In Spite Of My Best Efforts, I Have Picky Eaters
What’s Normal, And What to Do About It
A friend once told me, after the birth of her son and subsequent nursing struggles, something along the lines of “the hardest thing you judge other moms on is the thing you end up struggling with the most.” At the time, I wasn’t a parent, but I was about a year and a half away from becoming a parent. The thought of starting a family was definitely on my mind. And I was already starting my deep dive into learning The Exact Right Way to Parent.
I’m a planner, so before my first child even came along, I read and read and read some more. I got toy and bedroom setup ideas from Montessori From the Start, I learned all about Thomas and Chess’s nine temperament characteristics from Touchpoints: Birth to Three, and of course, I knew I would do everything according to the most Cool Mom book of all, Bringing Up Bebe, from sleep, to discipline, to food.
Specifically: my children would not be a picky eaters. They would eat what we ate. They wouldn’t snack between meals. I wouldn’t use food as motivation or reward. Kids’ meals would be unheard of. In short, they would be tiny toddler gourmands.
And now? Well, here’s a glimpse into how well I managed to implement my grandiose plan for raising foodie babies: this past week my son actually ate the shrimp I served at dinner and I nearly wept with gratitude.
I’d actually reached my breaking point the night before, when he refused — like, physically couldn’t even swallow — a tiny bite of salmon I made him eat. I’m not one to push food on my kids, and tend to take a more relaxed approach to food refusal, but he’s eaten salmon before, and I was tired of throwing out plates of untouched food. Maybe my problem was that I was too relaxed. But no: he was clearly struggling. I broke down and got him a bowl of Cheerios.
I wonder every day: what did I do wrong? Did I do anything wrong? Maybe not. I have a video of him sucking some mashed avocado off my finger when he was around six months. It was his first taste of food ever, and it’s clear from his little face that he’s not impressed. Still, I knew from all my reading that it can take ten attempts before a kid accepts a new food. So I pushed forward, offering him bites of things we were eating, and whipping up cool purees from books like Little Foodie.
In spite of my best efforts, the kid gravitated naturally toward bland and sweet things: carbs, cheese, and of course, fruit.
So I decided to try a different approach when it came time to start feeding his sister. She was naturally a lot more interested in food than him — my online mom friends still joke about her attacking a plate of steak nachos with her little toothless gums when I took her to our meetup at the tender age of five months. I remember flying home from the get-together and being unable to eat my in-flight snack, because she kept grabbing the bag from me.
And now? She’s marginally less picky than her brother, and loves the same foods: carbs, cheese, and fruit. She’ll also occasionally eat some broccoli, but he did too, when he was two. The other night she crushed a bunch of edamame, which left me hopeful; still, I expect things will get worse for her before they get better.
Will they get better?
The good news is, probably. According to one study, the picky eating generally reaches its peak at 38 months, or, around three years. At 4 1/2, my son is on the older side, but then, his dad was a notoriously picky eater and only began to reform his habits when (ahem) he met me. (The dude didn’t appreciate mayonnaise. Mayonnaise!)
And so I forge on. This consultation, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood — Education and Practice, is jam-packed with loads of great tips for helping picky eaters. Including the following advice:
Set realistic expectations. Don’t expect your two-year-old to eat a bowlful of broccoli or an entire piece of chicken, because her little stomach just can’t hold that much!
Start from the beginning. Go slowly. Don’t try to introduce all! of! the! foods! at once, and when you do introduce a new food, grade the exposure — that is, give it in a form that the child will accept, like a new flavor of crisps. (Sorry, I had to. The journal is British, okay?)
Don’t give up. If the initial introduction fails, try again later. Repeated exposure is key in familiarizing a child with a new food.
Stick to non-food rewards. This one is controversial — all of the mommy podcasts and picky eating Instagram feeds I follow tell me not to even show any sort of emotion, positive or negative, around what my kids choose to eat. Food is food. It’s not a battle. However, the article recommends praise, stickers, or a points system — anything that will be motivating for the picky eater. One thing everyone seems to agree on: don’t offer dessert as a reward.
Hide the flavor — but not the food. Serve broccoli with loads of butter and/or cheese. Or even sweetened! Once the child gets used to the flavor of the food you’re trying to introduce, you can taper off the flavor-improving ingredients. But! Don’t serve pancakes with hidden vegetables inside, because that can cause the child to lose trust in the parent preparing the food, and also lead to anxiety.
Approach the eating experience with positivity, and avoid negativity. Frame the new food in a positive light, and when your child says something along the lines of “Eew, I don’t like it!” (a personal favorite phrase of my 2-year-old), remind them that they’re learning to like it, and perhaps they’ll like it tomorrow. And definitely don’t punish kids for rejecting food. “Although the parent chooses what food to offer,” the article advises, “the child’s autonomy and appetite should be respected — they are encouraged to taste but choose what to eat.” Other sources call this the division of responsibility: you as the parent are responsible for serving them healthy meals. As the child, they’re responsible for what they decide to eat. As for the negativity bit, don’t warn kids about the dangers of loading up on junk, but reframe foods in a positive light: the steak they’re eschewing will help their muscles grow big and strong. The green vegetables will help their bodies fight off colds.
Make sure you’re eating the good stuff, too. Parental modeling is huge in helping picky eaters get over their avoidance of hated foods. There’s a now-legendary family story of my mother-in-law (herself quite picky) bringing my husband to participate in a food study when he was a toddler. She had to predict the number of foods he would try out of a given list of 100, and she chose two: a cookie, and ice cream. He ended up choosing just the cookie. Later, she found out that the study was examining maternal pickiness in relation to their children. As it turns out, he came by it honestly.
Make it social. Semi-related, kids eat more when those around them are eating the same foods, and the more people there are, the more pronounced this is. This is probably why my son has started coming home from school with the report that he tried everything at lunch — even if he didn’t like or finish it. So make a meal a sit-down experience. Talk. Enjoy each others’ company. Make it less about the food, and more about the interaction.
Limit snacks and filling beverages. This is personally our biggest issue. Both kids live for snacks, and snacktime is whenever they decide it is. Not that snacktime should be avoided altogether, but it should be planned and structured, as meals are. And here’s an interesting tip from the article: serve vegetables first, and limit the size of the main course. Maybe those French are onto something after all, with their multi-course creche meals.
Keep your eyes on the long game, and stay consistent. Don’t worry if your kid eats nothing but rice for supper one night. Over the course of a week, he’ll eat the nutrients he needs to, as long as the food is presented to him. Don’t give up. Keep at it. One day, your kid — and my kids, all three of them — will be a gourmand. But it will take time and effort.
As for my third child? She’s a week or two away from starting solids. Yay! And yet again, I am confident that I’ve discovered The Absolutely Correct method of food introduction, this time a la Lily Nichols, a registered dietician who wrote my favorite pregnancy nutrition book, Real Food for Pregnancy, and who wrote a deep dive blog post covering researched-based food introduction. Chicken liver pate and green veggies, here we come! I’ll get a foodie baby yet.
