2 Year Old - Picky Eater - Sometimes Only Snacks

Stop the snacks!!! This will not be "only a phase" if you keep giving in. Offer him a variety of healthy foods...if he is hungry enough he will eat. My friend's just celebrated the fact that their 9 year old daughter just ate her FIRST meal of non chicken McNuggests since she was 2!!! Not kidding.

Kids will not starve themselves, but you have to offer some variety and not give in. Eat only at meals...unless they do eat well and try EVERYTHING, then "a" snack is o.k. Otherwise nothing until the next meal - no matter what. You need to be strict, and know that eventually he will eat if hungry enough...and he will be healthier if you start this process now. The longer you wait the harder it becomes.

I echo what the others have said...you need to learn to cook...even basic things are better than the fast food that you are offering to him on a daily basis. It is healthier ( and cheaper!!) to eat at home...for you, your husband and your child. Get a slow cooker...and a slower cooker recipe book...start dinner before you leave for work and when you get home you will have a delicious dinner waiting for you.
Children at this age tend to "graze" instead of sit down to 3 meals a day. My grandson loves to have fresh fruit ( grapes, oranges, strawberries, any type of fresh berry) for a snack a dozen times a day. He loves yogurt with fresh fruit mixed in it. He also loves fresh veggies...avocado...celery...carrots...
Don't offer him fattening foods...offer him healthy things...and YOU eat them too...
Baked chips and hummus...one of his favorites!!
You need to change your habits if you expect your son to change his habits...they learn by observing us and mimicking what they see.

Hi J.,

First, learn to cook. It's less better for your health than what you may be getting out. Have your child help in the kitchen wth age appropriate duties.

http://thesneakychef.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Deceptively-Delicious-Simple-Secret...

http://thepaleodiet.com/

http://www.paleodiet.com/

Good luck,
: ) M. D.

Learn to cook! Seriously, it's so easy! When I got married I barely ever cooked. I didn't know how and found the whole thing very very daunting. My grandmother gave me some cookbooks and a set of pans and told me to get cooking! I started with really really simple recipes from kraftfoods.com. The recipes on there are really really really easy to follow and most are pretty quick. They use ingredients that are easily found too. They also have a feature on their website that's called something like "5 nights one bag." It's 5 nights of meals with just a few ingredients. It REALLY helped me get my feet wet when it came to cooking. Also, most of the recipes only use one pan or one pot.
Eating out is expensive and very unhealthy. You can't control how the food is prepared or what goes into it. You might think you're being healthy by eating chicken, but the amount of calories, fat and sodium restaurants squeeze into their dishes is frightening! Look up "Eat this not that" and you'll see what I mean.
Once you get a feel for cooking, it's actually a lot of fun! I love making meals for my family.
As far as the snacks...stop! Just stop giving him snacks. He's not eating because he doesn't have to. He knows that you'll give him a snack. Heck, I wouldn't eat either! So, just stop! If he doesn't want to eat, then so be it. Take the food home. When he complains that he's hungry again, take out the food and reheat it. He can eat that or nothing. He knows how to manipulate and get his way. Put your foot down. You are the parent. You make the rules. Now enforce them.

First off, STOP going out to eat! Make nutritious foods at home! Do NOT make a special meal for him OR give him snacks close to meal time. Serve what you are having and if he doesn't eat, then he doesn't eat. He can eat at the next MEAL (no snacks if he doesn't at least TRY his food!)

A rule of thumb that I go by for meals I make is to have at least:

*ONE Beverage (milk or water)
*ONE bread type item
*ONE meat/protein
*TWO fruits/vegetables (any mix)

Our typical family meal always includes salad (with fixings) AND at least ONE other fruit or vegetable and a lot of times TWO other!

IF/WHEN you do go out to eat, DO NOT BRING SNACKS! If he doesn't eat his meal, take it home and when he gets hungry you can warm it up in the oven.

Just keep offering him FOOD and not so many snacks. Our kids get ONE snack per day. USUALLY a bedtime snack. They eat their 3 meals just fine. I usually make our food from scratch as well. Not hard! Just look up some recipes.

