She Likes Bread And Butter
Emilia is the world’s pickiest eater. You probably think that I’m exaggerating. I’m not. There might be a child somewhere in Germany who will only eat bratwurst and cherries, but I’d be willing to bet that that child would eat a whole chocolate chip muffin if coaxed. Not Emilia. She’d remove the muffin top and pick three or four chocolate chips from around its edges and then discard it, saying that she didn’t like how it felt in her mouth. And that would be on a good day.
Emilia prefers to stick the basics: bread, cheese, pickles, tofu, spaghetti noodles (only spaghetti) with butter, chick peas, corn on the cob, yogurt, cheese pizza (only cheese), hard-boiled eggs, ketchup, strawberries, cake icing (not the cake itself) and candy. And watermelon, but only outside, and only if it’s seedless. That’s it. Sometimes, she’ll eat only one or two of those things for days, and then reject those same things for weeks – “I don’t like them anymore, Mommy” – only to return to them once she has us convinced that the only thing she’ll eat is chick peas and ketchup. She once shocked us by eating a poached egg and declaring it delicious, but that was only once, and she never did it again. And she went through a brief Vietnamese noodle soup phase when she was a baby, but all babies do that and we didn’t think much of it at the time. She does not like macaroni and cheese or fries or chicken fingers or hamburgers, unless by ‘hamburger’ you mean ‘ketchup on a bun.’ I’d say that she was a vegetarian, except that she doesn’t like most vegetables. Feeding her is – what’s the scientific term for this? – a pain in the ass.
Jasper, on the other hand, will eat anything, as long as it's outside, and he's naked.
Some people would probably say that we’re not trying hard enough, that we should be able to get Emilia to eat anything. That seems to be the argument of New York restaurateur Nicola Marzovilla, who, in speaking out against the pernicious evil of children’s menus at restaurants, says that he has always forced – yes, forced – his kids to try a variety of foods because “I’m their parent, I’m not their best friend… I have a duty to mold and teach.” Right. Because friends don’t force friends to eat rabbit ragout.
I could care less about whether or not a restaurant has a children’s menu, although I admit that it makes life a little easier when they do. Smaller portions, simpler menu items – sometimes I want to order from a kids’ menu. But it’s not necessary: as long as we can order a small plate of spaghetti noodles, plain, with a side of bread, we’re good. But I do take issue with this idea that if you aren’t forcing your kids to eat whatever is on their plate, you’re doing parenting wrong. We should encourage them to eat a variety of foods, sure, but force? I’m not even inclined to argue strenuously about whether Emilia should try foods that she’s not interested in, never mind force her. Even if I thought that I could – and I’m about 115% certain that I couldn’t – I don’t see the point. If a little enthusiastic encouragement doesn’t get her to try a piece of California roll, I’m not going to push the issue. Attempting to force her to try something that she doesn’t want to isn’t going to make mealtime a more pleasant experience for either of us. That, and there’s one more piece of California roll for me.
I was a picky eater as a child. I didn’t like red meat and would only eat pasta with butter and cheese and went through a long and happy lima bean phase during which the only non-dairy protein I would eat was – you guessed it – lima beans. My parents encouraged me to try a variety of foods, and sometimes they were successful – clam chowder! – but mostly they weren’t and this never got in the way of us having happy mealtimes together because I was never stressed about what I ate. Mom would make sure that there were always at least a few things on the table that I would happily eat if, say, I developed a sudden aversion to creamed corn or refused to try the pan-fried trout, and so mealtime was always a relaxed and happy time during which I could focus on explaining my theories on why Barbie could run faster than Holly Hobby (stronger legs and aerodynamic hair) rather than on worrying whether I’d be forced to clean my plate.
Of course, I didn’t eat my first mushroom until I was twenty years old and living in Spain and didn’t know how to say ‘what’s in this paella?‘ in Spanish, and I suppose that there’s an argument to made that my life would been more fulfilling if I’d eaten more than just cucumber and mayonnaise sandwiches during seventh grade, but still – I never got scurvy and I eventually came to love such strange and fascinating foods as raw oysters and pico de gallo and ceviche and asparagus and tuna sashimi and apple pie (I never once touched apple pie during childhood. Fruit-based desserts seemed to me to be a travesty against the dessert gods, who, everyone knows, are gods of chocolate and caramel, with some exceptions made for desserts involving meringue. I am still a patron of this church, but have been known to enjoy a heretical slice of apple pie, but only if warm and served with ice cream, which makes it less offensive in the eyes of those gods.)
Being a picky eater as a child didn’t prevent me from developing more adventurous tastes later in life, and I like to think that my parents’ refusal to fight food battles made all the difference in me growing up loving the social aspects of dining – the fun of dinner-table conversation, the excitement of going out to restaurants and spending the evening together, the joy of lingering over our plates and caring more about the words coming out of our mouths than the food going in. I grew up a foodie who didn’t care all that much about food, and, apart from missing a decade or so of quality sashimi-eating time, I think that it did me more good than harm.
I’d love it if Emilia discovered the joys of curry and the pleasures of tempura and the bliss of creme brulee earlier rather than later, but I’m not going to force the issue. I’ll limit my anxiety to worrying about whether what she does eat is healthy enough and in sufficient quantities and that – most importantly – sitting down at the table with people she loves is always a pleasurable experience.
And I’ll enjoy, for now, the extra pieces of California roll.
(I’m not the only one with an insanely picky eater, right? How do you cope? Do you fight it, or just roll with it, or what? Also, would you ever boycott a restaurant without a kids’ menu, or does that seem a little fascist to you?) (NOT JUDGING.)
Posted by Her Bad Mother on May 25, 2010
Filed under: bad mother, emilia
Tags: carrots are overrated, food, food revolution, picky eaters
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."What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." (Nietzsche, Aphorism 153, Beyond Good And Evil.) Not, unfortunately, beyond Dora dolls that shout 'WE DID IT!' when you step on them, but you learn to cope with that.
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May 25, 2010
When my eldest daughter was your she ate rice balls and chicken noodle soup..and that was it..Not a cheerio or pancake…cookie, freezy..nothing..I did not think she was going to make it…She’s 13 now and eats everything…except..chicken noodle soup…;)
Great post..Cheers
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
RICE BALLS. I have to try rice balls with Emilia. She likes rice, she likes balls… and that means absolutely nothing when it comes to food, but still. Am going to try it.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
Dee Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
@Catherine, As a treat..roll them in a little sugar or raw sugar..it’s sweet and adds the crunchy element..I know so strange..but all 4 of my kids love rice balls..
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
@Dee, sugar will do the trick for sure. I could get her to eat anything if I rolled it in sugar. So.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
When she was YOUNG..not “your…”..ooops..mama is tired…
May 25, 2010
I would pay my kid money if he would eat cheese pizza, chick peas, eggs or corn in any form. I do not force my child to eat anything. I encourage him, we offer him anything we are eating, and if he eats it, we have a happy celebration, if he declines we don’t worry about it. The other day he ate a chicken nugget for the first time, because 6 other kids were. Officially the first meat he has eaten in about two years, of his own choice. But he is growing and is strong, so I am not worried. I would prefer he like what he eats and doesn’t have hang ups about food.
MidLifeMama´s last blog ..Reflecting on beauty…
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
@MidLifeMama, no hang ups about food, EXACTLY.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
My son was a picky eater, and has since outgrown it. I tried to make sure that there was at least one thing that he would eat in each meal, and sometimes that meant cooking macaroni and throwing it in whatever we were having (e.g. stew) and hoping that some of that “stewy-goodness” stuck to the pasta and made it in his system.
As he got older (like say 6 and it became more of a behaviour rather than an actual aversion…) we implemented a “no-thank-you-helping” for each dish. So he had to at least try it. The one I really remember was potato salad, he was determined that it was disgusting and he wouldn’t eat it if his life depended on it. My husband said “oh, this isn’t potato salad, it is potato candy” and ever since it has been his favourite.
He recently turn 13 and eats anything I don’t nail down, and even somethings I do. There is hope.
Erin´s last blog ..My Favourite Photo
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
@Erin, I’ve tried the ‘call it candy’ trick, and Emilia doesn’t fall for it. Which is a shame, because chicken noodle candy soup could be really, really good.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
Katy Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
@Catherine, I haven’t tried “call it candy” but I totally buy chicken noodle soup, spaghettios etc. with princess shapes or ABCs or stars. Because “Princess Soup” has such an awesome ring to it, even I would eat “Princess Soup.” It totally works for at least a couple of dishes….
May 25, 2010
My daughter is not picky in the slightest. Sushi, guacamole, barbecue–BRING IT ON. But she’s only 16 months old–I’m sure we have plenty of time for this to change.
In the meantime, my husband and I have agreed that we’re not going to fight with her about food. Life’s too short. At the same time, I am not a short order cook: I make one dinner for all of us and that’s it. But within that dinner I make something I know she’ll like (potatoes, beans, whatever) so that if she isn’t enamoured by Swiss Chard (she wasn’t, but she did eat several bites of it, nonetheless), she’s not going to starve. The rule (right now) is I choose what goes on the table, but she chooses what goes in her belly.
As for whether a restaurant has a kid’s menu? Whatever. We don’t take the toddler to many fancy restaurants, and at this point we usually just get her an order of guacamole and she’s all good. As long as there’s something on the menu she’ll eat, I don’t care how it’s labeled. And if there isn’t anything on the menu she’ll it, chances are excellent we won’t be taking her there anytime soon.
Jessica´s last blog ..Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls — A Review
May 25, 2010
Today my picky eater (wheat bread, rye sometimes, naan, penne (only) pasta with butter, cheese pizza, pancakes, waffles, pb&j, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, pretzels, crackers, chocolate milk, fries, broccoli, scrambled (only and with ketchup) eggs, cake (all kinds), chocolate (including dark)) thought my wheat toast with homemade plum jam looked better than his plain wheat toast, so he tried it and liked it. No forcing here. I don’t need three fights a day and he’d rather go to bed without eating anything. Picky and stubborn. What can I do? Wait until he asks to try something. Miracles do happen some days.
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
it’s totally a pick-your-battles thing, and I just don’t have the will or the energy to fight over eggplant.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
I can’t wait to see how many comments you’ll get saying “you think YOUR kid is picky! Ha!”
