My husband’s sister was a picky eater and one of his most vivid memories from childhood is the daily battle his parents had with her–screaming, tears,gagging until she threw up. She developed a near-phobia regarding food that she is still struggling with at thirty. So we want to avoid that if at all possible with our picky son who is interested in even fewer foods than your boys.

My husband and I generally eat healthy food and are very adventurous eaters (though we still like our junk food). We hope it eventually rubs off on him, but knowing my son, if we push him, he’ll push right back, so we try to stay mellow about it.

Waffles aren’t a snack in our house but they are breakfast. Daily. Only the Blueberry ones though. I would love my kid to eat healthy but I’m not going to fight him at this point. Last night he had a cheese stick and BBQ pop chips for dinner. And this morning he inhaled a bowl of Wholegrain Cheerios. Win some, lose some. And some kids will eat anything, like my nephew, and his parents are pickier than my toddler so they are just lucky!

Let me just say it cracks me up that people judge what your kids are eating. Hello. My 5 year old gets everything we are having put on her plate for dinner, which is normally meat, potatoes, veggies, and a roll. Ok her newest phase is she picks 1-2 things and makes a meal out of them (asking for seconds) but leaves everything else untouched. I don’t bat an eye at this, hey she ate! One hour later she may say she is hungry, Mkay–so we get her a snack. This is my third child the other two are 20 and 17…TRUST me when I say pick your battles. This is such a minor thing and they grow out of it, my seventeen year old eats like a thrasher. Your boys are fine, the ones judging…well who the hell knows what’s up with that?!

Man, you are so much better at saying what’s on my mind than I am. Thanks!

What IS the deal with people and food these days. It has gotten to be a crazy heated debate. Everybody is spouting off about how healthy they eat, publishing their meal plans, refusing to eat anything that isn’t organic and cage-free and grass-fed and gluten-free. It’s like eating healthy has become some sort of religion that I’m not quite devout enough to join.

People never cease to amaze me. I totally agree with you, I’m not going to have a big crying upset at dinner every night trying to force my son to eat something he doesn’t want. I’m happy if my kids are eating SOMETHING at this point (they’re 5 and 2). Yes, they eat goldfish and waffles and, OMFG, sometimes they have a donut!! I must be the worst mother ever!

I do like the grass-fed and the organic and the veggies and all that stuff….and it’s asshats like that woman who commented about the waffles that give people like me a bad name!!!!!! And I fully agree with those who say the food choices are getting like a religious affiliation which is why I don’t do much preaching. But I will say I get an equal amount of flack from friends and family for the choices I make–it seems there is just no “winning” (as if that were really the goal). No matter what direction you go, someone will have a problem with it. But those types of commenters just make me CRAZY. This waffle lady has been crouched in a corner waiting for DAYS for the opportunity to strike (talk do a dietician!!! Waffles are not a snack!!! What next?? Bacon grease in a sippy cup?!?)Linda, when I went through comments just now it seemed the vast majority were sane, non-idiots who seemed to be behind you, so take heart in that, at least.

almost forgot! Obviously the poster said that Triscuts are garbage has not tried the cracked pepper and olive oil flavour. Oh my yum. I can eat those suckers like potato chips!

Of course waffles are a snack – so are Danimals (that drinkable yogurt crap that I secretly covet), Quaker Oatmeal Squares cereal, cheese sticks and mac and cheese. And for dinner, my kid eats fish sticks and chicken nuggets AND greasy BEEF taquitos in CORN tortillas with RANCH DIPPING SAUCE. So there all you f-ing health freaks. Incidentally, he also drinks water by request, eats filet mignon, turkey tenderloin and chicken breasts, celery, bell peppers and I swear that he’s got the same hummus addiction that I do. You offer it, they try it, and sometimes we win and sometimes we don’t. I say, if they eat something, it’s a victory. You go, Linda. And I always want to eat those leftover bits, too. Especially the taquitos – YUM.

I’ve found my kid will eat stuff at school and daycare that he won’t touch at home. Go figure. At home he’s all about cheese, pickle, and mayo sandwiches on white bread. And yes, he’s already overweight at age 8, over 100 pounds and only 4’4″. He’s on ritalin, and somehow that makes kids fat. But the alternative is a boy who spins right out of the classroom. My little baby omnivore turned into a kid who just can’t be reasoned with. He won’t eat most fruits or veggies at all. I’m hoping that when he learns about nutrition on his own, he will learn to make his own healthy choices. I have to pick my battles carefully. My mom fighting me over food made me into a fat teenager who has had a lifelong weight battle of her own, and I dont’ want to set that sort of thing in motion for him. Fat runs in the family. He’s chunky now, but hopefully he’ll add some height without adding a bunch more weight and grow into his chub. Stupid ADHD and damn, damn DAMN autism.

