Topic : Picky Eaters

my three year old use to love everything but now he eats  yogurt, toast with peanut butter, chicken nuggets and fries, graham crackers, twinkees at home. but at daycare he will eat everything that the other kids will eat. i cook those stuff too but now he has to eat his food  fast before his 7 month brother will eat  the food for him. my older son has low iron so i try to give things that has high iron , plus a vitamin with iron in it plus the pedisure drinks too by the doctor say's to do. He dances around the apartment ,at school and at daycare too.he tries to help his baby brother out but he is rough with him alot. there origin is sudan,africa and irish too. if you ever want to talk please let me know at any time!   

you have a great day today with your children and get outside to play with them on a good sunny day!  

from,  

soksjk  

My son is 15 months old and i am finally getting him off the bottle and on sippy full time and its been a fight the whole way cause he is stubborn...  The way i got both of mine to eat table food was i have a mini food processor  and i take whatever we were having for supper or any meal and i would chop it in that so it looked like the  stage 3 baby food  but it was our food ... Do you put his food in a bowl to feed him ? thats how i started with my son and soon he moved from needing it to be chunky stage 3 to just regular  table food..  making sure there is nothing that he might get caught in his throat is a big thing... it might take your son a little to get used to it but hopefully this will help..  I would be worried about the bottle  cause that will effect his teeth  especially if he takes a bottle to bed  cause the fluid runs out of the nipple alot easier than  it will ever out of a sippy cup.. My son preferred the  playtex cups i got the my first sipster  for both my children to start out with and those seemed to be the ones they likes it has handles and everything ...  I put the big push on him being off his  bottles cause we are expecting our 3rd and last child in  september but he now seems to prefer his sippy and knows that there is no going back to bottles.. 

  

Crystal 

 Thank you for the ideas.  I've been a little busy and just got a chance to read your reply.  I have a 26 month old besides my now almost 15 month old and also a 2 month old.  Anyway, we found out that my 15 month old is allergic to milk and then about a week and a half after going through that, he got some sort of upper respiratory infection (croup, bronchiolitis, etc. .. they never came up with a defnitive diagnosis) and we spent a night in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.  Needless to say, I've been trying to let him get back into his regular routine and feeling back to normal before I try to push this any more.  I did get him off the bottle (I never put him to bed with it) and he is now only drinking from the Avent trainer cup, but he still won't hold it himself and will only drink Silk (soy milk) and no juice.  I just keep offering juice along with the milk.  We also did get him to start eating the Gerber Puffs.  He is still on 3rd foods.  I have always just fed him from the jar, so I kept the last few jars and am going to wash them out and use them to put food in that I chop up like you suggested.  I think he looks for the jar and hopefully he will eat tablefood out of the jar.  Once he gets used to that I will try to give it to him in a bowl.  Thank you so much for your reply!  Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy and delivery!

Wendy

Wendy~  

My son went through the same thing. We FINALLY figured out that he was allergic to milk and give him Silk also (the plain kind and sometimes the vanilla kind just for different flavor). One piece of advice, go to Safeway or WalMart to get it! At Safeway, they're brand (Organics) is the same thing but almost $3.00 cheaper -- which adds up after buying it so often. Or buy the box of powdered kind! CHEAPER!  

   

About your son not taking a sippy...go to WalMart and get the big sippy's with the plastic straw. There is a little flap thingy that can go down over the straw to hide it...it's a no spill thing which is awesome. That's what I used for my son and now he doesn't drink out of a bottle. And with the juice, don't worry. You just have to keep trying. My doctor told me that it  can take up to 25 times for your child to try something and like it! I know, that's like forever, but it'll get better! Try the Gerber FruitSplashers. They come in all different flavors and they are dye-free -- only the bottle is colored! Check it out! Good luck with everything!  

my son is 4 yrs old, he's not the pickest eater i've seen but, he's not the best eater. He loves every kind of fruit, corn, brocoli, cucumbers, tomatoes, greenbeans. mac and cheese, dairy products he loves.anything with noodles he'll eat.. the only thing i cant really get him to eat is meat, if we get taco's he might every blue moon eat the whole thing.. but usually he'll just eat till he gets to the meat part. hotdogs and balogna he might every once in a while. but pretty much he refuses to eat anything that has to do with meat. he might eat off my plate or i'll feed him cuz theni know how much he's getting or i know he's eating. if meat is mixed in i have to take it out. he eats pretty healthly don't get me wrong he has his junk food every now and then. i dont force him to eat meat . i try to get him to try diffent things but he wants nothing to do with it. so basically i just consider him my little vegatarian. i just wonder if its a phase or if he actually is gonna be a vegatarian if so then thats great i have no prob with it. my cousin babysits for a famliy whose daughter from the time she was 4 or 5 she only ate corn and that was it. she's now 15 and is a vegatarian and has been one for years.  