My kids are not picky, so I know I’m lucky. I wouldn’t, and probably couldn’t anyway, force them to eat anything. As for kids’ menus, they usually have such crappy stuff on them; I’d rather order a side or appetizer from the adult menu for the kids, or have them split an entree. But once they see the kids’ menu, they only want that.
mayberry´s last blog ..Video of the gym ceiling
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
I should probably have specified that of all the foods on her list, on any given day only one or two will be acceptable. So, today she might eat spaghetti, but not tomorrow, and tomorrow she might eat strawberries, but not on Friday.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
mayberry Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Oh, I think you have every right to be frustrated. I just hate to see, whenever someone posts about being frustrated, others jump in and say “you think YOU got it bad!”
She’s crafty, that Emilia.
mayberry´s last blog ..Video of the gym ceiling
May 25, 2010
When we were young my mom forced us to “try” cauliflower with cheese sauce. My brother and I both barfed on the table. She never forced us to eat anything ever again. Also, cauliflower still makes me nauseous, add in the cheese sauce and I am guaranteed to hurl. I can’t even stand the smell.
My son is picky, my brother is picky, my daughter is going through a phase typical of 3-year-olds and wants to eat only junk. I quit buying junk and she threatened to starve to death so her dad caved. I threw it out and she lives on hot dogs and peanut butter toast. Not kidding, that’s ALL she will eat right now. Yesterday I found she likes frozen juice bars/pops. I win!
My son is the only kid on the planet who swears Sloppy Joes are going to kill him.
If a restaurant doesn’t have a kids menu it doesn’t bother me at all. Why? My kids are picky anyway so if the restaurant doesn’t have the previously mentioned peanut butter toast or a hot dog it doesn’t really matter which menu they present. When my son was younger, (before he decided he’s a “young adult” who can’t order kid’s meals) we would often be sure to eat out only with friends with kids his age or with his cousins so they could split a meal.
Steph´s last blog ..Mama’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Bullies
May 25, 2010
Adult food, when it’s good, is subtle and complex. Kid’s brains don’t do a good job distinguishing subtle and complex, so they really do just taste mush and ew when they eat designer food. Who wants to eat mush and ew? Kids want solid, bold flavours so they can tell them apart, and even when they get that they don’t always like what they are able to taste.
Parents who congratulate themselves for raising cosmopolitan eaters are boring. They have less impact than they believe when it comes to appreciating food as an adult (you know, when your brain can do the job). A minimally normal variety in diet is all it takes unless what you really want to do is raise a brie connoisseur from infancy. And if that’s what you want to do then that isn’t about giving your child a better life, or an easier life; that’s about you wanting a brie connoisseur in the family.
The trick, though, is to not stop trying to introduce new foods. Not to force the kids to eat them, but to give them the chance. Without the chance those little distinguishing neurons will give up and have a harder time figuring out how to operate in adulthood when the brain gets more ossified. But it doesn’t take much variety to keep them in shape. I basically ate macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, cheese sandwiches, and ham my whole childhood. Sometimes I ate corn. Not all that varied. But now, as an adult, I can tell the difference between chedddar and Limberger cheese, NO PROBLEM.
Backpacking Dad´s last blog ..The Backpacking Dad Prequel
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
I KNEW you ate Limberger.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
The part that I find the most challenging about my picky eater is including something in the main meal that he will eat. That, combined with me being on Weight Watchers, is enough to drive me stark raving made. I don’t force him to eat, but I don’t stress out about whether or not he eats. And sometimes (usually dinner), he doesn’t.
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
I find the same thing frustrating. Making something that everything will eat is near impossible, and some nights it doesn’t even feel worth trying.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
I’m not sure if it makes you feel a bit better, but my daughter is worse. Truly, it’s beyond picky. She would go hungry before eating a fruit or vegetable. She doesn’t even eat bread or pizza. If not for yogourt (and sometimes, if the planets align, certain kinds of cheese), she’d have perished long ago.
I suspect Children’s Aid may apprehend her after I post this, but her sample daily diet: drinkable yogourt and small amount of apple juice for breakfast; cheese string, pretzels and Sunrype fruit snack for lunch with nothing to drink; plain white rice and water for dinner; cup of yogourt before bed if hungry.
And yet? Ridiculously healthy and obviously growing well, as she’s slightly above average in height.
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
@Linda, that does make me feel better, but just. Emilia will go hungry, too, if she’s ‘off’ any of the foods that I listed.
She can, however, always make room for candy.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
I wish restaurants had kids’ menus that were just like an option to have a regular adult meal as a small portion. I don’t really think it should just be restricted to chicken dinosaurs and fries. Although – if your kid likes that, more power to you. How great would it be if that plate of pasta with parmesan I got my kid the other night actually came with a choice of fruit or veg as a side, too, though? Maybe I expect too much from the restaurants we tend to end up at.
Saying all this – here’s what I’m trying not to do (and this is not advice, this is just me). I’m trying not to make food a big deal in my house. Because food was a BIG friggin’ deal in my house growing up and now I am starting to deal with some rather complex food related issues as an adult, stuff I’ve been struggling with for 20 years.
So when Oliver eats more and more like Emilia – I am trying to let it go. Perhaps I need to do some yoga or something next time he only eats the icing on the cake. Although that does mean more cake for me. He’s enabling me! Damn him.
Food. It’s weighing on my mind. Which would be a funny pun but it’s not actually that funny, a lot of the time.
Emma´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday: Spring Fest
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
@Emma, it’s all about NOT making food a big deal around here. And yeah, it’s a struggle, sometimes, to let it go, but seriously: what’s more important: that they swallow some eggplant or that they learn to NOT hate dinnertime?
(And? it is a funny pun. Roll with it.)
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
Emma Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
@Catherine, which then of course makes me think that if there had been parenting blogs/big discussions without preaching 30 years ago, I might not need help now!
May 25, 2010
My kids ate the “beige diet” as toddlers. Now that they are 5 and 8 and still moderately picky, I have agreed to a compromise. I will make something for dinner that I want us to have most of the time. They only have to try a bite of it, but they must try one bite. If they really don’t like it, I’ll give them a bowl of cereal or scramble up some eggs or something. At least one night a week they get to pick whatever they want for dinner. As it turns out, three out of four meals, I end up making them something they *will* eat, but that fourth meal we hit on a “bingo” and they share what I’m eating. This way at least they’re trying things, but not being forced to eat something they don’t like.
Barnmaven´s last blog ..Where my insides are coming out, or so it seems
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Emilia gets around the ‘one taste’ rule by just licking whatever is offered to her. If we insist that it go in her mouth she chews it and spits it out. It’s AWESOME. So we generally just let her get away with a lick. And we actually find that she’s more likely to try something if she thinks it’s her idea.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
Shannon Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 12:58 am
@Catherine, I think you are actually doing a great job with letting her lick the food. Ellyn Satter is this feeding guru for kids whose feeding issues are so intense they have to get therapy for it (think: falling off the weight charts for their age because they literally start to scream/cry/throw a fit when food is even on their PLATE. Often because of such awful reflux or allergies that they are traumatized by eating). One of the ideas of feeding therapy is to encourage different steps of interactions with food. First step is just to tolerate the food, even in the same room. Later steps are kissing or licking the food (I know…), and finally to taking one bite of the food. So as long as she’s interacting with the food, I think you are making progress! (Disclaimer: I have borne no fruit from my loins as of yet. I’m a speech pathologist, but don’t do feeding therapy)
May 25, 2010
I don’t see the point of forcing a child to try foods they don’t want to try. A picky adult may face more awkward social situations, but I wouldn’t say they are less prepared to deal with life than an adult with a varied palette. And like you say, many picky eaters turn into adventurous cuisinators (I just made that word up and I like it).
I also argue that childrens’ bodies have differing needs to ours and actually need more starchy carbs and less watery fruits & veggies (just read an article about this on BBC–sorry, just got kids to bed and am too tired to find link). They need calories to grow and though I’m sure they need calcium and iron and vitamins, etc., they need fat and carbs (so bread and butter is ideal!). Humans didn’t have nearly the variety we now have in our diets and somehow they survived (ok, yes we are now stronger and taller and debatably brainier than our predecessors, but they DID survive). It’s a pain for parents, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be picky. She knows what she wants!
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
@Jo, @backpackingdad said something similar above, that there’s actually evidence to that effect, that kids have different needs. Interesting. Makes me feel better
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
Jo Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 4:10 am
@Catherine, here is that link! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8620231.stm
Also, this article is hilarious–what happens when people get too crazy about what kids eat (or are just plain crazy!): http://tiny.cc/i5vph
May 25, 2010
Emilia’s diet sounds varied enough. My girl is pretty open to trying things, so I am pretty lucky. She sometimes has the appetite (and preferences) of a lumberjack, so I don’t worry about her diet much. She loves her fruit, and asks for candy/cookies/cake every day. She eats meat and cheese and peanut butter. Vegetables are a day to day variable. There is no point in forcing anyone to eat anything, in my book.
When we dine out, she usually eats from our plates. If it’s just me taking her out, I’ll order her own plate, and she’ll take a couple bites. It’s wasteful, but she’s far too interested in what’s going on around her to pay attention to mundane food. And then we have leftovers, which she will happily eat when she’s got fewer distractions. Kids menu? We never use it anywhere but McDonald’s.
a´s last blog ..It’s Spring…time for home improvement projects!
May 25, 2010
I love, love, love the community here. Really. It’s supportive and intelligent without droning and of course never snarky. Anyway.
I saw once on Iron Chef (the real, original one) that our taste buds take years to mature and they’re constantly changing. So our delicacies are kids’ gastro-nightmares. My son loved brussels sprouts up until a couple of weeks ago. I made him eat one at dinner a few nights ago because (yes, you may roll your eyes), he “love brussels sprouts! Eat it! It’s good for you!!!” He ate it. And vomited all of his other dinner (and some lunch) all over his plate. Made a vow to never force again, even if it’s to eat something he previously liked.
Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
@Chrissy, oh! Brussels sprouts! I *loved* – bizarrely – brussels sprouts as a kid, and I was the pickiest eater EVER. Emilia won’t touch them, though. Nor will my husband, but that’s another story.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
Chrissy Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 4:53 am
@Catherine, This is only vaguely related, but I think it would be funny if grownups yakked and gagged into our plates if there was something we tried and hated. Maybe it’s been a while since I’ve seen Big or something, but I think I’m going to totally pull that out the next time I have to eat something with a caper or a peppercorn in it.
Lisa Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 9:54 am
@Chrissy, it still takes every ounce of my grown-upness to do that when I find a stray tomato hunk in my food. I hate them; they make me gag.
