I have a just 5 yr old that refuses to eat what she doesn't think she will like. A couple of nights ago I made hamburger soup. Essentially just hamburger and grated carrots. Things she has eaten well before. Well she sat at the table for almost an hour, gagging and making all sorts of noise. Yes, she literally brings herself to gag when she makes up her mind. No matter what you tell her she refuses to eat. This is a problem because if she had it her way she would eat nothing but hot dogs and peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Which isn't fair or healthy to the rest of the family. And I refuse to cook her something different. I cook for everyone. So one night it might be something hubby like, another night me, some nights her and so on. I should mention that this has been going on since birth or around age 1 1/2 yrs.
I've tried taking her privileges away, she doesn't care, she would rather not eat. I've tried sending her to her room for the night. I've also tried in her room for the night and all day the next day. No breakfast, no lunch and feed her the same thing the next night. To no avail. This isn't about making her eat something she truly doesn't like I get that. There is a couple of foods she really doesn't like so I don't make them for her. So I'm just looking for suggestions or stories from others that have been there. I should also mention that grandma says it's nothing new to her, one of her sons, child's uncle was the same way. To this day he refuses to eat potatoes. How do I teach her to eat a variety of foods to stay healthy when she won't. And even the dr has tried to tell her.Thanx if you read this far. Take Care Joanna
I have no children! but I repeatedly watch those TV programmes on child rearing. (Why?) Anyway, one thing I specially remember about feeding and dislikes etc is to *try* very hard not to let mealtime become a 'battleground'. As long as she has something every day, and drinks plenty, then she won't 'die' of starvation. I have theories about helping, but nothing I've tried, so I won't continue! The one thing I will say is that I am a very fussy eater, and always have been. This is not affectation, there is a real problem with some food. There has been since a child (and there are more now!! as a grown up I'm *allowed* not to cook things I don't like). However, with me it is more a case of texture than taste. There is a considerable difference between soup and the individual textures of hamburger and carrots. It could be that, as much as anything else? . In message , Joanna writes
What if someone bigger than you who had control over you forced you to eat things that you did not want to eat? Raw turtle? Goat's eyes? Dripping buffalo hearts?..... That's how she feels. I objected to most food. I raised one with the same ' problem '- if that's what we're going to call it. Our son's dr insisted that DS would not die even if his entire intake some days was 3 green peas. Or one biscuit. DS survived his sensitivity as to food choices just fine and so did I. I believe if you would simply let it go - don't force, urge, suggest, tempt or punish. Even if you think it's going to kill you, attempt to not even notice. The tv experts (if we can believe them) suggest letting little ones shop with you and choose as well as help with preparation. Sounds reasonable, maybe worth a try. When our children were that small, we had a 'one bite' rule. Didn't matter how tiny the bite was but they were urged to at least taste. Rejection was okay. One wash day I did discover one bite of mashed potato in a small pants pocket. Nobody died. Polly
Ok I've heard this before and I some what agree. I know she's not going to starve. As a kid sometimes you can't fill them up and other times they just pick at it. I can live with that. I'm concerned about down the road that she will never try anything new, and if she had her way the foods so does choose are not enough to maintain good health.
Then there is the issue of guilt. How then would I make hamburger soup because I love it knowing that she will not eat that night. You can't say ok then don't make it cuz then all of us would suffer from not eating right. I refuse to make her something different because she would start to use that every time it wasn't hot dogs she would say she didn't like it. Also that would mean eating what she likes which is very limited.
I really will c> What if someone bigger than you who had control over you forced you to eat
You aren't going to like my post. My son is 21. When he was small his food tastes were mighty small. No beef. He would eat peanut butter, bread, steamed broccoli, rice and chicken and potatoes. That's it. No gravy, no sauce, no mixtures of food. Finally when he was 4 I lost it and couldn't handle it anymore. The pediatrician said put food on the table. Don't give in to him and he WILL eat.
I followed his advice, no extras, no special meals just for him.