My son is 2.5 and food used to be a battle. Trying new things didn't work, and I hated the constant fight at the table, so we did what everyone says not to! We ask him what he wants. We have given him his own dinner because we eat after his bedtime, and don't have much time with him at night after work. He definitely gets in his ruts and will eat the same thing 4 days in a row. But you know what? He is soooo much more likely to try new things now. When we are cooking on the weekends, he will see something and ask to try it. This isn't everything, but it is an improvement, and evenings are so much more pleasant. Plus, he picks the main thing (unless he is really particular - grilled cheese, blueberries, and applesauce), and we can include whatever extras we want.

I wouldn't sweat it. If you offer him a variety, he'll eat what he wants. As long as the choices you present to him are healthy, don't stress about it. Where does he fall in the weight chart? If he's in the healthy range, tell your parents that everything is fine.

My 2 year old is alos a picky eater. Last night i made chicken, carrots, and potatos. All he ate were the carrots. This morning I made him oatmeal. He took one bite and wouldn't eat anymore, he is now sitting on the couch eating dry cheerios and apple cider. We eat very healthy, there is rarly any junk food here and when there is it is hidden from the kids and uasualy ends up going bad. I don't worry to much about it because i know what he is snacking on is at least healthy. I do make him sit at the table with his food untill everyone else is done though and sometimes as he is sitting there he will eat.

Most "typical" kids have an amazing drive to live and thrive, and that means that they'll eat what's available to them rather than go hungry. My advice... serve three meals and two or three snacks each day, on a schedule. For each meal and snack prepare two or three foods and put a small amount of each on his plate. Put the plate on front of him and let him eat what he wants. Don't say anything about the food (either praising, begging, negative, etc... just say nothing). You eat the same foods to set a good example. For lunch and dinner make sure you serve a carb, a protein, and a veggie. For snacks serve a fruit and some kind of a "snacky" food (cheese stick, cheerios, animal crackers, etc). If he finishes EVERYTHING on the plate, then make him another plate with all three foods again... but he has to finish everything. If he's actually hungry he'll eat his less favorite foods. At the same time, keep in mind that just like there are foods that you truly dislike, he'll also have foods that he just doesn't like, so in those few cases try to be sensitive and offer an alternative option. But mostly he's just being picky just to be picky. Also remember that it can take about 10 exposures to a food for a child to truly like or dislike it, so just because he doesn't eat it once doesn't mean you should stop serving it. Wait another week or two and then offer it again.

There is a great book by William G Wilkoff, MD called Coping with a Picky Eater that every parent or provider of kids should read and have a copy of. http://www.amazon.com/Coping-Picky-Eater-Perplexed-Parent...

This book has what I call the Picky Eater Plan. I have used this plan with kids that literally threw up at the sight of food and within 2 weeks they were eating normal amounts of everything and trying every food.

First you need to get everyone who deals with the child on board. If you are a provider it's ok to make this the rule at your house and not have the parents follow through but you wont' see as good results as what I described up above.

The plan is to limit the quantities of food you give the kid. When I first start with a child I give them literally ONE bite worth of each food I am serving. The book suggests that every time you feed the kids (breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner) you give all 4 food groups. So, for lunch today I would have given the child one tiny piece of strawberry, one spoonful of applesauce, 3 macaroni noodles with cheese on them, and 2 oz of milk. Only after they ate ALL of what was on their plate would you give them anything else. They can have the same amounts for seconds. If they only want more mac and cheese, they only get 3 noodles then they would have to have more of all the other foods in order to get more than that. If they don't eat, fine. If they don't finish, fine. Don't make a big deal out of it, just make them stay at the table until everyone else is done eating. They don't get more food until they are sat at the next meal and they only get what you serve. When I first do this with a child I don't serve sweets at all. So no animal crackers for snack but rather a carrot for snack. Or one of each of those. I don't make it easy for them to gorge on bad foods in other words. Now if they had a meal where they ate great then I might make the snack be a yummy one cause I know they filled up on good foods.