And don’t get me started on raisins. Fuck raisins.
Lisa´s last blog ..Store Tory
May 25, 2010
It all depends – sometimes she’s all about pasta with butter and cheese, plain rice and chicken fingers. Sometimes she’s really adventurous – like last night, eating lentils and brown rice like it was going out of style!
She also will eat chili, and any kind of sausage. Yep. Hotdogs, italian sausage, kielbasa, chorizo, you name it, she will devour it!
May 25, 2010
My 4.5 yo is somewhat picky, I just feel lucky that what he does like is somewhat healthy. My nearly 3 yo eats like a horse – she sniffs her nose at nothing.
I just roll with it and am not opposed to making my son a PB&J if he does not want what we are eating. I cook for the ADULTS in the house and I cook what WE like, so I really do not expect my son to eat it to. I do not want food to become sort of battle or tug of war between us. I just want him to know the differences between healthy and unhealthy eating. So, our cupboards are packed with healthy options and our kids can choose whatever they like, whenever they like.
People used to think we were crazy for giving our kids curries and other “adult” food when they were babies, but my husband is Indian. He certainly did not get fed Gerber by his mother.
Personally? I think most picky eaters are NORMAL. We obviously know that kids are still growing, but did you know that their taste buds are still developing and changing, too?
cagey (Kelli Oliver George)´s last blog ..Love, American Style
May 25, 2010
Oof. I meant to include this link “10 Ways to Raise Food Smart Kids” It is basic knowledge, but worth reading!
http://children.webmd.com/guide/10-ways-to-raise-food-smart-kids
cagey (Kelli Oliver George)´s last blog ..Love, American Style
May 25, 2010
hmm. i was a great eater. my mom loves to tell the story of the first time i was taken out for seafood. she ordered me a hamburger, and ended up eating it herself while i scarfed her shellfish. i hate yams, and i won’t have anything to do with coconut unless it’s in a german chocolate cake, but other than that, i’ll eat anything.
my baby sister, however, was an effin’ nightmare. she spent years eating only the whites of eggs and never the yolks. then she spent a year or so eating only yolk. she survived months on end eating nothing but breakfast cereal and campbell’s chunky soup. we just fed her whatever she wanted, and if we went out to eat and they didn’t have cereal or chunky soup, she could usually find something she didn’t hate.
flash forward to 2007. she and her beloved, myself and the wasbund were dining in the florida panhandle. the guys and i were trying to decide how many raw oysters to get, and her beloved asked her how many she would eat. i nearly pissed myself laughing, and actually did fall out of my chair. “you couldn’t damn pay her to eat that shit”, i gasped.
she ate ten.
<3
verybadcat´s last blog ..Vegas, Bitches!
May 25, 2010
Both my boys are picky eaters. My youngest especially so. He eats baby carrots, most fruit, blueberry yogurt, the occasional pasta (this is hit and miss and it must be fusilli), bread (no butter) and chicken breast. That’s about it.
He’s small for his age and I was worried his eating habits were stunting his growth. This anxiety once caused me to force feed him a piece of sweet potato that he’d once liked, but a week later refused to eat. He threw up all over us both and half the dinner table.
Lesson learned.
Now, I view it this way. He’ll eat when he’s hungry and his food preferences mean he’ll likely not battle weight like his mama!
May 25, 2010
forgot to say: the only food rules we had were: we had to try at least a bite of anything we were offered, and we were expected to clean our plates, but we had total control over what we put on them. the consequence of not cleaning your plate was no dessert/midnight snack/cookies instead of what was offered.
verybadcat´s last blog ..Vegas, Bitches!
May 25, 2010
I’ve been to many a kid-friendly restaurant that didn’t have a children’s menu but they’re always quick to point out that they could make a kid-sized portion of anything on the main menu. I love those places
And we always find something our boys will eat.
That said, our kids are pretty adventurous eaters and still, they can be picky. I was floored when my 5 yr old said he loved mussels and clams. But he can’t stand birthday cake.
I love to cook. I won’t force them to eat something, but I’ll definitely encourage and ask that they at least try a taste or two of a dish before they decide what they like/don’t like (and I’ll make them tell me why…texture, taste, smell, it’s just ick…because I’m super curious about what they are experiencing. It also helps me tweak recipes.
Also, I love apple pie.
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Catherine Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
@charlene/crazedparent, we had a golden age with Emilia – when she was about a year old – when we thought we had an adventurous eater on our hands. That was the age of the pho (the Vietnamese noodle soup) and of her (still active) love affair with tofu. But as I said in the post, I eventually became adventurous, so her insistence upon going weeks only eating spaghetti with butter, I can live with. As long as she at least LICKS something else occasionally
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
probably most people, including myself, don’t go so far as to force their kids to eat anything. dinner is put on a plate and put in front of them. if they don’t like it, they don’t have to eat it, but they aren’t getting anything else (ie. i am not going to make something else for them, nor do they get dessert.)
Stone Fox´s last blog ..
May 25, 2010
Catherine – I’ve read somewhere (citation needed) that at Emilia’s age, kids are SUPPOSED to be picky eaters. That this is the age of being more independent and not always under Cave-Mom’s watchful eyes, and if Cave-kid just ate WHATEVER, they would poison themselves.
I make my 5 y/o try one bite of new foods. I either tell her that dessert is riding on her trying one very small bite. Or else (I got this from Melissa at Suburban Bliss) we do the “Eat it or WEAR IT” game. Where, she either eats it, or it gets dumped on her head. My husband always cheers for “Wear it! Wear it!”. But I can honestly say she’s never chosen to “wear it”. I think at first she wasn’t sure if I would dump food on her head and now she’s fairly sure I won’t, but still …. you never know with Mom.
May 25, 2010
I was a picky eater as a child. My mom has said more than once, “thank god they have hot dogs on the kid’s menu” whenever my pickiness came up in conversation.
And you know what? I’m not so picky now. I’ve tried different vegetables, I like curry in my food, I LOVED sashimi before I went vegetarian. So the fact that my first is also a somewhat picky eater doesn’t freak me out too badly. I want her to eat enough food and to try and get some variety but I’m also trying to not force the issue. Somedays it is really hard.
Thankfully my second is more willing to eat anything and everything (or at least try it) but she is full flown into toddlerhood now and I can see the whole “I’m going to refuse to eat anything but cottage cheese and pineapple” mentality begin.
I just do not want ot be a short order cook. I hate making dinner as is so having to make MANY things drives me batty
Carrie´s last blog ..Salad in the making
May 25, 2010
Ah…eating. I think this is the #1 hot topic of parental angst these days. How spectacularly annoying is it to be in the presence of a parent who announces “My little Sandra just love eating ratatouille, if fact she just DEVOURS anything with eggplant in it!” Gagh. My daughter spent a year of her life subsisting on bread and cheese in various formats. She refused to try anything. She did eat some fruit, and she would eat potatoes and cucumbers. It was hard mostly because I love to cook …and I am a good cook…so often I took her rejection personally (insert potential food issue down the road here). With my husband’s help I learned to calm down and let her lead the way. Now at almost 8 she eats a wide variety of foods, still loves cake and cookies more than anything else, but she mostly makes healthy choices. She still hates things mixed together…so casseroles and that ratatouille are not possible yet, but I impressed with how her palate has developed. We just kept on making food, and she eventually tried it, found some stuff she liked, and lots that she didn’t. My son has benefited from the lessons I learned, and he is a much more relaxed and adventurous eater…probably because his mother doesn’t spend every meal stiff with anxiety and tension.
As for the whole kids menu thing….it truly is a colossal rip off. $8.99 for pasta with cheese? I don’t care if it comes with a special cup and scoop of ice cream, it cost the restaurant less than $1.00 to put that plate together. So, I prefer to make a plate for my kids off of my plate, or I have them split something from the main menu, if they don’t eat it all, I get lunch for work the next day!
Hang in there. She is doing great. And you should be proud that you have an assertive child who can express what she likes and doesn’t…and that she does it with such flair. And if you are spending your evenings sharing stories, connecting with each other, and while doing so some food passes your lips, then from my house to yours…cheers.
May 25, 2010
I wouldn’t call my kids picky per se. They eat a lot of stuff, but on their own terms. For instance, both of my kids love broccoli soup but don’t touch raw broccoli. (texture thing?)
My daughter won’t eat bread. My son loves it. But, he’s not a big meat fan and my daughter begs for chicken. I don’t get it.
In our house I refuse to make eating an issue.
I was a chubby kid, and I still struggle with weight. To me food is a *thing* that is based on emotional issues.
As much as I can help it I don’t want my kids’ lives being ruled by food.
As far as I’m concerned it all works itself out.
Like you said, I’d much rather meal time be about family than about forcing kids to eat, or obsessing over eating too much.
And, when we go out to eat (not often) I have no problem letting my kids get what they want. Sometimes it’s salad. Sometimes it’s ice cream. And sometimes it’s whatever is on the kids’ menu. Really. As long as they are behaving I just don’t care.
LD´s last blog ..Long Weekend
May 25, 2010
My favouritest favouritest parenting author, Penelope Leach, suggests serving at least one thing your kid will eat at each meal, as part of the meal, and if your kid eats that, that’s all they eat. Even if it’s just bread & butter…
I’ve been lucky with both kids and eating (so far), but that philosophy has served us well during picky phases.
May 25, 2010
When I was a child, I was FORCED to “try” lots of foods and I can promise it did me no good. I still hate wild rice and tortellini and cooked carrots. It took until my teens to get over my hatred of new foods – but now I eat almost anything. Seriously, I agreed to try fried rat the other day if someone cooks it for me.
My son is 14 months and eats almost nothing. The only food he gets is milk, straight from the boob. I’ve had some fleeting luck with a few things – birthday cake, mini-bagels, asparagus, Oreos, strawberries and pasta – but he usually only eats them that ONE TIME and subsequent offers are thrown on the floor. Our only sure-fire, always eaten food is…french fries. Which makes me pretty much the worst mother on the planet.
May 25, 2010
My 4 year old eats: Mac & Cheese, Hummus, Pieces of Cheddar Cheese, Goldfish, Cheez-It, Ritz, Milk, Juice, Waffles, and recently, English Muffins. That is basically IT. Every once in a while he does something fluky and has a banana or something, but we’re talking once ever few months. We make his chocolate milk with Instant Breakfast mix to get him some more protein & vitamins. But I figure as long as he is growing, and not deficient in anything (he’s not), I’m not going to force anything on him. I am STILL picky even as an adult, and I’d rather not fight with him about food and give him some sort of complex.
