Habits
June 3, 2008 by Dr. Heather
Filed under Annoying Toddler Behaviors
Hi Dr. Heather:
I eat a variety of healthy foods, heavy on the veggies, with a variety of ethnic cuisines, most of which I cook myself. On the other hand, my daughter more or less eats the same things every day.
It's called experimentation, Mom!
Every resource says the same thing: keep offering it to your child. My question is: how do I do that without wasting large amounts of food? Also, how do I offer it to her at all, when she will eat the foods she likes and leave the foods she doesn’t?
Please tell me my kid will grow out of this! I feel stumped when other moms chime in with something encouraging like, "Broccoli is my kid’s favorite!" or "I can’t pry the sushi from her hands!" I should note that 1) she ate it all just fine when we were in the baby food stage, and right at about 13-14 months she started refusing vegetables, and 2) she doesn’t seem like a "picky" kid to me- she eats a wide variety of foods, pretty much anything except vegetables.
I’m sure I’m putting too much pressure on myself with this, but my husband is obese and struggling to lose weight, and I so want to avoid the same fate for her!
Patricia in Atlanta
Dear Patricia,
I know they tell us to keep offering a wide variety of foods to our toddlers and young kids. And we start to feel there’s something WRONG if they don’t eat a nicely rounded diet all the time. It’s another source of pressure and guilt for us, as parents. It had better be healthy! Organic! Wholesome! Etc, etc, etc.
But what they DON’T tell us is that our kids are BORN with very strong tendencies, in terms of eating preferences. I have one kid who’ll eat just about anything, and always has. I have another who is extremely choosy, and yet another who is somewhere in the middle.
You can’t make a kid eat something they don’t want to eat. And if you TRY, you risk setting up a power struggle that YOU CAN’T WIN.
It’s normal for young babies (6 to 12 months or so) to happily eat whatever we put in front of them. After one year of age, however, their caloric needs DECREASE, and their desire to be independent INCREASES, as does their desire to get moving! Crawling, walking, running, talking; it all holds much more interest than sitting and eating vegetables. So it’s fairly common to see what you describe; a baby who eats everything, who turns into a toddler who is choosy, or who has inconsistent food preferences. (They often can get into “food fads”, too, where they demand certain things all the time.)
All you can do is go with the flow. Yes, offer her healthy options. Don’t push or insist that she eats her “healthy” food. Set it all out in front of her and then GET OUT OF THE WAY. She needs to make her own food selections, within the range of a variety of foods you set out for her. Your toddler needs to resist and be oppositional, as she works on establishing her independence. Don’t let her struggle with you over food. Pick your battles; this one, you won’t win. Over time, your daughter will learn to love a wide variety of foods. (But she might not show it until she leaves for college!)
Now, does that mean you give in and offer a Happy Meal morning, noon and night? No. Just try to add something healthy to her plate, and leave it alone.
Let her see you enjoying your healthy, interesting variety of foods. And don’t let her associate pressure or stress with that image.
In our house, our 2-year-old is attempting a coup to establish him as Food Dictator. It’s a struggle on a daily basis. His preferences change daily, too. Here’s what we do: Put the healthy stuff in front of him while we prepare the rest of the meal. That way, while he’s really hungry, he’s more likely to try the good stuff. Then we offer him a choice or two, and that’s that. I do try to include something I know he’ll eat, whether it’s pasta, or PB and J, or some cheese. He also does like fruit, so I offer lots of that. If he doesn’t want the options, he can eat at he next mealtime. He whines and complains, but I only have the energy to do a certain amount! What’s interesting is that he often craves the food on OTHER PEOPLE’S PLATES; especially Daddy’s, right now. And he will tackle veggies and other things he flatly refuses when put on HIS plate. So we engage in a little trick-the-baby-psychology, and allow him to eat off his Daddy’s plate, after he’s done with his own. We get a little extra nutrition into him that way. We’ll set firmer limits with him on that as he gets closer to 3, because by then we’ll want him to see that he’s got to stick to HIS plate. But for now, it’s not so bad for Daddy to share some of his dinner with our cute little guy.
Now, I’m not a physician or a nutritionist, so you’d better check with your pediatrician just to make sure things are OK with your daughter’s nutrition. You can also read more about the issue in Dr. Brazelton’s books;
I love how he deals with the issue.
