The Picky Eater

All young children are more-or-less picky about food. What they eat one day, they don’t the next. They eat a lot one day, little the next. They don’t eat some of everything that is on the table, but eat only one or two foods and ignore the rest. They warm up slowly to unfamiliar foods and may have to see, watch you eat, touch or taste a food (they put it in and take it out again) 15 or 20 (or even more) times before theylearn to like it. then they eat it sometimes and not others. If you maintain a division of responsibility in feeding, over time, even a cautious and slow-to-warm-up child will become less erratic about eating and less skeptical of unfamiliar food.

Picky is normal; fincky isn’t

However, your child has gone past ordinary picky eating if she/he gets upset when she/he sees unfamiliar food, only, ever, eats her/him few (and shrinking list of) favorite foods, and worries she/he will be unable to eat away from home. You can’t get your child to eat, but you can help her/him resolve her/him negative feelings about eating. You can reassure her/him she/he doesn’t have to eat. That will allow her/him to develop positive attitudes about eating and behave nicely at mealtime so she can learn. After that, she/he will ever-so-gradually push her/himself along to learn to eat a greater variety of food.

How to address picky eating

Do a good job with feeding and assume your child will grow up with eating. Have regular meals and structured snacks so your child can be hungry but not starved at mealtime. Have family meals, and make those meals a pleasure and a privilege, not a chore. To keep meals positive, don’t pressure her/him in any way to eat.

• Teach her/him to say “no, thank you” rather than “YUK.” Have her/him leave the table if she behaves badly.
• Be family friendly with meals. Pair unfamiliar with familiar food, not-yet-liked with liked foods. Don’t make special food for her/him.
• Include one or two side-dish foods that she/he ordinarily eats, such as bread, fruit, or milk. Don’t offer cereal, peanut butter, or other alternative entrées.
• Let her/him pick and choose from what you put on the table, even if she eats five slices of bread and nothing else.
• Teach her/him to take food out without swallowing. What do you think napkins are for?

Avoid feeding errors.

• Failing to have structured meals and snacks and/or letting her eat or drink (except for water) whenever she wants to between times.
• Talking about your child’s food likes and dislikes.
• Limiting the menu to food your child readily accepts.
• Putting pressure in any way on her/him eating.