Rachael´s last blog ..Mother’s Day: What We REALLY Want
May 25, 2010
How do I cope? Hey if they want cereal three meals a day I’ll let them eat it. Number 1, eventually they’ll want and eat something really, really healthy like corn mixed with black beans. Number 2, the majority of humankind has survived on a far more limited diet. Number 3, I don’t get pissed off at the little buggers for wasting both my time and my food.
May 25, 2010
Emilia and Bub have exactly the same diet, if you subtract candy and add peanut butter (on a spoon by itself, of course – never spread on anything else). I’ve encountered my fair share of people who preach the gospel of “You decide what, when, and where; the child decides whether and how much.” We had a caregiver who treated Bub with that philosophy, and the result was that he went a month without eating any lunch (and his behaviour in the afternoon was what you expect under those circumstances). Eventually I ended up rushing home from work to pick Bub up from nursery school, feed him a grilled cheese sandwich myself, and then drop him off at the caregiver’s before heading back to work. Good times.
bea´s last blog ..Good Writer, Bad Person
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Yeah, Emilia never, ever responds to authoritarian dictates on food from anybody, and would sooner go hungry than submit to someone else’s idea of what she should eat. So. We pick our battles, and food isn’t one of them.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
Also, Pie has quite a varied diet, and though we serve Bub grilled cheese/noodles/peanut butter pretty much every night for supper, Pie usually asks to have what we’re having. It’s useful to have living proof that it’s not the parenting, it’s the kid.
I think those of us who can remember, vividly, how we felt about eating as children are a bit less wedded to the knee-jerk assumption that a child who refuses to eat certain foods is simply being willful or stubborn. Like you, I was a picky child and I really began expanding my diet only in my twenties – added salad, seafood, Indian food … most of my current favorites. To this day, being forced, starved, or pressured is the LEAST effective way to make me try something new.
bea´s last blog ..Good Writer, Bad Person
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
That’s a good point – that having been there ourselves, we know better what it feels like to JUST NOT WANT. My mother, as it happens, was also one of ‘those’ kids, and, having once been forced to sit at the dinner table through the night in front of a plate of uneaten liver, vowed never to force her kids to eat anything that they didn’t want.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
Either way, we won’t be forceful about the subject with our kids. It’d be impossible since I make separate meals for my husband and I anyway. I’m hoping we can just pull the same tricks and make some foods seem cooler than they actually are. [I'm looking at you, peas and spinach.]
May 25, 2010
I seem to be in the minority here, but we do have a try one bite rule for our 3 1/2 year old daughter, who is a reasonably good eater. That said, she hasn’t quite realized that we can’t actually FORCE her to eat anything, and I’m just waiting for the day when she decides to cross her arms, clamp her mouth shut, and glare defiantly.
I will say that the try one bite rule, used often enough on any one particular foodstuff, seems to eventually help introduce that item into her repertoire.
D.´s last blog ..Out of the Mouths of Babes
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
@D., I think I said above, we have a sort of one-bite rule, although it is, in effect, a one-lick rule, because Emilia will not actually take anything into her mouth if she has not already decreed it edible
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
My daughter is 16 months and is starting to get bored of her usual beans, weiner and noodles. Luckily, she loves fruit. I used to get nauseous, stress and sometimes cry when she wouldn’t eat enough. But I’ve stopped. I keep reminding myself what the doctor said: “You can’t make them eat, or pee and poop in a toilet. They’re the few things they have control over. All you can do is encourage.” And so at each meal I offer her what we are eating and if she loves it, yay! And if not, then we don’t worry.
May 25, 2010
My Mo is still the worlds pickiest eater, she started out eating everything and we are down to hotwings and ramen noodles, this week. Once after seeing a PETA video at a concert she decided she was never going to eat meat again. I reminded her that vegetarians eat, well, vegetables. She was having none of that and after a week of hot cheetos and rock star- I kid you not, nothing else passed her lips, she got very sick and decided to eat chicken because they are too dumb to live anyway. Also, her food can’t touch and she wipes her fork after every bite. She’s 17, there’s still time to outgrow it right>
Carol´s last blog ..My poor neglected blog
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Oh! I wouldn’t let different foods on my plate touch when I was a kid, either. AND I wiped my fork after bites. I got over that in my twenties, but, yeah. Childhood food-related OCD, I know it well.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 25, 2010
Dude. This and these readers’ comments are one of many reasons I am a little nervous about having kids.
I have a cousin who I never saw eat anything other than cheerios (dry, no milk) for YEARS, so…
Erin´s last blog ..Comedy night
May 25, 2010
I wouldn’t call my kids picky eaters but definitely have likes and dislikes. It’s nothing too extreme, however.
With my oldest, who is 6, I do require that she try something new before fending it off completely. One bite. That’s it. But I do know her personality and I know that it won’t turn into World War III.
I tend to loathe kid’s menus, mostly because they’re mostly unhealthy, though I do get that they appeal to folks who might have picky eaters. We end up ordering sides for our kids or really, they just eat what we’re eating. I know I’m fortunate in that vein.
I think that there seems to be a pattern that it’s definitely hereditary – perhaps a combination of sensory stuff (the way the food feels, etc. in the mouth – looks on the plate…) as well as personality. I’d just continue offering things, though I realize that can be a royal pain in the ass. I like the idea of offering one thing you know she’ll eat (or sort of know – as I get that it depends on the weather and who’s reading the news that night heh) and then offering whatever you’re having.
I also think it’s important to NOT make it a battle, nor to make a big deal out of it. When it becomes your source of visible anxiety and annoyance, then it becomes something they can use against you. Well, that’s not completely what I mean, but I think you know what I’m talking about.
Motherhood Uncensored´s last blog ..I thought "Bath" was a town in England
Her Bad Mother Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
it’s so weird, it IS like a hereditary thing, because she has the same ‘mouth feel’ issues that I do.
and, she’ll generally put her tongue to something, at least, to try it – getting her to chew and swallow something new is sometimes IM-FREAKING-POSSIBLE – which is something, right?
May 25, 2010
I feel you on this one. I was forced to eat foods as a child and to this day most of those forced foods remain on my no-no list. Mushrooms top that list. No matter what language if they are there I will pick them out.
Sophia is a big fan of francis books because Francis only eats bread and jam and then at the end of the book she expands her horizons and eats a wonderful variety of things because she gets bored of bread and jam. Not my Sophia – she does not get bored of crunchy peanut butter on bread or plain noodles or slices of salami or most fruit. Everything else is almost always a miss. We do put a meat and a veggie out there every night and offer desert as a reward for trying everything. She doesn;t even have to eat it all. Usually when she tries something she thinks she does not like she starts gagging and sometimes throws up. So now we put it there and we have some nights where it is a dessert night and we all get some no matter what and then the other nights she just says I don’t care about dessert. I do not force her and I am with you – I don’t want to and I don’t think it would work.
I am sometimes successful at sneaking things into dishes but that girl is usually onto me.
I am pretty sure she will still be fine. My one concern is to limit the amount of foods that are really high in cholesteral or sugar because I have recently heard af a number of 5 year olds whose choloesterol was too high. That scared me a little!
Anyway, great post. As usual, you have given us all something to chew on
Like your son my two year old Miles will eat anything with his clothes off and preferably outside. Gotta love little boys!
Brittany at Mommy Words´s last blog ..Mommy Math
May 25, 2010
Do not get Bossy started. Just the mere fact that Bossy read Emilia’s acceptable foods on two different lines of type means Bossy’s kids win for pickiest.
But now Bossy’s college-age son cooks, which means he now loves stuff like raw tuna and beets and cabbage slaw and so, seriously, there is hope for e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e.
BOSSY´s last blog ..Ten-Word Tuesday. The Sweet Night Edition
Her Bad Mother Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Emilia’s acceptable foods are her acceptable foods EVER. They are not all acceptable at any given time. Today, for example, Emilia has only eaten bread and butter. Yesterday, she only ate watermelon. Tomorrow, she might only eat eel farts. It can be MIND-BOGGLINGLY frustrating.
May 25, 2010
My pediatrician always said, “if there’s food in your house, your child will not starve.”
That said, my now 19-year old son, at age 9, was told by a classmate that he was “fat”. He promptly stopped eating and lost 35 pounds in less than 3 months. He was almost hospitalized and we spent a few years treating an eating disorder (with a little anxiety and OCD thrown in).
What did I learn from that experience? Food is a control issue. Kids have little control over their lives. They’re told when to go to bed, when to get up, when to go to school, what to wear, etc. They CAN control what they put in their mouths.
Prepare what she likes for her, eat what you want (without making a big deal out of it), and let it go. Maybe you could ask her doctor if she should be taking a multi-vitamin, but it seems what she does eat is fairly balanced.
P.S. My son is now a healthy, perfect weight, and just finished his freshman year of college. He has not eaten beef since he was 9, but otherwise his diet is quite varied.
May 25, 2010
I ate only about 10 foods as a kid. Today I love all kinds of foods, and regularly go out of my way to try new things.
So I don’t mind that Cordy will only regularly eat PB&J’s, strawberry waffles, grilled cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese, salad (only lettuce with dressing), chicken nuggets and fries, apple slices, bananas and ice cream.
I know that someday (probably in college) she’ll expand her food choices and find happiness in a wider variety of foods.
Christina´s last blog ..When Is The Right Time?
