Helpful Rules For Parents Of Picky Feeders

        Picky feeding can develop anytime in childhood. Here are some basic rules for dealing with picky feeders:

#1. Eat Together.  With both parents working, having family meals can be hard, but mealtime should be a time for the family to sit down together with TVs and smart phones off. Fewer distractions can mean quieter, calmer and better meals for everyone. Younger children eat better when they see their parents eating the same thing that they are eating. Sitting a child in a high chair and trying to have him eat while other people in the house are doing other things is rarely successful.

#2. No fights at the table.  No one’s appetite is helped by being upset. Forget “clean-plate “and “one-more-bite” arguments. Don’t coax, plead or try to force (It’s impossible for one human being to force another to eat and your child will be happy to prove that to you!).  Mealtime is the time for families to enjoy each other and to talk about anything other than food and meals.

#3. Presentation is important.   For both adults and kids, how a meal looks (and, for toddlers, how it feels) can help or hurt the appetite. We all like fresh-looking food and bright colors, but remember that, for a toddler, the peas being arranged in a smiley face might help, too. Play with your food and make mealtime fun.

#4. Make a meal and serve it to everyone – avoid substitutions. Approach each meal with a positive attitude. Even though your toddler refused noodles yesterday, he might like them today. Continue to make and serve what you like, but you can experiment – if he didn’t like noodles with tomato sauce, he might like them with cheese. If you are going to discuss menu planning with your older child (every teenager wants to be a vegetarian at some time), have that discussion between meals. Once a meal is made and served, don’t be quick to offer substitutions like bread, hot dogs or extra glasses of milk or juice. If a child eats nothing but potatoes at a given meal, it is not a problem. But saying, “If you don’t like what I made, you can always have a hot dog” is a fast-track way to teach your child to be a picky feeder. If a child turned down everything you served, allowing him to have a dessert is just one more form of substitution.

#5. Picky Feeders aren’t hungry.  Children in third-world countries aren’t picky – they’re hungry. They eat whatever comes their way. Experts talk about children eating 5 small meals a day, but there are meals and there are snacks. Sometimes the snacks can sabotage the meals. Drinking milk or juice between meals is the #1 appetite-killer, especially with toddlers sucking on a bottle. Allow only water between meals and give fresh fruit for snacks. Fruit snacks are not fruit. Neither is juice. And allow your child to actually get hungry before the meal. Don’t give anything but water for 1 hour before any meal. If a child refuses to eat a meal, that means somewhere he got too much to eat between this meal and the last one. Don’t make the same mistake twice. If he turns down a meal totally, he can only have all the water he wants until the next meal. By then, the peas might look a lot better to him.