My son will be 3 at the end of this month (August) .. he's an unbeleiveable picky eater... I'm at a loss on how to have him to eat his veggies & other foods..... I should not fix two different meals just to sastify my son.. NOPE........ need help.. BTW... if he won't eat it.. then he'll just play with it or drop it/throwing it out of his plate/bowel

My daughter is now 31, she has been a picky eater her entire life, it began while she was old enough to stop the "baby food".  I was not preparing food I did not like, or did not offer and give her gravy on potatoes etc.. or different meats  she continues with barely mixing food on her plate. Her children are a bit picky as well, I feel we have taught our kids to eat the way they do because of the "jars of baby food" and that was fine, for babies! After they have out grown this, they continue with just not wanting other things that look different, and the kids also enjoy the attention! My second daughter eats very well, she even eats shell fish, and everything including gravy etc... I used the little baby food grinders we use to be able to purchase at a department store; JC Penny was the only place that it was available back then!. I would put it in the diaper bag; I would take out the grinder even in restaurants, and grind up everything we had, she ate as we did, I can no longer find these handy devices, (I had used one for my Mom when I cared for her after a severe stroke! It was wonderful not to have to drag out a food processor, just the little hand grinder, until my Mom began to eat chopped foods! Sadly she passed away in 1999! But, the little grinder I gave to another "new Mom" but, for my youngest;  when we went places, I carried  a few jars of baby food, in case of spicy foods that would not have been good for her! She is now 24, and is not a picky eater! The first child, I tried everything to get her to try "new" foods! I finally let her eat what she enjoyed!! I do remember that if she did not like school lunch, she just would not eat it, she was very happy when they began the finally "fresh salad tray, all the raw carrots, lettuce etc.. the funny thing about that is she would eat salad but did not like any dressing!! But, at least she did have lunch those days, I use to make a bag lunch, then stopped; figuring she would be hungry enough to eat at school, but she did not eat during those days, the salad bar began as a once a week item!! She loved it, now thank God the salad bar is daily! My daughter grew to also allow her 2 children, to eat as she did, she also did not prepare items she just did not enjoy eating, so 2 more picky eaters, but as they are getting older, we have used a "try this new food game" they were rewarded with stickers, but of course this only works with little ones, just one bite! Good luck, but attention for not eating, is as good as it gets for little ones! Just offer the food, if they don't eat what is there, perhaps at least an item that they do enjoy, since little ones tummy's can hold as much as their fist, they may fill up on (green beans?) or something! stop giving so much attention, the child will begin to understand that eating or not, will not be rewarded with attention, if the child does eat something new; then pour on some needed GOOD ATTENTION! perhaps that may work, but remember children will eat when hungry, at times little ones seem to not eat well for days to weeks just picking at their food! Then after that, (a growth spurt) you can't fill them up! as I stated Good Luck, but they will adjust and may eat other foods, but stop pressuring the child, they will eat when hungry!

my daughter is 5 and she has always been a picky eater. but when i started looking for a pattern or similarities in the things that she ate and in the things that she did. i realized she ate soft , bland, ordorless foods with no texture. like water only, no milk or juice. white bread but not toast. mashed potatoes. thats all she ate. if it had a strong odor, crunchy(gold fish crackers), or textured(rice).i asked her physician and they did some test. my daughter has a condition called hypersensitivity with taste, touch, smell. (also referred to as sensory intergration). this means the senses are magnified 5x the way it is for us.example she can eat cheetos puff but not crunchy. to her its like raking your hands acrossa chalk board. now  with this information my daughter is not only eating foods, vegetables , crackers, and so on in knowing what the real issue is it allowed me to be able to prepare food differently. instead of crunchy brocolli its soft and mushy with cheese. now none of this may apply to your child but pay attention and if you see a pattern tell their doctor its better they have a disibility and you know and can get them to eat healthy on their terms than to be un healthy and not eating my daughter still will not eat meat of any kind. still working on it good luck all!!!!

 I have a 2year old and he refuses to eat any food, he hates it. When I try to feed him he screams and cries. The only thing I can get gim to eat is Chicken nuggets. I don't understand was it my fault? I just want to know how to get my two year old to reglular food with us?