May 25, 2010
first, i’ve never commented before, but am a long-time reader and lover of this site. your writing/sensitivity/eloquence are in a league of their own on the interwebs, and i’m sorry it took a post about food for me to finally pipe up. so yeah. hi!
second, a hearty ‘here, here!’ to the ‘no arguing about food’ rule. i could not agree more. i was not a picky eater as a child, but my sister was, and our parents never forced the issue with either of us. our diets are now nearly identical.
third, i married a chef. we’ve been in the business for over a decade, and are opening a restaurant in july. that particular nyt article has been a hot-button issue around here. it could not have come at a worse time. this is where my thoughts on this post get tricky.
it fills me with a little dread because i’m afraid that a lot of people won’t bother to make the distinction between a hard-ass italian chef dad (who comes from a culture with VERY different ideas about food), and restaurants that make the decision to not offer a children’s menu. they are not necessarily the same thing.
our (very) humble little establishment will offer children’s portions of anything on the menu at drastically lower prices, instead of a children’s menu. we’re also willing to make just about anything a child could ever request. pasta with butter? cheese pizza? absolutely! but if a small person wants to give french fried rabbit a try (it tastes like southern fried chicken), then their parents shouldn’t have to pay for an adult portion. we give them that option. ironically, the biggest supporters of the idea were our friends and staff members who themselves have children who are picky eaters, lactose intolerant, have celiac disease, etc.
i could write an essay about our reasons for making that decision (and believe me, we agonized over it), but i’ll try to keep this short. even the best children’s menus are dangerously unhealthy. in a place that offers fresh, local ingredients, you’ll still find that the kid’s fare is processed, processed and more processed. we wanted to open doors for kids to *choose* the way they want to eat, not close them. that’s the opposite of force.
okay. i think i broke a sweat there, so its probably time to step off my teeny, insignificant soap-box. please know that i am so totally in agreement with you on this and i don’t want to even *sound* like a naysayer, but i just get a little nervous being included in the same group as mr. cheffy mcforcefeed. blame it on the restaurant opening. it has fried my brain.
andrea (book-scout.)´s last blog ..Something New
Her Bad Mother Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Oh, I agree with you on the kids’ menu thing! I don’t need a special menu to keep my daughter happy – I just need to be able to get sides or small portions or stuff with no sauce GODS HELP US.
I’m actually more or less content that Emilia doesn’t like kids’ menu food – makes my life easier, because, yeah, that stuff tends to be pretty fry-heavy, salt-heavy, yuck. So, yeah – I don’t really get people getting agitated about the lack of a special menu if the restaurant is willing to accommodate smaller, pickier eaters. So! Go you and your husband!
May 25, 2010
I cant believe she’s against mac & cheese. Emilia, buddy, come on!
I was the world’s pickiest eater for a solid 11 years. Today it is not the case. She’ll come around. I think what you’re doing is right.
Gummy bear vitamins are also delicious.
Her Bad Mother Reply:
May 25th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
tell me about it! whether it’s KD or homemade from scratch, she wants nothing to do with it. INEXPLICABLE.
May 25, 2010
My husband was more picky than your daughter. Apparently he’d only eat white bread with tabasco sauce. For years. I was very picky too…I ate about 10 things, but mostly bean and cheese burritos. But both of our parents took the approach your parents did, and I think that’s what I am going to do with my kids (my son, 16 months, is just starting to be, shall we say, discerning in his tastes). Sure, I’d like my kids to at least taste everything on their plates, but the point of dinner, in my opinion, is to bond as a family. Like you, my husband turned out to love just about everything and although a foodie I will never be, I’ll try anything once.
MarfMom´s last blog ..LOST and the OB Appt.
May 25, 2010
My 3 yr old is really back and forth about food. One week he’ll eat like a champ and the next week all he wants are pickled eggs and licorice (I kid you not). I have never forced. I take him to restaurants of all kinds and make food of all kinds available. He’ll eat what he wants when he wants to and I’m not gonna stress about it. Life is too short to add yet another battle to the day with your preschooler. I love both our sanitys too much for that!
Yahee´s last blog ..Babies babies babies…
May 25, 2010
I promised myself when I became a parent that there were two things about which I would NEVER, EVER get into a Battle Of Wills: Eating and Potty Training.
You can really, honestly, control NEITHER and so even as you enter the battle, you have LOST.
That is my theory and I’m sticking to it.
The New Girl´s last blog ..Fun Fact Friday!
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
HIGH FIVE.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 26, 2010
I’m lucky, my son’s a good eater. That said, my approach is to put more or less what we’re eating in front of him (I do provide some substitutions, e.g. he has yet to eat any quantity of shrimp so I put some other protein on there; he believes that lettuce is something you dip in salad dressing and then slurp the dressing off of — you know, a sort of a spoon — so I usually include some cut up fruit for him in lieu of a full salad) and then pretty much ignore him. He eats it or he doesn’t, and we try to do mostly healthy snacks (fruit, string cheese, nuts, some popcorn — ideally popped fresh though DH is a proponent of, oh the horror!, microwaved).
We don’t generally use the children’s menu because we don’t generally order him his own meal. See above; he eats (portions of) what we’re eating. No doubt as he grows (now 3) that will need to change.
Force? Definitely not. Yuck. Major yuck. Here’s a cartoon for you — (from the New Yorker cartoon bank, but I gave it a tinyurl because the original one is so long) — http://tinyurl.com/348vnjg .
May 26, 2010
I’m only repeating what everyone above has already said so well but my 7 year old has never eaten a vegetable and eats no meat at all anymore. My mom and dad forced me to eat some godawful stuff that still makes me gag as an adult (beef stroganoff, anyone? Disgusting …) and for their trouble they have a daughter who has had a (shall we say) adversarial relationship with food all her life. Good times!
Anyway, my son basically eats any variation of bread, cheese and peanut butter. And fruit, thank God. I make a separate meal for him at dinner every night. It makes my husband crazy but I’m not backing down on this one. I just won’t force him to eat something that doesn’t sound right to him … hopefully the dad above is right and his tastes will develop in spite of all this.
Thanks for the post. Sometimes I feel like the only mom going to “don’t force” route!
May 26, 2010
I wrote a year ago(!) about a disastrous visit to a dietician with our son, now 3 1/2. He has not improved at all. He will eat breakfast cereal, pasta and cheese, and white rice reliably. Well, not so reliable on the rice. He will sometimes eat pistachios, crackers, yogurt, raisins, or bananas. He will usually eat cake or sweets, but not always. He will sometimes eat a “hot dog” (deep-fried red sausage, ugh!) from the take-away shop when we have fish and chips.
We have been offering him taste-sized portions of the family meal for EVER, he never touches it. He won’t take a taste, and I won’t force him (for all the excellent reasons people have given above).
But. His daycare teachers have told us they are worried – he is listless, irritable, and becoming even more restricted in what he will eat. So we are about to ask for a referral to a paediatrician to check (a) that he is well-nourished (I am amazed that he doesn’t have scurvy, quite frankly), and (b) that there is no underlying physical reason for his lack of eating. He will go an entire day on two bowls of cereal in the morning, then three raisins during the day, sometimes.
I know that at least 80% of the problem is behavioural, I just wonder about the other 20%.
I have found the comments above tremendously heartening – thank you all!
Kate @ UpsideBackwards´s last blog ..We have no idea where he gets these ideas
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
@Kate @ UpsideBackwards, I worry about iron deficiency/anemia with Emilia. There are days when she just looks so PALE and I think, well, that’s what an all-bread will do to you.
But, she’s generally healthy, and active – too active sometimes – and I think that until there’s an actual problem, I’ll just keep a watchful eye and try to not stress.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 26, 2010
I was a picky eater as a kid and now I look back I wish my mum had tried a little harder. Not forced me to eat or anything like that but she never offered me anything other than the things I liked. For twenty-two years. In fact it wasn’t until I moved out that I found out I liked stuff because she wasn’t looking over my shoulder going ‘oh, you won’t like that.’ I understand why she fed me stuff I liked — I put myself in hospital when I was seven because the only thing I ate in four days was a small cocktail sausage. I was never asked questions though, most of the foods I didn’t like (and still don’t) were due to texture. No-one ever asked me why I didn’t like something and as a mother now, that frustrates me.
Now on to my picky eater! We have two rules: 1) if you ask for something you have to try it 2) if you don’t try it you don’t eat. I make him stuff he likes, I let him try anything he wants, he gets to pick stuff out in the supermarket (he saw mini beef burgers the other week and demanded them, ate them and loved them) but if he suddenly decides he doesn’t want it, well, then that’s his problem. He will only eat ‘real’ chedder, not cheese strings or babybels, he will only eat carrott and potato mash, not just potato, he will only eat spaghetti if it’s called wiggle worms (he doesn’t like spaghetti, you see…) and will only eat fruit cucumber and not salad cucumber (why yes, they are the same things. Lying is a viable form of parenting.) I try not to make a big deal over it, and I tell him that I’d like him to try things so that I know WHY he does and doesn’t like things. I’ve tried to put a stop to ‘I don’t like it’ when he hasn’t tried it and told him to use phrases like ‘I don’t like the colour/ smell/ feel so I don’t want to try it.’ In the last six to twelve months (he’ll be five in July so a little older than E) he has come on in leaps and bounds. He will try almost anything now. There aren’t many things that have worked but he will eat beef burgers and ravioli and mango and has discovered that sometimes, when he tries something, it is absolutely delicious and becomes his favourite thing in the world. If he doesn’t try it, then he’ll never know. And my kid doesn’t like thinking he’s missing out on anything!
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
@Ali, lying is indeed a viable form of parenting. If it weren’t, I’d be lost.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 26, 2010
I was an extremely picky eater as a child, but grew up to be an adult with fairly adventurous taste in food. Sometimes I look down at the meal I’m eating–maybe something with onions, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, garlic, tomatoes, interesting spices–and I think how my 6-year-old self would be absolutely horrified to see what I now eat of my own free will.
My parents didn’t push the issue, and I really do think that helped me gradually accept new foods on my own as I got older. That’s not to say they didn’t encourage me to try new things, but they didn’t let it become a battle if I said no. I do the same with my kids. I offer new foods to them regularly. They almost always say no, but every now and then they surprise me by saying yes. Sometimes I’ve even bribed a bit, but not as a regular habit. “I’ll give you a nickel if you try this avocado.” If the reaction I get is, “that wasn’t SO bad.” then I figure it’s a victory. Every bite they take of something new helps to expand their tastes, so that maybe a year or two from now they’ll actually have a more interesting diet. I can see that starting to work with my older child, who at 6 is finally starting to eat more foods.
Mary Lynn´s last blog ..Dance addendum
May 26, 2010
I was a very picky eater as a child & my parents fought me on it all the time. I remember thinking, “I don’t like this food, why do they act like I am not eating it to be mean to them?” I think when you force your kid to eat something (asking them to try it is fine b/c they might like it, & asking them to try it even if they have b/f is also fine b/c they might now like it), the message is, “you can’t make your own decisions or have your own preferences”. It is demeaning and counterproductive to having your child make choices appropriate for themselves.