Good luck, and let us know
how it goes!
Aloha,
Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink
PS Want to read more about annoying toddler tendencies? Check out my Toddler Page for more.
Of all the blogs I’ve read about how to deal with Toddler’s behavior in being picky with food—I have to say that you have laid all the solution so well!
So far, I have no problem with my child eating the right kind of food. Like your son, he loves to steal food from us and he even prefers using bigger plate and spoon rather than his little bowl. The only dilemma I have is that me and my husband doesn’t like to eat veggies. Hahaha. This is so funny. I swear I am never going to force him to eat veggies. But as a solution, I have to prepare a veggie that we are most likely to eat. Perhaps when he sees us enjoy our food, he’ll be convinced that he’s going to grab the right stuff.
I’ll keep all what you said here in mind.
Great advice!
HI YVIE:
So glad you are here! Thanks for the compliment.
I’m the question asker here- just a note to say that my daughter is 21 months old, so we’re much more on the younger end of the toddler spectrum. I don’t think I mentioned that in my question, but BabyShrink, your advice is right on target!
Funny story- I came home for lunch yesterday and was having lunch at the same time as my daughter. My lunch included green beans and she was totally asking for one of them, but when I reached over to give it to her, she shrank away. And then leaned forward…and shrank away, with her mouth open for the food, even! You can see the wheels turning in her head: Mommy’s eating it, so I want it, but it’s GREEN!
It’s two steps forward and one step back some days.
My eldest son had eating issues as a baby and was partially tube fed so that he could get all the nutrients that he neeeded. As we were trying to get him off of his tube feeds one of the things I swore I wouldnot do is to turn meal times into a battle. We feed our kids kid friendly stuff in the day time, but for dinner time they eat what we are eating (modified of course to thiser eating abliities). The have to take at least one bite of everything on thier plate, but after that if they do not want to eat it then they do not have to. They also have to stay at the table until all the adults are done eating. This has worked quite well for our family. Sometimes they only eat that one bite of food, but they have managed to survive and not waste away into nothing. My eldest son has been off of his tube feeds for almost two years and is not a chunky moneky.
Um that should be now a chunky monkey, not not a chunky monkey.
Oh yeah, I can completely relate on this one right now! B is stuck on about three foods; pizza, hot dogs and mac and cheese. I, like Heather, am lucky that she LOVES fruit, so she gets a lot of that, but veggies are scarce! I’ve actually taken to giving her the Juicy Juice Harvest Surprise as her juice (half juice/half water) because it has veggie juice in it! I figure that’s better than nothing.
I also do try just putting “healthy” things out there for her, and she will try them, but almost always spits them out. I also think we let her snack too much before dinner (she is a CARBO-HOLIC! Could eat a loaf of bread). So, I’m working on just one small snack after school, then a good dinner.
We also employ the “if you don’t eat it now, you can have it later, but no dessert, etc.” idea. That works pretty well. And sometimes if she’s really being picky, or not hungry, we just let her not eat all of her dinner and have cereal before bed (“healthy” cereal!).
What do you think about processed foods Heather? I feel guilty (imagine that) about always giving her frozen pizza or canned/pre-packaged meals, but it’s fast and she loves them. Slacker Mom at the ready…
Wait a minute! Daddy Babyshrink does not leave food on his plate for others to eat. We pass our plates to him. He’s being tricked.
We have always been very lucky that Rachel (now 6 1/2) is a very good eater. From time to time, though, she will decide she doesn’t want to have certain things. One thing that has always been fairly successful is just telling her it’s good to try new things just to see what they’re like. Be firm about taking ‘just one bite’ and if she doesn’t like it after that, don’t force the issue (but have take just one bite next time too).
PATRICIA:
HAH! I love that story. It’s such a classic depiction of a toddler! Yeah, we have to manage that dynamic all the time with these tiny tyrants. Sometimes I purposely turn my head away and “accidentally” place like ONE green bean on the high chair tray. If he fusses, I might grab it off the tray and say “oh, sorry, that’s not for you. that’s MOMMY’S green bean!” and eat it. The look I get after that is priceless. It’s like, “Hey! That was MINE! But wait, I WANT IT!” you can see him stewing on it for awhile afterwards.
Thanks for your question!!
