Getting A Toddler to Eat

It is most likely not the case with Bella Dea, but moms who are finicky eaters and communicate that through word or behavior to their kids are more likely to have kids who are finicky eaters. Even worse are those moms who cater to their kids finicky patterns until some real food phobias develop. I know a few cases where the mom explains that her kid won't eat anything but french fries or potato chips or pizza so thats what she feeds him/her; otherwise 'she will starve'.

The advice of others here has been good. If your little one is healthy and not losing weight, s/he is absolutely positively not 'starving' despite mom's perceptions. (She probably doesn't need a sweater just because Mom feels chilly either.) Limit any between meal snacks to healthy choices. If baby refuses fine; she is not hungry. Offer a reasonable number of healthy, nutritious food choices for meals and let the child decide how much s/he wants to eat.

I do believe the more that an issue is made, the less likely it is to resolve itself naturally and in a healthy manner. Force feeding kids or critters is rarely ever a good idea.

You're doing fine Mom. Chill and believe.

Bella Dea, we are raising our 3 year old grandchild that we've had since birth, and she used to love everything! When she was just 2 years old, she absolutely LOVED salsa (medium heat!), tartar sauce, and anything else that had "punch and flavor"!! Now, she's at the, 'I don't want anything ' stage! The pediatrician told us that the human body is an amazing thing, and that toddlers are also pretty amazing.....Although they may not be able to put into words exactly what they want or need, their body automatically does it for them as far as nutritional needs go! He told us not to worry about it at all, but to give her choices. A lot of times she refuses to try something that she considers new, but we know that she has eaten and enjoyed earlier in her life, such as cooked carrots with butter. When I want her to eat something she's had before, OR something brand new, I will put just a little of it on my finger and when she least expects it, I get a small taste of it between her lips! If I succeed with it in one attempt, she USUALLY finds that she likes it, and then she opens her mouth right away for another bite! It has really worked well for us. If she decides she DOESN'T like it, then that's it for the time being. We don't force the issue at all. The other thing we do is put her small containers of yogurt on the lower shelves of the fridge so that she can get her own snack. She loves having that choice, AND we have sippy cups of either white milk or chocolate flavored soy milk AND small bottled water available for her. She gets her own spoon out of the drawer and selects her snack from the fridge or off the table (usually an apple or a small box of raisins). It gives her a sense of independence, and she ALWAYS brings it to us before she eats or drinks it. One of the things she's going thru right now is, not liking meat very much. I think they get tired of chewing it! One thing she LOVES as far as meat goes, is the Banquet Salisbury Steak frozen dinners. They are perfect size and are quite user friendly for her! She also likes the Banquet Mac 'n' Cheese. Ours is finally coming around.....hang in there, yours will too!

This article seems really useful to me -

6 Food Mistakes Parents Make

NY Times, Tara Parker-Pope, in the Health section

I remember that article, it's a good one! (The link didn't work for me, here's another):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/health/healthspecial2/15eat.html

It reminds me of a major component of my ice cube tray method that I left out -- dips! Something about taking food and dipping it in something else is very, very attractive to toddlers.

Couldn't get the page to load, Osso, but will try later.

Another thought emerging from ancient memory here is that I was a working mom or took in kids to baby sit to make some extra money. That meant I didn't have a lot of time to fret over my own kids at mealtimes. Each was using their own spoon to feed themselves at or shortly after age 1. By 1-1/2 each was using their own baby fork to eat solid foods--much easier for them to use than a spoon for lots of foods. Sometimes I think when you try to feed a kid after a certain age, it becomes a contest of whether he will do as he pleases or you will continue to rule the spoon or whatever. Once he realizes he better feed himself or go hungry, he usually will.

Uh oh. Well, it just opened for me now, but maybe it's my magic mouse.

It didn't work for me either.

Yours probably works for you because you were logged into the site as a subscriber to search for the article. Sozobe's link is direct and doesn't require a login before displaying the article.

Oh, beg pardon. I didn't notice that Sozobe had posted it already. (Thanks for the clue.. plus maybe I've been doing that with other links. Oy vey.)

No, I'm a subscriber too (and was logged in) and it didn't work ... I've noticed problems with full urls from NYT articles before, I always cut stuff off after the "html".

To clarify, I'm registered but I don't buy the hard copy paper, much as I'd like to (don't know if you do, Soz).

Funny, if they wanted people to register to see it, wouldn't they put a window up?

maybe it's my magic evil mouse in action, thwarting others.

To riff from this (excuse me, a definite tangent) my computer saves things with my original code name and a bunch of 20%s in a web archive. I wish it would just save the damned url. So, in this case, to post, I looked the article up a second time and used that url, which had no ref to 'moi'. I think that usually works, and if it doesn't, then a lot of my links won't work.

That is the best idea EVER. I am totally going to try that.

Thanks!!!!

Cool! Hope it works..!

Now, that's just being silly. Everyone knows that a decent chef will only do medium-rare.