My kids are really good eaters and although I’d like to take credit for it, the truth is, I can only claim that I try to feed them real food, & give them options. The real reasons they are this way, I believe, has more to do with their taste preferences & sensitivities. My son is under-sensitive & can eat spicy, sour, chewy, crunchy things, all at the same time & hardly notice the taste, whereas I can’t even smell cooked broccoli without gagging.
I wish more parents understood how much sensory preferences play into eating so that they could take the blame off themselves. She’s healthy so my guess is that she is getting what she needs from food & her palate will expand as she gets older. You are doing the right thing by not making meal times a fight, I wish my parents had understood that.
May 26, 2010
My son refuses to eat hamburgers, will not eat ketchup, mustard, ranch dressing…nothing except mayo. However, he loves broccoli (he will eat a ton) but god forbid a piece of chicken has a mark on it from the grill, i must slice it off. He hates “crust” on any meat that I make, but will eat chicken nuggets and chicken fingers like it’s no big deal. He likes potatoes, but if they are different than the kind he’s used to eating he will claim he doesn’t like them. Like potatoes with cheese…omg it’s cheese…what is bad about cheese? Don’t get me started, it’s crazy with these kids! although lately i’ve started with the “you must have one taste of everything that’s for dinner” and that usually gets him to taste it and discover “oh yes, potatoes with cheese = deliciousness”…ugh!
May 26, 2010
Ruth is two and eats pretty well but is reluctant to try new things.
We neither force nor relent. Breakfast is a quick toaster waffle fried egg or whatever as we both run to work. Lunch she gets at daycare. Dinner is whatever we’re having, perhaps slightly modified.
She’ll eat pasta but doesn’t like sauce so we serve it on the side of her plate. I’ve deluded myself into thinking that one day she’ll eat it. She gets some veg too, whatever we’re having. Peas, carrots, cauliflower are hit and everything else is mostly tried and rejected. We always serve fruit too, which is scarfed down, and milk.
We go out to restaurants very occasionally and she’s usually better there about trying things than at home. Maybe the novelty?
She’s growing and pooping so I don’t worry too much. I just don’t have the energy to fight about it. No kid starves when food is available so we present her with options.
May 26, 2010
My mother was from the school of “You’ll sit there until you eat it”. I have memories of sitting in front of a bowl of tomato soup until 10:30 one night rather than eating it. When my mother finally left to go to the bathroom, I was up in a flash and dumping it down the drain. That’s the one childhood promise of things I will never do to my kids that I actually kept. I will not make separate meals for the kids, but I always made sure there was something they would eat included. If they didn’t want what I was serving, they didn’t have to eat it, but there was nothing else to eat until the next meal. My son has a thing about carrots. He will only eat them raw. It’s a simple thing for me to leave a few uncooked for him, so I’ll do that. Both my kids have a few things they absolutely will not eat, but for the most part, they outgrew the picky phase. Don’t worry, I had a cousin who would eat only peanut butter and Ritz crackers and Captain Crunch with Crunch Berries (separating the berries first!) for a year. He eventually opened up to new foods, they all do.
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
@Sarah, my grandparents, my mom’s parents, were ’sit there until you it’ types, and it was that that turned my mom into a ‘I’ll put it in front of you but you don’t have to eat it’ type. I’m kind of grateful for that.
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 26, 2010
Mine are both picky, drives me crazy! I just roll with it; I don’t want them to grow up with food issues. I was also a picky eater, so I’m not too worried about it. Neither of them is big on sweets, and both love fruit, so I figure they’ll be ok. And I couldn’t care less about kids’ menus; we can almost never order off of them anyway. Bread, small plates of noodles (not spaggetti – no long noodles! Sheesh), tortillas. Carb overload! So far eating out is not any more expensive, right?
Interesting (to me) sidenote: my mother gives me a hard time about not making them eat better. She seems to forget my summer of nothing but hamburgers, or our cross-country trip in 3rd grade where I ate chocolate cake for breakfast because I hated all breakfast foods. My grandmother was with us, and lectured my mom, who cried and said “but she has to eat SOMETHING, and it’s the only thing she’ll eat!” Funny how memory works.
May 26, 2010
I like having a kids menu to choose from (smaller portions and smaller prices are a bonus), but wouldn’t skip a restaurant without one.
When I serve something new, I usually coerce my kids into eating at least one bite. If its something they’ve eaten before happily, but now they turn their nose up at it, I coerce them into eating one or two bites.I try not to make it an issue because I really don’t want food hassles. And I don’t let things escalate into a fight because no one will win. But I will heavily “suggest” they try it.
I wonder if I’ll ever stop worrying about what my kids are eating. Maybe when they move out.
monstergirlee´s last blog ..Orange Orange
May 26, 2010
I am lucky that my guys aren’t very picky at all. The little guy had a phase from 3 to 4 years old where he wouldn’t eat any type of ground beef, no tacos, no hamburgers, nothing like that but that was an easy work around. This makes my “I make one meal and you eat what I offer or you don’t eat/make something yourself” philosophy pretty easy to stick with. My sister on the other hand has three girls and each of them has various and conflicting likes and dislikes so with just about any meal she makes several versions – i.e stew with tomatoes, without tomatoes/corn/green beans, without potatos/corn, etc.
May 26, 2010
Two picky eaters over here. So I cheat – I puree spinach in popsicles and in tomato sauce, and I puree all sorts of healthy things in smoothies…. I also try to give them the non-pureed version of foods I sneak into smoothies, etc., too, in hopes that they’ll like these foods over time.
Haley-O (Cheaty)´s last blog ..New Nephew, New Dog, NEW JOB: The Deets
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
@Haley-O (Cheaty), okay, how do you get pureed spinach into a popsicle without them noticing?
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
Haley-O (Cheaty) Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
@Catherine, I’m glad you asked because I love sharing this trick. Just make a regular smoothie — strawberry and banana is great because sweet — and add a handful of frozen/fresh spinach. Sometimes I even use KALE, but of all the greens, spinach hides by far the BEST. It is trial and error, though: if the smoothie doesn’t taste good, add some orange juice to sweeten it up.
I’ll add omega 3 oil to it, too, and sunflower seeds give it a nutty taste, added protein and other nutrients. Just add one ingredient at a time. Try a regular strawberry-and-banana smoothie first. Then, next time, add spinach. After a while, get more adventurous.
They won’t suspect a thing! You can also freeze your smoothie in a silicon muffin tin for (odd-looking) popsicles – just add popsicle stick.
Haley-O (Cheaty)´s last blog ..New Nephew, New Dog, NEW JOB: The Deets
May 26, 2010
I have 2 daughters, currently 23 and 19. Both were extremely picky eaters growing up. The oldest once ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 3 weeks solid. The youngest seemed to survive most of middle school on bread and milk, plus occasional helpings of cheese.
We tried very, very hard to not make a big deal about it, with varying success depending on how crazy it was making us. I was scared that if we made it a fight we would end up with girls with eating disorders.
By the time the oldest was in middle school, her friends considered her a very adventurous eater. What the..? When did that happen?
The youngest, who is very stubborn, was a very picky eater *almost* all the way through high school. Even she, however, is becoming quite adventurous now.
At least for us, the “don’t sweat it and make sure they have reasonably healthy choices available” approach worked in the long run. I highly recommend it.
May 26, 2010
Well, they went through phases … wait, what am I saying, this is not past tense — my 19-year-old recently went vegan … but all periods of pickiness came to an end. We did however manage to gently convince them at a young age that they at least try everything presented, and they have always done so. This has resulted in some surprising negatives – like, oh my gosh we have had to share our lobster and oysters with the kids! Why didn’t we just let them be picky!?!
May 26, 2010
I thought I was the only kid in the world who liked lima beans! I would pick them all out of my vegetable soup first because I thought they were so damn good.
Anyway, it sounds like Emilia will be fine. You have a great attitude about food and not forcing anything and that is awesome.
If you had said all she will eat is Kool-Aid and Slim Jims, it might be a problem, but she seems to be just fine.
Cristin´s last blog ..I Have Arrived. Now What?
Catherine Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
@Cristin, I didn’t mention her taste for beer, did I? (KIDDING. DUH.)
Catherine´s last blog ..She Likes Bread And Butter
May 26, 2010
I wasn’t forced to eat at home, but we were in school. This was about 500 years ago, but it seemed to me that I never got to go out to play after lunch because I was sitting all alone in the cafeteria with a plate of something called “meal in a dish” in front of me. Seriously, what WAS that? My favorite foods were melted Velveeta and canned chicken noodle soup. I grew up reasonably unpicky. I still like my carrots raw, don’t like cauliflower, never ate broccoli until I was 35 (but love it now) and I can’t bear the texture of a mushroom so I mince them for my recipes, because I do like the flavor.
I never really pushed the kids. They were supposed to try a bite, but often that slid past. There was always fruit around if you didn’t like the veggies, and if you hated the meat, go microwave yourself a hot dog.
All of us are grown-ups (with the possible exception of yours truly) and everyone has fairly eclectic appetites, the two females more than the male, who still can’t abide two different foods touching each other. Nobody ever had scurvy or rickets. I think relaxed enjoyment of dinner is far more important than making them try all the foods.
May 26, 2010
I’m sorry, but if your kid eats chickpeas and tofu, you’re automatically out of the running for the pickiest eater. But there are some nice consolation prizes on your way out!
(because I have the pickiest eater and he’s 8. The only vegetable that he will eat is Avocado. And yes, I do capitalize it because I admire it so much. And yes, again, people have been telling me that avocados are fruit. I refuse to budge on that one)
Marinka´s last blog ..Friendship Probation
May 26, 2010
My children are both on the choosy side, and I recently gave up on the two sets of meals plan, unless I am making something very spicy. However my husband is also picky so I am fighting an all around uphill battle.
I let the kids reject foods, but I make them explain exactly why they don’t like it (I get better answers from the 9 year old than the 4 year old)
Then I find different ways to prepare the item. For example, my kids would not eat broccoli or green beans-until I put fresh grated parmesean cheese on it. DB won’t eat cucumbers unless I remove the seeds.
I also find that with my princess that if I put a big piece of food on her plate that is not cake she gets overwhelmed, but will eat it if I put smaller portions on her plate.
Another Suburban Mom´s last blog ..Random Dozen
May 26, 2010
I agree with those who say that is actually a pretty good range. My 6 year old will usually eat the following: unfilled pasta with butter, wheat bread/bagels, faux chicken nuggets, peanut butter, sun butter, grape jelly, cream cheese, ramen noodles, frosted mini wheats, apples, pears (if very ripe), veggie booty, chocolate milk, Vitamin Water, chocolate or vanilla ice cream and cake. Popsicles are on a case-by-case basis.