AWESOME MOM:
That’s such a complicated situation that you handled so well. I can imagine I might have been really stressed and anxious about food in a situation like that. How did you manage NOT to get upset and worried about it?
KATIE KAT:
Yeah, time-savers are very helpful. You know me, I’m not gonna bash that! We had pizza last night.
But for our own health, we’re trying to steer away from some of the highly processed stuff a bit; I’ve started making batches of easy/healthy stuff on the weekends, and then freezing into nightly meal-sized portions. Nothing fancy: I make like 8 or 10 broiled chicken breasts, then cut up into kid-sized pieces, then freeze to use later in the week. Then we use the chicken to put into pasta sauce, or just eat plain, etc. Stuff like that. I use a lot of frozen organic corn for a veggie for the kids; they like it, and there’s no salt. Cooking in advance does require advance planning during the weekend, but it has worked out well to at least give us a couple of healthier options when I’m too tired to make a meal from scratch during the week!
HOT WIFE is a nutritionist. Maybe she has some other suggestions!
HOT WIFE:
HAH! Hot Wife knows that there are legendary food stories about my hubby.Our Little Ones are the ONLY ones who are able to share food with Mr. Dr. BabyShrink’s hubby; I can’t even share with him! Our first fight as a married couple was on our honeymoon — he STOLE my last fajita when I wasn’t looking!
DYLAN:
I think that’s great advice. Probably doesn’t kick in until they’re a bit older; perhaps 3. The “one bite”, even if it’s a tiny bite, has encouraged our oldest/pickiest to realize she actually DOES like a lot of foods. But if she really does not want to try…I’m not going to force her. I want HER to retain that sense of control over her OWN body…that’s important to balance in all of this. (And we haven’t even touched the issue of Female Body Image and how that develops as a young child….I could go on for years!)
One day, we’ll get to it here on BabyShrink!
Does this work for older kids too? My seven year old is picky and will regularly refuse to eat things that I know she likes. I think she does it mostly when her older sisters like it.
As a compulsive overeater muhself, I’m always interested to read what “the experts” have to say on this topic. I don’t have an internal understanding of a natural relationship to food and if there’s one thing I DON’T want to pass down to my daughter, my relationship with food is it. Sigh.
I will be using this blog post as a touchstone, I think. It succinctly reflects so much that I have read and trust on this topic. Thanks, Dr. Heather!
WickedStepMom:
Yeah, overall I would say that we need to detatch ourselves from our kids’ eating. We can model healthy eating, a healthy enjoyment of food, and eating in moderation. We can offer and supply healthy options, and show them how to splurge when it’s appropriate.
If they CHOOSE not to eat out of some reaction to someone or something else, I would stay out of it. Giving it attention would likely fuel the fire.
Hi Dr. Attiton:
Being conscious of the issue is certainly the most important step. I also think it’s an interesting opportunity, when we have kids, to RE-VISIT our own issues. We have an opportunity to re-work things that still could use some adjustments. I haven’t always been the most healthy eater either, and thinking of providing my kids with a more healthy food situation helps to push ME in a better direction, too.
I’ve always fed my kids what we were eating at the table. No short order cooking, no meeting demands that they have to have XYZ or they’ll hold their breath until they pass out. Eat what’s on the table or don’t eat at all. That approach got my kids used to things like eggplant, spicy Mexican and Thai food, and a taste for the unusual (chaoyte or Ugli fruit anyone?). When they were older, if they didn’t want to eat with us due to some objection, PB&J was permitted.
When I was a kid, I would eat just about anything except raw tomatoes. Yet my mom would make me sit at the table for hours to force me to eat them. I would argue, I’ve eaten everything else, for crying out loud- what’s so special about these damn tomatoes? I won’t eat them raw to this day. My kids each have a thing or two like that, and it’s OK by me. They’ll eat just about anything else.
These days, we’re lucky if we’re all home to eat together twice a week. I miss those days when they were small…
HI MBD:
Thanks. We are enjoying what will likely be the last baby of the family, clamoring in to join us at the table!
CRYSTAL:
What’s most important here is the EMOTIONAL MESSAGE that our kids get from us about food. Is it a relaxed experience, where we can connect with friends and family? Or is it a stressful, intense, difficult thing?