My humble pie comes in the form of all the advice I gave to friends/sibs BEFORE I had kids. ;) My son was a crappy sleeper from 4 months on (worse I think than Dylan given what you’ve written), and has never been a huge fan of food. He prefers his calories in milk form (mama milk, cow’s milk). He’s a giant of a 2.5 year old and maybe his speech delay was related to interruppted nights sleep or too little solid food but I’m firmly in the “you can not make another human eat, sleep or go to the bathroom” camp. It’s just not possible.

For sleeping, we do whatever gets the most members of our house the most sleep. For food, we offer, he is allowed to refuse, end of story. He doesn’t eat a lot, but it isn’t generally for lack of trying on our part. When he’s hungry he’ll eat lots of foods, when he’s not, even his favorites hold little appeal. I try really hard not to sweat it.

You do what you can and hope for the best.

Yes, just…yes. I just do not have it in me to make food a battle. Neither do I want to spend my time crafting meals I KNOW my kids will not eat. I choose healthy options within their preferences, and just don’t stress about it. The other problem I have is that I am a very picky eater myself. I eat plenty of different foods and am healthy about it, but in order to enforce any kind of food rules I would have to be a HUGE hypocrite. So, instead I cook different meals, we all eat and are all healthy enough. I hate that people care so much about what we feed our kids, but I suppose it naturally stems from the whole breastfeeding v. formula debate. First world problems for sure.

LOVE THIS. And it’s pretty much exactly how we do things, so I can’t help but applaud.

I took a fabulous parenting course last year and the instructor’s opinion was that so many issues later in life around food (including obesity) was around the power struggles we have over food and the fact we FORCE kids to what we want and when we want (i.e 3 big meals a day when they aren’t designed for that schedule). We enforce the message that food is MORE than food – KWIM – its emotion, its power etc. It made so much sense to me.

Her approach was this: YOUR job (as a parent) is to provide healthy food. Then get out of the way. Its NONE of your business. When we eat dinner now we try to serve it “family style” where they get an empty plate and the food is served on bowls in teh middle. They help themselves. Also try to give them a “snack basket” (again full of healthy stuff that they can help select at the store) that is there’s to graze from as they need.

They will eat when they are hungry. Just make sure when they are ready its not lunchables of some such nonsense.

Also – my own trick was “give them dip”. They’d eat almost anything if they could dip it in something yummy. (strawberry yogurt? ranch?)

Recently I have become almost Vegan (still eat fish) and have never felt better…my husband on the other hand eats healthy but is so NOT vegan. My kiddo is 3.5 and exists on a diet of triscuits, tillamook sharp chedder, fruit, cream cheese, mac and cheese, plain pasta and a few other white flour products. People would have a field day with how a very healthy mama feeds her kiddo crap & junk but I am with you…the kiddo is so picky and at least he does eat (the things above) and he is full of energy, has perfect teeth and is seemingly in perfect health. When I was preggo I dreamed of making my kiddos own baby food and having him enjoy avocado sushi roles with mom by age 4…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ….BTW, he is almost 4 and does not sleep through the night, another bonus. Love my life and wouldn’t change a thing, no matter how many people weigh in on my kiddo’s eating habits.

Thx for being you & being open about all the facets of parenting.

WORD.
Seriously, my 6 year old daughter is PATHOLOGICALLY PICKY. And it still bugs me but I eat a wide variety of food in front of her and I offer it and she says no and eventually she will get sick of what she’s currently stuck on and move on to something else. Yes, it still bothers me and yes, I wish it was different but she is a smart, beautiful, healthy, growing, energetic, normal 6-year old and so what if she’s never eaten a vegetable??

I just try to remember that we have control of other areas of their behavior. They aren’t hitters or biters and they’re excellent sleepers (now, after some work at it) and they’re generally polite, well the eight year old is..the three year old…meh. But I’m 100% with you on meal times. We make something, they can eat it or not and if not, well cheerios later is ok with me too. I refuse to be tortured by their unwillingness to try things I find delicious because their palatte isn’t ready for it. I assume someday they’ll come home loving sushi and I’ll freak out about what they WILL eat instead of what they won’t.

Linda,

Don’t sweat this one. My son wouldn’t eat anything when he was a toddler/little guy. Now, he is 14 and eats anything – even escargot.

Linda, you are so effing awesome! Read your post and comments yesterday. Good grief; sooooo easy to judge. Love to see your response here. Made me chuckle…hard.