Andy was skinny to start with. Top of growth chart in height and off the bottom in weight.
He lost almost 20 percent of his body weight in two weeks. He held out, refusing to eat what he didn't want. Two weeks and many calls to the pediatrician in, he began to vomit. Went at it all night. Ended up in the hospital for five days with the doctor screaming at me for allowing him to lose so much body weight. It was horrid and he was a very, very sick little boy.
Ok, so now nearly 18 years later I still cook something just for him. He's good now about making his own food if he just can't face anything on the table (his food tastes are still pretty much the same). He tried to go away to college and had a horrible time with food. He found a Japanese restaurant that would serve him up big bowls of white rice and just about lived there. :He is one of those "super tasters" according to his doctor. He can tell from one bite if I've used a different brand of margarine on the broccoli. And yes, he gags on tastes and textures he doesn't like and even smells. He is extremely sensitive to smells. I don't dare cook cabbage when he's around. And the smell of pickles will send him away from the table.
I don't know what to say. Andy is as he was born. I can't tell you if your daughter is in a power struggle with you or if she is like my son. And believe me, his eating situation left the realm of power struggles eons ago. I have a bread recipe that has massive protein in it and when toasted and smeared with peanut butter one slice will provide hugely adequate nutrition.
Like I said, this is just my situation. I live with it. One upside, my son can't handle the smell or taste of alcohol. He'll never get in trouble that way.
Good luck to you. I'll be glad to talk it over on the side with you if you like.
Here's what I did and perhaps it will help or get you started on some ideas of your own.
I didn't buy things I didn't want my child eating. I'm weird about hot dogs - I freely admit it. Yes, I like them. Yes, I think they're ok once in a great while for a treat. However, I see too many kids who will only eat hot dogs so I decided I just wouldn't have them in my home. If it's not there then they can't live off it was my theory. :-)
On the opposite side try to have a variety of mom approved healthy snacks for her to eat.
I did let my son help with shopping and cooking. He would often eat things he chose at the farmer's market that he wouldn't try the week before when I bought it. Go figure. Chalk it up to the honery-ness of toddlers or whatever, but it happened often enough. Sometimes he would pick something or help make something and then not want to eat it. That's the way it goes sometimes, it's not a failure on your part.
Forget the rules and punishments. Dinner should be a pleasant family time. My son had to sit nicely and chat even if he only ate the meat or whatever was the approved food on his plate. Our only rule was "If you don't like something ignore it, but if you whine about it (or maybe you need to add "gag") then you will have to eat it all as punishment for making dinner time unpleasant." Yes, the rule applies to picky spouses. We used to tell guests our rule so it was clear it applied to everyone and we weren't just picking on our son.
Frankly, there were some things he just never liked that I loved. So yes, I did live without them for a while. Soon enough he was going to friends homes for dinner or sleepovers or whatever and guess what I would make? :-)
I never made separate meals either. Mom is not a short order cook.
Don't worry that her finicky-ness will last forever. For most kids its simply a stage and they outgrow it like everything else. I think less arguing ups the odds on that one but that is just my opinion.
i'll second that. food might be the only thing she feels she has control over in her life. you can not force a person to eat. give her more choices in other areas of life as well as involving her in the buying and prep of food. dont ask a kid what time they want to go to bed...ask them if they want to wear the blue or red pajamas to bed. then bed becomes a given. what they wear to bed is the only issue to deal with and 'you' give them the two choices. its not what do you want to wear to bed. its red or blue.
dont bring home the junk food you dont want her eating. if it means you and dh also have to go without, so be it. when shopping, you work out the two choices and then ask her to choose. if she takes neither, so be it. you choose one and that is the one you buy. she is 5yo, she will work it out rather quickly. she is not too young to understand that. take care the two choices are reasonable ones for her. i'd not be happy with choosing between brussel sprouts and liver. ewwwww. neither for me thanks all the same, lol.
eventually that'll be the norm and folks'll have to learn, on their own, to live with it. fight'n over food and if someone is eating or not is soooooo not worth it. there are other more important battles to be fought later on. save your energy for those.
no whining rule, i like that one, Marcella. good luck, j.
