Author Topic: picky 22 month old - How to get her to eat 'family dinners'?  (Read 7203 times)

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Offline Baby_A_Mama

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picky 22 month old - How to get her to eat 'family dinners'?
« on: March 25, 2015, 22:47:39 pm »
Hi all, I'm starting to get a bit sick of making a second meal for my little one when I know she is fully capable of eating what we eat.  She is picky!  Veggies, forget about it!  I hide those in smoothies and baked goods for her to enjoy.  Meat is hit & miss...mostly a miss.  We can usually get spaghetti with meat sauce in her, occasionally some sausage, but that's about it!  She eats lots of food and is doing great with her growth.  She has a very healthy diet, mostly because she isn't exposed to junk foods so she doesn't really know they exist and can't prefer them over the offered dinner meals.  I'm wondering if it's too early for us to insist she eat what we eat?  Lately I have been cutting back on the options she has at dinner. She gets a little bit of everything we have, sometimes taken out before all the seasonings, etc are added, and then I put a small amount of something I know she likes just so I know she has something on her plate that she will eat. Problem is, usually this is all she eats and wants more - to fill up on that seems like it's defeating the purpose of putting everything else on the plate.  I'm wondering when other people basically put the family dinner out to their kids and said 'this is dinner, take it or leave it'?  I'd really like her to start eating more of what we do.  Even things like mashed sweet potatoes she won't even touch...but on the very occasional night we manage to get it in her mouth, she loves it and eats tons...so I feel like there is a bit of game play going on!  How did you other mama's overcome your picky eater? 

Offline We Three

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Re: picky 22 month old - How to get her to eat 'family dinners'?
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2015, 23:19:29 pm »
My feeling is that you will never be able to force a LO to eat. And bribing/cajoling/standing on your head just really creates stress. At that age, dd ate what we were having. 3 or 4 things on her plate. Most every night there were 2 or 3 of the 4 that I knew she'd eat. I have heard some people say "Serve one thing you KNOW she'll eat, one thing she MIGHT eat, plus one new thing."  For me, I tended to serve dinners she enjoyed, introducing new foods a few times a week, but not always at dinner.

If I roasted red pepper and she didn't like it, I'd try raw red pepper with dip another day. A child will never eat what they won't touch...so do encourage her to touch, smell, lick, whatever. Some kids need lots and lots of exposure to something new before they will eat it.  My dd never ate raw carrot until I shredded it and it looked like match sticks.  Go figure. I used to chop up broccoli tops sooooo tiny and mix them with scrambled eggs or pastina.  Salad is a good way to expose a child to veggies without feeling like you're preparing a whole other meal. DD always liked a dish of dressing to "dip" her salad into....that always enticed her.

 Also....look at what she DOES eat and try to expand along similar lines.  If she likes baked potato, try sweet potato, kwim? Same kind of texture.

 So....I wouldn't force....(you can't anyway....how far does that go, yk?).  I would eat my dinner with her, chit chat about the day, and not make a big fuss over the food. I may be in the minority, but I don't make "deals" with food, or insist on anything. It is important to me that dd be in control of her food, and that mealtimes be stress free.  I'd save new foods for snacks or lunch if it were me, just to try and change things up and eliminate any stress at dinner.

 At her age, I would just focus on exposure....different ways of presenting things.  Look at what she eats in a week, rather than in a day, yk?

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Re: picky 22 month old - How to get her to eat 'family dinners'?
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2015, 00:18:21 am »
Agree fully with pp.

I'm wondering when other people basically put the family dinner out to their kids and said 'this is dinner, take it or leave it'? 
For us that would be at 6 months. I adapted all the family meals (ie no sugar, salt etc) to make them baby friendly and gave him that. Other adaptations where (and sometimes still are) to separate out each food type on his plate, So I can make a stew but he will eat more happily if the carrots are piled in one area, the courgette in another, the meat in another and so on, I don't mind this as it is more about him wanting to recognise each food rather than being picky about foods touching.  I do think it is more difficult once a LO has started down the road of having a different meal to everyone else, I'd want to bring it back as soon as possible.

I wouldn't go down the route of forcing or bribing, having a not-very-picky eater I can see my DS has true dislikes (which are hard to identify if you force or bribe). If I forced him to eat these or nagged at him to eat them (because I had an expectation for him to try everything on his plate for instance) I know his relationship with food would be less healthy. The foods he has a true dislike of he even *asks* for once in a while, he has a small taste and smiles politely then doesn't eat any more of it. Fair enough, there are things I don't like too.

Giving new foods or foods which are rejected at breakfast can help, when they are more hungry.  Mine didn't like protein particularly but as soon as I switched his breakfast to omelet he ate it no question (I knew he liked eggs he just wouldn't eat them at lunch or dinner because he wasn't hungry enough or because he wanted to fill up on veg all the time).

I also really like the idea behind this, which you might find interesting
The Division Of Responsibility trust model for selective eating child


Offline Baby_A_Mama

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Re: picky 22 month old - How to get her to eat 'family dinners'?
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2015, 17:19:35 pm »
Thanks!  We will try to do more introductions earlier in the day as opposed to dinner time. I find at dinner the new foods often don't even get touched!  We consider it a huge victory if the food touches lips, so we aren't too big into the forcing! 

Sounds like your LO's are fantastic eaters.  We used to have that.  Up until about 15 months, we bragged about how amazing she was.  Eating everything in sight.  We still struggled with veggies, but she would most of what I prepared for my husband and I.  I even had to buy an full filet of fish for her, she ate that well!  I'm not sure what started the decline but it went downhill and now she is picky!  She's got too used to other options (I think) and now won't be as adventurous.  We'll keep at it and hopefully make some progress!  I definitely don't want to make meal times a battle but don't want to be preparing so many different meals!  I did notice last night she wouldn't touch her caesar salad, and then I started to eat mine and she picked up her fork and had some of hers!  She hated it, it was quite a funny look of disgust be we celebrated the attempt she made and told her how happy we were that she tried it! 

I took a quick read of that weblink - thank you.  I will read more detail tonight!

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Re: picky 22 month old - How to get her to eat 'family dinners'?
« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2015, 17:55:07 pm »
Being picky could be a phase whilst she is more cautious with the world around her in general. Seeing you eat and then realising the food is 'safe' hints at developmental caution. What might start out as a phase could go on longer if you play to it too much. I do make sure I make meals my DS likes but I don't pander to pickyness iyswim.  It's the same as wanting to make meals my DP enjoys and i enjoy, I want us all to be happy eating.

You might have more luck with giving her food off your plate or pointing out to her at the beginning of a meal that the plates all look the same.  I know for a short while I had to reassure my DS that he had just the same as me and that it was safe - I even had to test taste his meal for a while! Taking a tiny piece of each item to "check it's ok" and say "yum yes, that one is good, no poison there!" and then he'd tuck right in! funny kids.