Okay, a second comment – sorry. I went back and read, um, about five of those snarky comments and I have to say that “Muffin” can kiss my ass, along with all of the other haters. I couldn’t bear to keep reading because I just get too pissed off. So high and mighty – “Why don’t you just make it yourself at home?” she says. Oh – just fuck you, lady, and your little yogurt-making jars. Linda, your article was fabulous – love the song!! So you just keep on truckin’ and writing those very real articles. Clearly it was meant to be comic relief but some people just cannot resist a chance to judge and criticize and put themselves on a pedestal. You rock.

So so so incredibly frequently when you post something about parenting your boys and I’m over here reading it thinking, “OH HELL YES. Exactly. Tohhhhtally.”

This post? OH HELL YES. Exactly. Tohhhhtally.

I was once married to a man who “grew up” on a parent enforced macrobiotic diet. When he hit middle school, he’d climb out of his bedroom window at night and go to McDonald’s and eat like there was no tomorrow. If all you eat is brown rice and miso, who wants to see tomorrow? He grew up to be a fantastic chef who loved locally grown, organic and healthy food and got paid well to make it. As an adult at home he ate the cheapest frozen pizzas cut into tiny bite sized squares and he was, well, a little overweight. We can blame parents, society, advertisers, food manufacturers, restaurants. Be they big or little, a person’s gonna eat what they eat.

Amen, sister. Just AMEN. My son gobbled up everything under the sun until about 2 years old. Now he gets by on a diet not unlike your sons’. I’m always afraid to admit to people that, “yeah, he had PB&J for all of his meals today”. Some people will look at you as if you have said, “I feed him junk food because I’m too lazy to care what he eats.” Food battles with children lead to an unhealthy relationship with food for adults. I’ll spare my kid. By the way, we just watched this great documentary (a little hokey but some good info in there): http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Fat-Head/70115017?trkid=438403#height1794

The humble pie, yes indeed. I was extremely fortunate that all four of ours were totally, completely different, so we never really fell into the trap of thinking it was something we did.

As for being picky, it’s usually best to mostly ignore it. Unless the kid is stuck on nothing but Froot Loops for a month (in which case, oops, we seem to be out of Froot Loops, sorry kid), who really cares. In a couple weeks it will probably change anyway. Once they get a little older, you can move on to “this is our dinner, you don’t like it, fine, make your own.” You still control the shopping…

Love, love, LOVE Kaire’s comment. As someone who’s suffered with weight issues since I hit puberty, I live my mother’s food insanity to this day, and the woman died going on 16 years ago.

My mom suffered from weight issues herself, and food was comfort, a drug, a battle, and a weapon. I still remember her telling me that by the time I was 30, I’d have a colostomy bag because I wouldn’t eat veggies. And this is the woman who’d literally eat 10 bags of Twizzlers in a week because the bag said “fat free”.

You rock so hard, Linda. I already look up to you as a writer, but you are a goddamn rock of common sense in this bat-shit crazy parenting world. Keep on keepin’ on.

The best way to get our son to eat something, is to put it on our plate.

My 10-month old will eat almost anything I put in front of her, which delights me. But I have heard that many kids, who previously ate all sorts of healthy, ethnic foods, go through a picky stage. So when my husband criticised some friends of ours for feeding their 3-yo chicken fingers for every meal, I had to warn him that this might someday also be our fate.

The comments on this post, BTW, have been invaluable and I will mentally tuck them away for when our family may be going through this. Knowing myself, I can definitely see some of those epic battles in the mealtimes of our future. Remembering some of the advice in these comments will help me chill out and just let it go sometimes.

Also, chances of getting my little man to eat something are greatly improved if I actually feed it to him. He’s too lazy to feed himself half the time. He’ll be 3 in May. Does anyone else help a child that age eat?

I laughed when I read the comment about bread and butter…my aunt used that exact tactic and apparently it worked for her, but I was thinking, man, I could eat bread and butter and nothing else and be pretty darn happy. Especially if it was yummy crusty french bread…mmm….

I was and still am fairly omnivorous.
My two younger brothers were another story. One ate everything slathered in Italian salad dressing for at least a few years. The other ate everything slathered in ketchup for at least a few years. Dips may be the way to go for some kids.

Booyah!

Have 2 teenagers and had similiar issues when they were younger. Decided to pick my battles and food was not going to be one of them….now I spend way more on food in a month than we do on gas for 3 vehicles and that’s saying something in this day and age!!!