I didn't buy things I didn't want my child eating. I'm weird about hot dogs - I freely admit it. Yes, I like them. Yes, I think they're ok once in a great while for a treat. However, I see too many kids who will only eat hot dogs so I decided I just wouldn't have them in my home. If it's not there then they can't live off it was my theory. :-)
On the opposite side try to have a variety of mom approved healthy snacks for her to eat.
I did let my son help with shopping and cooking. He would often eat things he chose at the farmer's market that he wouldn't try the week before when I bought it. Go figure. Chalk it up to the honery-ness of toddlers or whatever, but it happened often enough. Sometimes he would pick something or help make something and then not want to eat it. That's the way it goes sometimes, it's not a failure on your part.
Forget the rules and punishments. Dinner should be a pleasant family time. My son had to sit nicely and chat even if he only ate the meat or whatever was the approved food on his plate. Our only rule was "If you don't like something ignore it, but if you whine about it (or maybe you need to add "gag") then you will have to eat it all as punishment for making dinner time unpleasant." Yes, the rule applies to picky spouses. We used to tell guests our rule so it was clear it applied to everyone and we weren't just picking on our son.
Frankly, there were some things he just never liked that I loved. So yes, I did live without them for a while. Soon enough he was going to friends homes for dinner or sleepovers or whatever and guess what I would make? :-)
I never made separate meals either. Mom is not a short order cook.
Don't worry that her finicky-ness will last forever. For most kids its simply a stage and they outgrow it like everything else. I think less arguing ups the odds on that one but that is just my opinion.
hang in there marcella
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First of all---Lighten up!!!!!!!! Do you like everything in the world. She won't starve. There's WAY too much emphasis placed on healthy eating today. Give her a daily multi-vitamin which will cover all the bases. Most all kids like certain foods over another. So what if all she wants is hot dogs? Next month it might be Mac and cheese. It seems as if your dinner hour must be very stressful for her. If she would eat hamburger on bread rather than soup, keep a little out of the soup and make her a hamburger. Since most people dislike certain things, I feel sorry for the one that has the disliked food pushed on them. Gen
Give her a choice. Which one do you want tonight A or B? If she says C, tell her she has two choices, A or B. That worked with my two kids who would rather have had their favorites morning, noon and night, if I had let them.
Most kids will go through streaks of what they will want to eat. After a period of time, the streak changes to something else. They will be fine from all I have read.
I watch those programmes too Pat, especially Dr. Tanya Byron (House of Tiny Tearaways, and I think the US version which I saw for the first time yesterday is House of Tiny Terrors. She is a clinical psychologist has written several books, and has been a govt. adviser. Perhaps your library has or can get one of them. Unfortunately she doesn't have a website.
Tanya Byron's approach is to take the focus off what & how much the child is eating & making mealtimes a happy fun time to take away the stress & tension. There is no criticism or punishments, just lots of praise even for a tiny bit eaten - and only small portions but made to look appetising - she can always have second helpings! Lots of smiles so that mealtimes are not dreaded by everyone but looked forward to.
A good site is also
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My mother loved rice pudding - in fact any milk pudding. At school I was made to sit in front of my rice pudding until it was finished. I loath rice pudding, and have not had it since I left school 50 years ago. When anyone asks 'dietary requirements' my reply is anything except rice pudding in any form! I can still remember the feeling of those horrible fat grains of rice mixed with milk. I agree with Pat, it is texture rather than taste - I like boiled rice with curry etc. I could not eat rice pudding and imagine hamburger and carrot soup to be a similar texture.