Even at snacks you have to limit quantities of the good stuff or else they will hold out for snack and just eat those snacky foods. I never give a picky eater the reward of a yummy snack unless they had that great lunch prior to it.

It really is that easy.

ps - proper eating schedule for under 5 yrs old - times are just for demonstration purposes to give amount of time between things
7 eat breakfast
8:30 snack
11 lunch, followed by nap
3 snack
5:30 dinner, no further food for the day unless under 2 yrs old, then a bedtime snack is ok

First of all, sorry that alot of these posts are mean. Not what I expect from other moms. Cooking is difficult if you have a tight schedule and no one lives your life but you, so no one should judge. I've had this problem and reducing snacks and amount of snacks helps. Also, if you can try to make your snacks as healthy as possible. I have 2 kids that can be picky. I have learned to say- this is your meal, no choices. Sometimes they don't eat it, but I don't make them anything else. They won't go hungry. Also, don't ever live by "clean plate club" and make a child finish their plate- all it causes is overeating and obesity. As they get older you can insist they try a bite of everything- I started this with my older one at about 4. Last, another suggestion I have learned is to make rules and stick to them just like you always put your child in a car seat- that is never compromised. Do the same w/other rules and stay strong :) Good Luck.

In my experience, the only way to change a child's diet is to make them eat what you serve. Nothing else!

Snacks are fine if they grow out of the ground or come off a tree. Prepackaged snacks are dangerous long term. His size right now shouldn't be as much of a concern as what is happening to him on the inside. The damage that is done by food isn't ever what you can see with your eyes.

If he is hungry, he will learn to eat what you serve. Serve him what you eat. He is old enough and it is worth it! If your diet is poor, his diet will be too. Best of luck!

I know that it is a phase. It seems like all my kids had that stage. You need to keep trying to feed him the same foods and limit snack late in the afternoon. Try a variety of dinner and veggies. Our kids were better by 3. During the day, give him yogurt. If he is not allergic, you can give him nuts or peanut butter. One of my kids loved hummus dip. Protein substitutes during the day should help learn the blow.

Food made by restaurants is geared to make us crave only specific tastes. This may be why you see his tastes changing so drastically now that he is off baby-foods (which are generally REAL food.)

A slowcooker is a great thing to have for busy moms. You can put a roast or whole or cut-up chicken in with whatever veggies you like (ie- put in chicken breasts, cut up carrots, mushrooms, celery, potatoes and about 1 cup of water, 2 tsp salt, 2 tsp garlic powder and a few dashes of oregano and a couple of pats of REAL butter and turn on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4 hours.) When you come home, you have an instant dinner waiting for you and the meat is tender and flavorful. Leftovers can be mixed with broth and tomatoes or spaghetti sauce for a completely different meal. And these are ones that won't fill him with artificial colors/flavors/MSG/preservatives that are destroying his ability to taste REAL whole foods.

You can present a meal in a snack-like fashion, like putting tiny cubed up apple on a toothpick (assuming he is okay with toothpicks- definitely supervise!) and letting him graze is totally fine- bellies are still tiny and they burn a lot of calories that need refueled throughout the day.

My kids don't get fruit without protein and we don't eat any wheat/gluten or white sugar at all. Meat at my house gets mixed with bone marrow or organ meat, but I realize we are rather extreme in how we eat. I also put fresh ground flax into everything I can- especially smoothies and homemade muffins. Lots of protein helps keep us all from depression and on even tempers, and the loads of Omega 3's we get helps keep all systems healthy and from being inflamed.

The #1 most important thing though is stop eating from restaurants. It's true what they say about shopping only the edges of the grocery store. If you start eating fresher, more whole foods, you will see his palate change and he will be healthy, even if he is still a :"little" guy according to the charts.

:)
M.
my food blog: www.chickiepea.wordpress.com

I would see what happens if you cook more at home and reduce the snacking. If his current pattern of food persists, then I would have him evaluated by an OT (via a referral from your pediatrician) to see if there is an underlying swallowing or sensory issue affecting his ability to try and eat different foods.
Best of luck!