She will occasionally eat: yogurt, half a baby carrot, a few pieces of corn, french toast, macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie, pretzels, corn bread, pudding (chocolate only), actual chicken nuggets, bacon.
She will scream to the point of sobbing if offered: any thing red (watermelon, cherries, strawberries, red popsicles and lollipops, tomato sauce), pizza, blueberries, bananas, oranges or orange juice, french fries, beans, hummus, red meat, fish, any vegetable that isn’t a carrot or piece of frozen corn, and anything that looks different, smells different or is new.
This kid actually gagged on vanilla ice cream when her grandma told her vanilla was made with beans (thanks, Mom).
All of which is to say that I *get* your frustration. This is really, really normal. And a SERIOUS pain in the ass.
May 27, 2010
I have kind of the opposite problem. My young toddler will eat almost anything you put in front of her, but was recently diagnosed with allergies to cow’s milk, goat’s milk, soy, eggs, tree nuts and sesame seeds. Feeding has suddenly become a huge challenge because so many of her favorite foods are now out of the question. I’m not much of a cook, but it looks like I’ll be doing a lot more of it since there are almost no prepared foods without dairy, eggs, soy and nuts. Gah. At least she dodged the peanut bullet.
May 27, 2010
Oh, my child eats alright. Just eats stuff in fingernail-size portions, drinks a lot of water and then announces he’s full. Dude. Why don’t I have those tendencies? I get all cantankerous because I have Run Out of Ideas, and I’m tired of seeing every single one of his nearly-five-year-old ribs. I shouldn’t complain: he eats chocolate ad nauseum, and then there are the cheese puffs–really any snacks in a brightly colored bag. Just not nuts (not even things that may potentially resemble nuts). Inhale deeply, exhale. I’m thinking your baby eats more than my baby. Please post a Solution that will save those of us who insist on worrying!
Tammy´s last blog ..Burgundy break.
May 27, 2010
OK, I’m printing this post and framing it as a reminder that my daughter is not the ONLY child on the planet with such a restrictive pallet…
Cali is just over 4. She will eat DRY (ie no butter or spread of any kind) bread, rolls, biscuits, crackers etc – sometimes….. She eats potato crisps, but only plain / salted flavor (and preferably in a RED tube or bag). She will occasionally eat a FRUBE Yoghurt tube – squeezed into a bowl, but NOT regular yogurt in a bowl. She does not eat ANY fruit (altho I buy loads and give her a fruit in her lunchbox for Kindi every day (makes me feel better lol).
So her typical daily intake is:
- Mango juice for breakfast
- Lunch of crisps, pretzels, maybe yogurt. Sometimes cheese but it’s a crap-shoot as to whether I have guessed in advance what “shape”she wants – sometimes it must be cut in chunks, sometimes grated and eaten with a spoon.
For dinner there are a few staples I can rely on (although these do go in and out of favor):
- nuggets and chips (I know, I know)
- pasta with basil pesto (MUST mix it herself or WILL. NOT. EAT)
- Fried egg, but only the yellow, and only if it’s PERFECTLY ROUND, and VERY ORANGE (as in free range, as in !@#$% expensive) – can sometimes get a bit of hash brown in her mouth with the egg
Rice or Mash, but ONLY if it is completely drowned in OXO Lamb and Mint Gravy (which I have to import specially, as it’s only sold in the UK)
As a special favor her creche actually feeds her Spaghetti Hoops every lunchtime (which she only eats if they are referred to as “Princess Rings”….
- She USED to eat peas, but now refuses to do so, ditto bananas.
She USED to drink chocolate milk, till we moved country, now it “tastes funny”
- She ices cookies or cupcakes, then eats the icing with a spoon.
- She loves Ice Cream, so I try to find “healthy” or at least organic ones – ONLY VANILLA – but hey, that’s the closest she gets to a dairy product.
I thought I was onto a winner with cheese pizza, until I ordered one for her a few evenings ago and had to throw most of it away…
When people comment on how little she eats, I reply that she gets her nutrition via osmosis…..
May 27, 2010
[...] Yesterday, Her Bad Mother wrote a wonderful post about her daughter Emilia whom she calls “the world’s pickiest eater.” [...]
May 27, 2010
we do a LOT of compromising. the kids need to at least take one bite of the regular meal… often times they end up liking it and will eat, other times it’s one bite and then we give them a cheese sandwich. whatever – at this age (2 & 3) it’s not something worth fighting over.
re the restaurant thing? i wouldn’t boycott it per se, but we would be less likely to visit a restaurant that doesn’t have one, just for the sake of convenience.
MommyNamedApril´s last blog ..In Somewhat Disturbing News, It Appears Google Knows Something We Don’t.
May 27, 2010
For about 4 years from age 4-8 my daughter sat down at the dinner table everynight and proclaimed “I don’t think I like this” I responded in the same manner “well, last time we had it you did.” She would then eat it. You would think that she would catch on after awhile! I felt grateful every time it worked because I know how frustating it can be to have a picky eater.
May 27, 2010
OMG, i thought I had a picky eater; that must be frustrating. the best is when they eat the same stuff at grandma’s they won’t touch off my table!!! i find it hard not to get upset only because i’m tired of making 2 meals at every meal. i can’t figure out how they get enough calories to grow — imagine how tall they’d be if they actually ate a square meal on a regular basis!!! my idea of a family-friendly restaurant is the one that brings the meal about 3 minutes after i’ve ordered no matter the menu.
May 28, 2010
I think Gabriel’s pickier. CHALLENGE!
He’s also chronically underweight and it’s stressful and I sneak butter everywhere onto everything just to maintain the child’s size.
Miss Grace´s last blog ..PENIS
May 28, 2010
That menu of foods that Emilia will pick from sounds just about right. I am solidly in the camp that you do not force your children to eat anything. I provide a wide array of foods to choose from, and, frankly, I don’t absolutely forbid anything (although we are vegetarians — I don’t know that choosing that lifestyle now for my kids constitutes “forbiding” food). And my kids eat just about anything. I feel very lucky — they love fruits and vegetables, pasta and tofu, yogurt and cheese, beans of all kinds, as well as mac’n'cheese, veggie nuggets, and, you know, chocolate, cookies, and ice cream.
Stress-free is good. Force feeding is bad. (negotiation to try new things, OTOH & IMO, isn’t forcing.)
red pen mama´s last blog ..Oh, The Humanity
May 28, 2010
Catherine? My five year old doesn’t even like bread. No joke. She’s insane. I wonder where she came from some days. She doesn’t like pizza, or mac and cheese, or cheese at all really. She won’t eat chicken nuggets. Or burgers, because she’s not a fan of beef, bread or cheese. But holy cow the girl can ingest an entire container of salsa. My other two will eat just about anything.
I have a try rule. You have to try a bite. One. I offer fruits and veggies. I offer meats. Dairy. In the end though, I just have way too much to worry about, than what exactly my kids are eating. They are all three healthy.
I was a super picky eater. I’m laughing a bit, because I suddenly realized at 26 years old that I liked tomatoes. Truth. So? Live and let live. They all eat new things eventually.
Issa´s last blog ..Picture Postcard Memories, #3
May 28, 2010
I can’t comment on kids who are picky eaters but I do agree with you that fruit desserts (e.g., apple pie) seem kind of fraudulent. Don’t try to pass that stuff off as “dessert.” If you must, create another category, but reserve DESSERT for all things divine like chocolate and cream and caramel and batter or dough. Fruit. Puhleeze.
Rebekah´s last blog ..Grateful Sunday
May 29, 2010
Your girl, she has picked some healthy foods for her diet. Can’t beat that!
And, no, fruit is NOT a dessert.
mythoughtsonthat´s last blog ..I Laugh Nearly Every Day
May 30, 2010
i can only comment from the stand point of the picky eater as i dont have children, but rather numerous nephews. i was and still am an insanely picky eater. my mother, being a single mom of 4, gave up long before i was born. she adapted everything to suit me. to this day the pasta does not touch the sauce until i put it there in the correct manner. 2 of my smaller nephews,3 and 13 months, are also picky eaters. the 3 y/o eats mac and cheese (only if he stirs it), yogurt(only yocrunch, and not the granola kind), milk with strawberry syrup, toast with butter and sugar and the bagel with “his” cream cheese.
the baby is a creature of habit. scrambled eggs, but only with his mimi in the morning, toast with butter and sugar, crackers, chedder bunnies, fruit flavored baby food, chips of any kind, and for the lazy baby he still uses bottles and wont even hold them himself. i think he knows that one day he’ll have to do it all himself and if he finds someone willing to hold him and his “baba” he will take full advantage.
at the ripe old age of 24 i turned out just fine. i am college educated, have a good job doing what i love. i am still the picky eater, i dont do dips or anything with “dresings” on it. sandwiches are still taken apart and eaten a piece at a time. i love kids menus, i dont eat very much and they are sometimes the perfect size. there is a restraunt in my state called eat’n'park, they have this great thing called seniors portions, the things i like in child size portions, score for me!
no worries in the end as long as she is healthy. i have even branched out, mushrooms and garlic rock!
Juli Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 2:09 pm
ha ha ha I won a small battle, I got the 3 y/o to eat some
chicken that I was having. Apparently
if it is on my plate and I am enjoying it then it must be good! Score one for the bed auntie!
May 31, 2010
I am late to this because I have been sick, but I just wanted to say, there IS a child who is a pickier eater than Emilia, or at least, there WAS a child who used to be a pickier eater than Emilia, and he doesn’t even live as far away as Germany – he lives in my house. My kid was such a picky eater that as a toddler he actually made himself sick from not eating. Really. Actually. Starved himself sick. So.
It was bad there for quite a while. I HAD to “make” him eat things, as far as that is possible, or he quite frankly would have needed a feeding tube to live. And the whole experience was quite devastating to me, as a foodie who really has never met a vegetable she couldn’t get along with. I was convinced, before parenthood, that I would have any child of mine eating sushi and Thai curries by three. I didn’t have your experience of having once been a picky eater myself to draw on for comfort – I was never picky. So it was hard.
But the kid is better now, in that he will permit small amounts of cheese sauce on his pasta, and will eat a bite or two of a hamburger, and has become somewhat less suspicious of cake. Oh, and carrots. He eats carrots. I nearly had a heart attack when he decided to eat carrots.