Good luck. I have one brother who existed on peanut butter sandwiches for nearly 20 years, and a sister who would eat nothing except peanut butter sandwiches or spaghetti-os until she went off to college--God knows what she ate then! It ain't healthy, but sometimes I think Mom got tired of fighting a battle at every meal. The only thing that ever worked was my dad's decision that if they didn't eat a bit of everything else on the table, no dessert. Oh, the whining and pitiful looks when they watched the rest of us eat our warm gingerbread with whipped cream, or homemade ice cream, or............I'm sure you get the picture. Neither he nor Mom had the guts to use Grandma McCarty's method of dealing with fussy eaters. If you didn't eat what she served at her table, you were taken aside and forced to take a tablespoon of some foul-tasting "tonic." According to Dad, it worked wonders on his siblings!
I can honestly say that any kid who started gagging at the table in my house would leave the table and get his/her backside warmed. There is no excuse for bad behavior. There are certain social conventions that keep the wheels of society greased and turning. Table manners are high on the list.
Good luck to you, it's a tough problem for a mother to tackle!
DO NOT WORRY -- as others have said, this happens all the time. Try to get her to take just a teensy taste (let her decide how big a bite) and then if she doesn't like the food, she doesn't eat. No punishment other than not getting to eat what is prepared -- just act like it's no big deal. She'd have to go without *any* sort of food for a long time for it to do too much damage! If she's going to be a fussy eater, see if you can get her to take some sort of kid vitamins -- certainly wouldn't hurt! Raechel, the SMDGD, goes through this sort of thing once or twice a year -- she's now 5 1/2. DD is a chef -- a real live honest to gosh, graduated from the Culinary Institute, Chef and is a wonderful cook. She doesn't cook "odd" things at home so the kiddo is not expected to eat unusual things. But still the kid will decide that she doesn't like something (even if she hasn't tasted it) and will refuse to eat. Like Polly mentioned, she MUST take a tiny bite and if she decides she doesn't like it, then she doesn't have to eat it. This kid has gone to bed with no dinner many, many times and is no worse for it. This is a kid who will eat stuff like pickled herring, artichokes, brussel sprouts, liver...... but suddenly decides she doesn't like green beans or pasta or something truly "run of the mill"! We have never been able to understand why she gets in these food funks. When it happens, DD tells her that if she doesn't want to eat what has been prepared, then she doesn't really want to eat. No arguing, no fuss, just no food. Oh, and she not only gets to go food shopping, she usually helps cook the meal!!! A strange child to say the very least -- LOLOL! CiaoMeow >^;;^<
Ok I hear you. I think with her sometimes it is a power struggle, but not most of the time. It seems to be something else, like texture, or that it's everything in one bowl, or most of the time I feel it's just about being plain different. Something she doesn't eat on a weekly basis. I really try hard not to make this a power struggle. If this is about that it's just plain different, that she forgets she has had it before then should I make her eat it? At least some of it. If it's about texture, or smell I get that. I'm sensitive to smell since having so many kids. I've asked her over and over. All I get is I just don't like it. I've tried letting her watch me cook and occasionly letting her help so she can see what I'm putting in. I can't very well by serving soup when it's blistering hot outside so she remembers she likes soup all year round.
When it's someth> You aren't going to like my post. My son is 21. When he was small his
My oldest would eat ANYTHING as long as it was not baby food from the time she was itty bitty. My little one had food aversions and was a super picky eater. I would only make one meal. If he ate, he ate, if he didn't oh, well. As time went on he would try a new food here and there. Now is is 19 and he has a whole arsenal of likes-- usually expensive such as sushi, shrimp, etc. He only started eating chicken in the last few years. My suggestion is to make it, put a little on her plate and let her know that is dinner. I would tell my son he had to take 1 bite per age (in your daughter's case, 5 bites) and then he did not have to eat any more. Slowly, I noticed him asking for seconds or more. He was a skinny whinny until he turn 11 and then he started with his over eating. Good luck!
Had a Bro that ate nothing but PB&J sandwiches for a full year. No one said a word. Mom did discuss it with the Dr--Dr brought him in.,weighed him and his weight was fine. Said he would start eating other things when he was ready. He eats anything and everything cause there was NO BIG DEAL made over it.