I read your original post the other day and laughed along w/ it b/c I TOTALLY relate. Then I saw the comments and couldn’t believe the people going off about it. My kids are 6 and 4 and are pretty much on the same eating plan as Riley and Dylan. It is what it is. I can’t control it. I go back and forth w/ feeding them what I know they will eat versus giving them what we’re having w/ some fruit I know they’ll eat. I’m so tired of worrying about it or having people giving me advice on what I should do. Trust me, I’ve tried it and we’re doing what we can to raise happy, healthy, kids. Thanks for making me feel not alone w/ the eating issue!

Excellent post!

We keep a fruit bowl out on the table all the time. It is an assortment of fruit: a plum, an apple or two, a banana or two, grapes – whatever. Our “rule” is that you NEVER have to ask permission to eat a piece of fruit – you can have ANY fruit ANY time you want it. It works for us…

I should add that playmates to our house are incredulous about this “rule”.

I saw those comments on that post and thought they were ridiculous. Yes, I am careful about Goldfish crackers and mac n’ cheese because of the artificial colors, but that still doesn’t give me the right to be an asshole. Good grief.

Yikes, I meant to add that despite my concern with Yellow #5, we do have waffles on frequent rotation here. And not the fancy pseudo-good-for-you kind. The GOOD kind — Eggo. With REAL butter (the cow kind) and REAL maple syrup (the Canadian kind).

I will serve them for breakfast this morning. In your honor, Linda. :-)

I was, hands down, a card carrying judey pre-kid asshole. ASS. HOLE. I gave disapproving looks. I rolled my eyes. I actually compared raising kids to training a dog. As in, why haven’t you clicker trained that thing yet? I talked about food and plastic toys and junk and crap everywhere and boy oh boy I never once hesitated to tell everyone -EVERYONE- how I was never going to do THAT, SHEESH. I was going to not only be a back to the land organic farmer raising all my food, making all of my clothes, hand washing my cloth diapers and building furniture but my kids were going to sit down when they were told, say please and thank you and after that? Halos and rainbows were going to sprout from their asses. And OF COURSE we were going to co-sleep.

Enter my daughter: Infant Dick Cheney. That kid ruined my world with her absolute refusal to sleep or ever stop screaming. Three weeks into it I was buying Pampers by the metric ton, I had purchased TWO plastic made in china swings to motherofgodgetthiskidtofuckingSLEEP….and you know what, in the end, was the worst thing about it? The everloving goddamn Attachment Parenting Coven of Guilt I bought into. Honest to god sometimes I want to punch Dr. Sears in the face.

Now when some squirming whiney kid is refusing his food next to us out in public I’m like PSSST….I’ve got an extra bag of Cheezits, want some?

Yes! Totally agree! You can only offer nutritious food to your kids and hope for the best. My picky kid only eats carbs. Somehow they survive on 2 bites of dinner and still grow up heathy!

We also have a picky eater. We were saved early by Trader Joe’s Freeze-Dried fruit. Bananas, mangos, strawberries, blueberries. he lived on that stuff and milk for quite a while. And it packs well so less mess.
Amazingly, it was a song by that artist Eric Herman that got our kiddo to eat vegetables. Dunno why, but there it is. It took just a little bit of coaxing and singing the song a lot and suddenly he was a veggie eating fiend. He will now eat carrots, peas, green beans and occasionally broccoli!
The only meat this kid eats is (angus) hot dogs. We can’t get any other kind of meat/poultry/fish into him. He cries if he even sees fish sticks or chicken nuggets. Thank God for cheese sticks and macaroni and cheese.

Also meant to add, I got some great advice from…someone, once. There are three things you can’t make a child do until they are good and ready: potty train, sleep, and eat.
And I guess that includes eating more than 5 things.
One of the pediatricians in our group practice told us to cut back on the milk and make him eat what we wanted him to – just starve him out and bend him to our will. “He could skip a few meals and survive. After all, who is in charge here?” she said, or something along those lines. We haven’t had an appointment with her since then.

I just saw an ad for these. It made me laugh. http://www.snacknwaffles.com/

We are blessed with the best pediatrician on this planet. His words when our now-10-year-old was going through the picky eating toddler years: “she’ll eat if she’s hungry, don’t worry about it” … words to live by now that our younger son (5 years old now) is an even pickier eater than she has ever been. I cook a fairly healthy dinner each (well, most) nights and do our best to gently encourage them to at least try something new. If they don’t like it, it’s not the end of the world and certainly not worth ruining everyone’s meal. If that means cheerios at 8:00 p.m., so be it.