And I am not sure if it is all my careful intervention that did it or not. I have learned that there are some areas of parenting where we parents really simply do not have control as we (and our critics) would like to imagine. Sometimes kids just are who they are and there is not much you can do but roll with that reality. That tabula rasa idea is the cruelest sort of myth to foist upon mothers.
Jun 1, 2010
[...] Last week, Her Bad Mother wrote a wonderful post about her daughter Emilia whom she calls “the world’s pickiest eater.” [...]
Jun 1, 2010
My children are not picky eaters. Until they are one (or a bit older) they are breastfed, and get mashed food (veggies and fruits mostly, only some meat). After that they can eat as much or as little of what’s for dinner as they like. I never force them to eat anything (how can anyone force a child to chew and swallow?), but I’m not going to try offering different foods until they do eat. I reckon if they’re not eating it’s because they’re not hungry or they don’t like what’s on the table, and that’s fine, I’m not always hungry myself, and when I don’t like what’s being served I don’t eat so much either. My eldest is very easy going, eats almost everything, and likes trying new things. The youngest is ‘pickier’, she will sometimes skip a whole meal because she doesn’t like the color, texture, smell or taste of what’s in front of her, or just because she’s got it into her little head that she only wants chocolate paste on her bread when there’s cheese on the table. But, my kids are both happy at the table and healthy, so I guess this approach works, for them and for me!
As a GP I’ve never seen a child starve itself because it didn’t get the food it likes. (One major ‘exception’ is children with multiple food allergies, who will sometimes instinctively ban all allergens from their diet and who will lose weight in doing so if too many offered meals contain these allergens.)I have seen many children with constipation, stomach aches, gastritis, obesity, bad teeth and even diabetes due to unbalanced diets, whose parents, when confronted with the fact that they are making their children sick by not allowing them to eat right, always use the argument that their children are picky eaters. This is just an excuse!
Your daughter will not starve if you don’t feed her bread, cheese, pickles, tofu, spaghetti noodles (only spaghetti) with butter, chick peas, corn on the cob, yogurt, cheese pizza (only cheese), hard-boiled eggs, ketchup, strawberries, cake icing (not the cake itself) or candy for a few weeks. She’ll throw a few tantrums, because she’s used to getting what she likes food-wise. She’ll feel hungry for a bit. If she’s really stubborn she might even lose a bit of weight, and then, hey presto, she’ll eat what is in front of her! Maybe she’ll even like it (hunger is the best sauce), maybe not, but it won’t kill her.
I’m not saying you should change the way you go about eating and mealtimes in your family. That’s really up to you. But I really couldn’t be bothered to provide taste-specific foods for all my family members, they just have to make do with what’s on the table today. So call me nazi-mum!
Most of all I really wish that when a child develops a diet-related disease, the parents wouldn’t hide behind the picky eater myth!
Jaelithe Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:25 am
@Saartje = nazi-mum, actually, I had a very well-meaning, well-respected, experienced child nutritionist give me the same advice that you just gave Catherine regarding my son, and he DID refuse to eat. For two weeks straight, while we followed her advice, he ate no solid food and consumed about 100 calories a day in milk. He was already underweight when we started the “no preferred foods” program, and he lost weight during it to the point that we had to quit for the sake of his health. Later we found he had a very severe case of Sensory Processing Disorder, which was probably contributing significantly to his eating problems. But we did not know that at the time. All we knew was that people were telling us “a child will never starve himself if he is regularly offered food” and yet ours was.
Just because you have not SEEN something before in your practice does not mean it never happens. I know your advice works beautifully for many families, but every time I see someone who has not actually thoroughly examined the child in question tell parents they are just not trying hard enough to get their kids to eat well, I get a little sick inside remembering my own family’s experience. No one can know what is causing a child not to eat well until that child has been thoroughly checked out. And casting blame – even gentle, constructive-criticism-style blame, on a mother who is already at her wits’ end may not be the most productive way to solve the problem.
Saartje = nazi-mum Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:00 am
@Jaelithe,
I’m sorry you had to go through such hardships to find out what was going on with your son.
However, you have to admit that his case, or the case of the child starving itself in an attempt to avoid food allergy for that matter, is very, very rare! Much rarer than the number of ‘picky eaters’ and their frustrated mums cooking two hot meals a day, every day. Much rarer also than the number of children with diet-related illness.
So I would still say, give it a try, try the ‘nazi-regime’ (I’ve chosen a very, very bad term for this, because it’s not at all cruel, just common sense). It won’t kill your child, nor will it do unrepairable damage to you relationship, and it’ll hopefully bring you closer to a solution of, or at least an explanation for, the picky eating. It’s much easier, cheaper and less traumatic for the child (and its parents) than being ‘thoroughly checked out’, with samples of blood, stool and urine, skin tests, sweat tests, ultrasounds, X-rays, scans, gastroscopy, colonoscopy and psychological tests of child and parents… (I’ve been in and out of hospital with my youngest until she was 18 months, so I know what I’m talking about, not as a doctor, but as a mum. She’s a happy, healthy two year old now, luckily.)
So try it, and if after 2 weeks your child starts losing weight, THEN go and get you child checked out to find out the underlying cause, be it physical or psychological.
Alternatively, do nothing. Cook two meals a day if that’s fine for you. Smuggle the necessary vitamins and fibers into cookies and shakes. As long as your child is healthy and happy and you are sane, who cares what he eats and how you organize your meals?
The Grown Up Teenager Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 1:12 pm
@Saartje = nazi-mum,
I think Saartje has some valid points about the truth behind picky eaters. I don’t think its necessarily a myth that children can be very picky eaters, but parents are often huge enablers of it, which just makes it way worse.
It always blows my mind when I see my friends making one meal for the grown ups and another one for the kids on a regular basis. My mom never did that with me. She made dinner and if I didn’t like it, too bad.
She was never evil and made multiple things she knew I didn’t like, but I was given the same food everyone else got, like it or not. Sure, its about picking your battles, but it was never a battle at our house. This is supper tonight; if you’re hungry, eat it. If not, oh well.
Of course kids will start throwing temper tantrums if you stop catering to things they love, if its what they’re used to, which is why its a bad habit to get into in the first place.
The Grown Up Teenager´s last blog ..It’s That Time Of The Year
Jun 2, 2010
Small glimmer of hope from the picky-eater camp here… our 4 year old refuses to eat most dinners and wants only ham and crackers for lunch each day, but tonight we made homemade pizza and she declared it the ‘best pizza ever’. Not sure how she’d know that, since she’s refused to touch pizza for at least a year, but hey. Small victories.
Jun 2, 2010
My daughter won’t eat the following: Pizza, pasta, anything with cheese. We’re Japanese (living in Dubai, UAE right now) but we don’t want to think she has anything against Italia!
Also, she doesn’t eat cakes, even the cutest cupcakes wouldn’t do or cookies (unless it’s baked from home). What kind of kid doesn’t love cookies!?
Grace @ Sandier Pastures´s last blog ..WW – Language melting pot
Jun 2, 2010
I don’t care who has a PhD in what, my kids CANNOT be cajoled, bribed, forced, starved or in any other manner convinced to eat a darn thing unless its their idea. My oldest has been this way since birth. FEEDING TUBES because she wouldn’t eat. She eats just enough to sustain life, even now at 4 years old. My son used to eat anything offered to him, until he turned two. Now he “can’t yike” anything. I’m at my wits end.
britt´s last blog ..Irrational Fears
Jun 2, 2010
My son was a horribly picky eater when he was a child…actually up through his Jr. year of high school. He would starve himself rather than eat anything he didn’t think he would like. Sometime during that year something just clicked and he started trying new things. He is 22 now and he is the one that orders unfamiliar foods when we go out to eat and eats anything offered when he is home. He is also an awesome cook himself.
I don’t really have any advice. I guess I just want you to know there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Jun 2, 2010
To put it simply, I think that turning meals–or snacks, or any food-based activity–into a battle with children sets them up for a potentially lifelong unhealthy relationship with food. Yes, we should encourage our children to “try new things.” But this doesn’t mean that we have to do so through bribery, force, or deprivation.
I mean, is it really that much of a stretch to think (and respect the fact) that children *do* have their own unique tastes and preferences?!
On the other hand, I should also acknowledge that parents *sometimes* set their kids up for their eventual pickiness. (And I’m not suggesting at all that anyone in particular here has done so.) But if a child is mainly *given* white bread, mac and cheese, and chicken nuggets, then s/he will probably develop strong preferences for those things!
Kristen´s last blog ..Words for Thought: What Does it Mean to Value Family Values?
Jun 2, 2010
When my son was a year old he stopped eating almost everything.He would eat grapes, popcorn, apples, eggs, cheese, and bread. Not much else. After a few trips to the doctor and a few tests, he was pronounced a very picky eater by the doctor. I was told not to try and force him to eat anything. Just put the food in front of him, let him decide if he wants to try it, and make sure to have 2 or 3 things on hand that he did like, and stock up on pediasure. Now my son is 10 yrs old, and is still a picky eater, but much less so. He will eat sushi, even the kind with fish. He eats some chicken now, and not nuggets. He even eats broccoli. So I say just let your picky eater be who she is, and feed her the healthiest choices she will eat. She will decide when it’s time to try new things. And don’t let the nay-sayers get to you.
Jun 2, 2010
My son (4) is sort of a picky eater, but he does love vegetables and fruit. Go figure. (I’m super lucky with him) Anyway, the only “rule” around meal times for him is this: He can choose what he wants to eat, but he has to have something from each food group.
He does pick some strange pairings, but it’s up to him, so he eats it.
Jun 12, 2010
Ah, how nice to read. I am suddenly feeling a lot less stressed about the fact that my daughter pretty much has eggs for dinner every night.
One of the many things that annoyed me about that article was that it wrongly assumes that if you order off the children’s menu at a restaurant you’re also mindlessly serving the children’s menu at home. How about offer some butter and pasta so my daughter, her parents, and your other customers can enjoy their meals? No, okay then have a frustrated, cranky baby, parents who will hardly finish their glasses of wine (let alone prolong the experience with dessert), and sashimi all over your floor. We can struggle and coax at home but if we’re treating ourselves by going to a restaurant how about making it a little bit easier? Or at the very least not judging us if we skip the fried rabbit for our kids.
frugan amy´s last blog ..We went to England and went on swings. Or, travelling with a 16-month-old.
Jun 14, 2010
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