It’s also important that we model for our kids how to ENJOY TREATS appropriately. Having a special treat on a special occasion should be one of life’s pleasures. But we can model how best to do that. Do we eat one piece of cake…or the whole thing? Do we savor each bite slowly, as we’re also enjoying the time with others at the table, or do we wolf down the whole thing without thinking?
Our kids’ body image is largely determined in these early years. Their experience with food should of course have limits…but the kids who have limits that are too restrictive are the ones who are sneaking off to the neighbor’s house to raid the cookies. Obviously, we need to set some reasonable limits, and encourage healthy eating through our own behavior. We need to strike the balance.
Like Attiton and Crystal, I have food-related and body image issues, and it’s one of my biggest concerns about raising my daughter. I think “we” (with those issues) are so aware of them we might over-emphasize their importance. On the other hand, if we act like we don’t care, we’re not setting a good example.
There are always going to be choices in life. I think what is good is to find the balance. Tell your child that you are serving dinner, and if they don’t want it, they can either not eat or have one other choice (that is healthy). If they don’t eat, then there are no treats later, etc. That way, they still have a choice but they get a good message.
Also, I think it’s important to inspire in them a love for WHAT their bodies do, not HOW they look. Yes, being healthy is important, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you are model-thin or “perfect.” You can be overweight and still healthy and strong. I want to instill in B the idea that her body is an amazing organism (I won’t use that word) that needs care, feeding, and love. That her body wakes up every morning and does amazing things for her like breathing, moving, thinking, resting, playing, and that means she needs to take care of it and respect it. Maybe then it won’t be about how she looks, but how she feels and how she treats her body that stays with her.
But, I digress to Dr. Heather! I’d love to have an entire discussion just on this topic!
And if anyone has information as to the whereabouts of the black bow tie and cummerbund Mr. Dr. BabyShrink’s Husband, Esq., Ph.D. lost at a wedding like 15 years ago, please contact your local authorities at once. Or just take it back to Men’s Warehouse.
This is a great post, as it sounds like my Hamlet is about the same age as T. My husband and I decided recently that we were going to get Hamlet to taste things at dinner; y’know the just one bite theory. Our first try seemed to be a disaster. He ate a bowl of pasta with butter (decided he didn’t like sauce after that blissful baby-eats-everything stage), and we wanted him to eat one noodle from our homemade mac&cheese. Chaos ensues.
Is it worth it to get him to try? He refuses food based on what it looks like, but is the taste worth it if he’s crying and capitulating because we’ve told him he won’t get dessert?
GAH!!!
Hello, I’ve just come across this site after searching for answers to a current potty training strike and figured I’d take a look at the info on picky eaters, since my 2 1/2 year old DS is also one of those! I think he may actually be the first prize winner in this category.
Here’s the list of the foods I can get him to eat (in no particular order): bread, butter (as long as it’s melted on toast and is no longer a solid), Cheerios, “orange coloured” fruit purees (eg. apple & peach or apple & apricot), “orange coloured” fromage frais (ie. apricot or peach flavour), plain fromage frais sweetend with maple syrup or cane sugar, raisins, certain savoury biscuits, certain sweet biscuits, certain cakes, and once in a very blue moon he’ll eat a banana or a bowl of “orange coloured” soup as long as there are no bits in it. And there you have it – no vegetables, no meat and virtually no fresh fruit – and we just passed the 1 year anniversary of the very last time he ate a “regular” main meal.
A regular dinner will be a slice of toast (crusts must be cut off and butter must be melted), a pot of “orange” fruit puree (can’t be any weird lumps in it) and a pot of fromage frais (“orange” or “white” please). We’ve tried absolutely every method to get him to eat a bit more normally, from leaving him to choose his foods to refusing to give him anything to eat but a regular meal, and we’re still where we were a year ago.
When he was weaned onto solids he’d eat practically anything and then started to refuse his main meal little by little at around 15 months. Before we knew it, he wasn’t eating anything but the things I’ve listed above. He seems perfectly healthy, even though there’s always the worry of a vitamin deficiency developing. But I think the worst part is he’s starting school in the fall (in France they start them VERY young), and I’m worried that he’ll just end up not eating at lunchtime because he’ll be served what all the others are served and there’ll be no other options for him.
I know that there’s no miracle solution out there, but it’d sure be nice to read about anyone who’s been through the same thing and has actually stayed sane!!