Case in point: ((Our kids knew ahead of time we would have a fussy eater)) had company where the kid (4 years old) would only eat noodles with a certain amount of butter and salt and there was H to pay if Momma did anything else..too much salt, not enuf butter.. He was at our house, sat between our 2 middle school age kids. They loaded their plates...reach for peas."Hey you need some" (put a dab on the kids plate), reach for taters, "Here you didn't get any", then the 2 of them squabbled over the ONE chicken leg--Joe grabbed it, stuck it on the kids plate. He was the KING the rest of the meal. HE got the drumstick. Momma sat there with her mouth agape during the whole dinner. Fortunately she didn't say a word.
It's called *I* can control what goes into MY mouth and I can decide if *I* want to eat it or not.
STOP THE CONTROL Fight. Don't put anything on her plate. If she takes something IGNORE IT. just let her be. She'll be fine. If you don't now..she may be in a personal battle for the rest of her life.
This is one of those 'chose the battles carefully' OR for every action, she expects a reaction from you.
Do hope this helps some. I like Polly's idea of letting the child shop with you. you may be surprised at what she chooses.....then ask her to help you fix it. so what if its only cauliflower. it's a start.
Praying for your strength to get thru this bubble of stubbornness.
Butterfly (She may grow up to be a professional Chef)
It will take you a few days .maybe you need a different tactic right now. announce dinner ONCE. if she comes ok--if not IGNORE her. when you're done eating leave the table. twenty minutes later, remove the food. this means do NOT take anything off the table.not even your dishes. she may come, eat alone, and leave without saying a word. If she does ok.if not, still BE QUIET.
Sis had a super fussy kid that had severe food allergies. She id the leave the table routine.child took what she wanted. DSis kept notes of what she had.took it to the Dr and they discovered she could not digest gluten. Hard way of learning it.but the child is now in college.
I'm going to first say that I refuse to eat children. I think Ragmop likes them on toast. NOw I'll read you note.
Ok, I read. I spent almost every night at the table by myself because I didn't like the grub. Not sure why and I never was skinny so I must have eaten something. Now I am a stellar eater. I tease dad about how much energy he put into trying to get me to eat food I didn't want. He just makes some comment like 'brat'. DS was extremely picky about eating. I was kind of a short order cook for him. Probably a mistake but I like to eat food I like. Within reason I still try to serve folks food they at least remotely like. DS is now 6'2" and quite healthy. He is a good eater too.
I guess I am trying to say is this the battle you want to die for? Food is such a great thing I just hate to see it be a miserable time for what should be good family time. All kids go through some food phases. I doubt pb and j would kill her. Use whole wheat bread and sugar free jam, better yet teach her to make them herself. Popcorn is good fiber most kids will eat that might be good for her too. Good luck, teenage years are even more fun! Taria
Can you tell when she is resisting because she just can't abide the food versus when she is just being stubborn? If you can then I'd say...
If she does the two bites and then wants something later make her a snack plate of fruit and crackers (which aren't horrible by any stretch) for her dessert. When she's finished if she wants more use your judgement.
If she truly hated dinner then consider seconds.
If it seems more of a stubborn/power struggle game then the answer is "you should have eaten more dinner. I'm very sorry the kitchen is closed for the night"
Thanks, Taria, You've jerked me back into perspective. I should have been much kinder to Joanna. At least she's concerned and realizes that she has a problem. Waaaaay too many parents don't give a happy hoot where their children are or if they have anything to eat. And another too many are only happy if their children clean their plates and are dangerously overweight. Yesssss, indeed. Teenage years are coming. Ours weren't that bad but we did wonder if the day would ever come when we didn't have to park a block away because of the young folks crowd around our home. I wasn't a very good cook back then but I never did have to throw anything out. Mercy. Teenagers don't get full, they just get tired chewing. Polly
"Taria" I'm going to first say that I refuse to eat children. I think
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