Thanks to emergency car and vet bills, I’ve been super broke this month. As a result, I’ve basically been eating the same diet that you say your boys are on for the last two weeks. By this morning I was feeling so ragged, I scraped together cash I probably should be spending on gas to buy 3 meals worth of fruit and veg.

After two weeks of mostly white carbs, pb&j, hot dogs, fish sticks, mac and cheese, tortillas, beans and multi-vitamins I went from being able to swim 60 laps an hour to being able to swim 40. That was pretty alarming.

It made me think, if there is any chance that maybe your kids (any picky kids, really) aren’t getting all the nutrients they need, try two weeks eating only what they eat. If you can totally function on their diet (doing Cross-fit and everything), then you know they are fine. If not then you need to implement a system where they at least have a couple bites of whatever is lacking from their diet, whether they like it or not, whether it is rough on you all or not.

Otherwise your kids won’t be able to play and learn like they should.

I grew up with the Joan Crawford of stepfathers. When I was a kid, my mom worked graveyard shift, and so it was my stepfather and I at home in the evenings. He was an excellent cook, and almost every night would make himself something fabulous. He’s set the table, sit down to eat his dinner, and would plop a microwaved turkey pot pie in front of me. Every. Single. Night. I HATED THEM! To my little kid palate, it tasted like vegetables swimming in SNOT GRAVY! I would gag and wretch, and beg and plead for a plateful of whatever he was eating. By the end of the meal, he’d clean up dinner, put my potpie in the fridge, and slide my chair into the corner of the kitchen, where I sat in ‘time out’ until bedtime. The potpie was waiting for me cold in the morning, for breakfast.
*shudder*

To this day, I can’t even look at a frozen potpie in the freezer section of the grocery store without gagging.
Fast forward to today…..I have a kiddo with special needs, one of which is texture sensory. Food is a PROBLEM. He has a very small repertoire of stuff he’ll eat, and I stopped making it into a battle a couple of years ago. He’s 10, and if he’s hungry, he will ask to eat. At this point, if he’ll eat it, I’ll feed it to him. Now and then he’ll surprise us by eating something we thought he wouldn’t, but it’s not frequent. I’m trying *very* hard to keep food from being a bigger battle than it already is for him. God knows I have my own food issues, and I’m terrified to pass any of that on to him.

And count me in as one of those pre-parenthood assholes. I knew EVERYTHING about parenting, until I became a parent. I know less 10 years in, than I ever have. I have actually apologized to my best friend repeatedly over the years for being a know-it-all asshole. We’re all doing the best we can.

My three kids used to eat EVERYTHING! Fruits, veggies, ethnic food, spicy food. Now my oldest is 9 and wants nothing but noodles every night. We don’t let her get away with it– she’s served what we’re all served. But still, if she could, she would just subsist on noodles.

If your kids are healthy, fighting over food isn’t worth it. Particularly since when they get older, they may flip you the bird and only eat 2 foods anyway.

“I will not ruin everyone’s evening by getting into a pissing match with a stubborn kid over something he refuses to try, nor am I willing to forgo their meal altogether in the name of my own nutrition goals.”

“Why would anyone assume this is because I’m lazy, or haven’t tried other things?”

These two comments really resonate with me. I have three kids – almost 6, 3 1/2, and 18 months. The 6 year old won’t try anything, and never has, and it was with her that we have had EPIC dinner battles. My younger two are not nearly as picky, thank goodness, but it is still hard to get them to try new things. We have a pantry full of goldfish, cereal bars, granola bars, peanut butter, mac and cheese, and assorted snack-y type foods and I am not ashamed to admit that these are the foods my kids eat more often than not. I try to ensure they’re eating a couple of servings of fruit and vegetables everyday, but there are a lot of days when that doesn’t happen. But like another commenter said, since they are constantly on the move, I’m not too worried about them becoming obese!

I would like to respond to Rachel – do you have any children? Have you spoken to a pediatrician? Do you have personal experience with a child who refuses to let anything she deems “icky” pass her lips? Have you ever held down a child at dinner and force fed her broccoli? Have you ever done that every.single.night. for weeks until you realize that each night is worse than the last?

Kudos to you if you have won the food battle with your child. But don’t judge the rest of us for choosing a different battle to fight with our children.

Of course you want your kids to eat a balance diet, but not every child will. I have one adventurous eater and one picky eater and we have raised them the same way serving the same kind of food. My pediatrician said that kids can survive on bread and vitamins. And those who judge others, I am sure you have other issues with your kids that people would be horrified by. We are not perfect and our kids are not either!

you tell it, sister!!!! thanks so much for just laying it out there……

Thank u for sharing. I completely agree with u!!!