Zipping the Lips!

Try www.BabyBites.info. My friend Joann solved this problem with her grandchildren. Now she has a book and website and interviews on this topic.

Keep on with your eat or don't eat! Stick with that as kids at that age have a LONG waiting period before they realize they won't win. For your younger one you can get pediasure or supplements to make sure he has the calories he needs. I am guessing your 1 1/2 year old is just copying his older brother!!!!!! So empower your oldest to be a better example. Boys thrive on charts, put up a GOOD EATING Chart, so they earn points for them trying new things and eating well. Read a book about what the foods do for their bodies! My son will eat almost any veggie due to what they do for our bodies, seriously! He asks with every meal what food has what vitamins and what it helps inside him! :) We got a cool book from Scholastic both love to learn about why eating healthy is important.

As far as casseroles, my kids are GREAT eaters but don't like them so I just don't make them. My son doesn't like mayo salad things like potato salads or tuna salads, but my daughter loves them. I make them and he doesn't have to have them that night and I will make him a salad and baked potato or something else. I don't do two dinners but knowing what I know about my kids prep myself that if I want to cook something I know two of us like and the third one has tried it several times then I allow that.

Let kids have a few things they don't like so they don't like casseroles, don't make them.

Do not cater, I don't do that either. Allow them but put up a chart of six or seven things each they do not like and allow that not to be eaten.

My son hates fish, I cook fish, he has tried it and now will finally eat salmon but no other seafood, so the nights I fix it, I make him something else like another meat. Not a biggie, he tried it over and over and doesn't like it.
He will eat spinach salads, all veggies for the most part so I am not going to argue about fish! :)

My daughter doesn't like some mexican foods really, so when I fix it, my son and I eat it and I make her a turkey cheese sandwich, here again is a child that eats a wide varitety of almost everything and loves veggies so I let her have that one. It is okay not to like everything but then once you have establish those few things they can have on their list that is it! They need to eat well or not at all, period.

Dessert is a huge bargaining tool for my kids and they both love a bedtime snack of toast or cereal and that will not happen if they didn't eat, it took a while but they know they have to clean their plates or nothing else. I give them portions reasonable for their age and they have to eat or wait until morning.

It is so hard when you have one underweight...I went through the same thing. A couple of tips...we can't make them eat, no matter how much we might want to...so don't let it become a battleground. At my house, you have to try dinner, then you can have a yogurt if you want. That way, they get some nutrition, I don't have to cook separate meals, and the bitty ones get some calories. Good luck.

R., this is easier said than done and it sounds like you are already doing it but if my picky eater doesn't eat, he waits until snack time for a healthy snack. A child WILL NOT starve themselves to death. They will eat when they get hungry. Sounds like food has turned into a power struggle. If you can afford it, I would recommend a food consult with a professional who can help straighten out these kind of issues. I know one who is quite reasonable. Email me on the side if you are interested.

My kids didn't like foods of different colors to be touching each other or mixed in with each other when they were little. They do better if I limit the number of colors in their meal.

This will help:
ignoring the 4 yr old......each time you put a plate of food in front of your 1.5 yr old say, "Look - YUMMY!!" get your younger child to say "yummy". Take a bite and say, "I like it! It's yummy". Get your child to say "yummy."

If they're not quite old enough to say "yummy" try "yum" or even "mmmmmmmmm". The point is to teach them to say the food is good before they even taste it....and then again after they taste it.

Once your younger child is on board, turn to the 4 yr old and say, "see, ______ likes it! It's yummy." Then turn back to your younger child, take another bite, and say "yummy!"

The 4 yr old should be made to atleast try the food. If he likes it, encourage him. Ask, "is it yummy or yucky". If he says yucky, say "Mommy likes it, _______ likes it. It's yummy!" Then ignore the 4 yr old...and say "yummy" to the 1.5 yr old....and keep eating while watching the younger child.

etc

Good Luck :)

Check the book "Deliciously Deceptive" it is about making veggie purees and hiding them in things like mac and cheese. It has gotten rave reviews and the kids never taste it!

My son just turned 5 and he is the same way. I talked to the doctor because he would eat a peanut butter and honey sandwich for all three meals of the day. The doctor said that this is pretty normal until they are about 6. My son is about 30 lbs. He is tall and skinny. I just tell him that he needs to eat like the big people if he is going to kindergarten like the big people. This has helped a lot, but he still has his days. The pediatrician gave me a prescription for chewable multi-vitamins with flouride and I make sure he gets one every day. I would think that the younger one is probably learning his pickiness from the older one so if you can get the older one to change it will help. Sometimes I tell my son that I am making Krabby Patties like Spongebob and that helps. Maybe they would like one of those vitamin drinks. Don't beat yourself up over it. My 14 year old can eat me out of food, but only the non-veggie kind. It does get better. Kids prefer certain things over others just like we do. When my daughter got older and could understand the importance of a healthy diet was when I noticed a big change in her.

There are some who say that picky eating is a sign of food sensitivity. Apparently, if a child has just a few foods they'll eat consistently, it's very possible that they are actually sensitive to those foods and if you remove them from their diet they may be suddenly open to trying all sorts of different foods!

I'm in a group on Yahoo where they talk a lot about this stuff. It's called foodlab, if you're interested.

My only other suggestion is to put out one food, say carrots, but in as many different forms as you can. See if there might be one particular way that they like it.

Best of luck!

I'm not a big sweets person, but I have found it helps to offer incentive. "We're all having pudding, so if you eat _____, you may have some, too." We use different incentives, but usually a real desert, as that's a special thing. We went through a time with both our boys that we had to offer desert almost every meal. Now we're back to once in a blue moon. One treat that I've never really understood is Kiwi. For whatever reason, that is incentive to eat. For all 3 of my kids. I put a fruit or veggie on the table with every meal, three times a day. There is never any comment from my end. Nobody is required to take any, although, they do have to eat what they serve themselves. Usually, the kids will eat it. I think just because it isn't an issue. I just put back what isn't eaten and serve it again another time. Carrot sticks are very popular for that, as are grapes. Strawberries are more hit or miss, although my boys prefer them to not be cut up. I guess there's something cool about eating around the stem. The same goes for getting to pick the grapes off. GL!

My 5 year old is a very picky eater. He does not like his food mixed and to be truthful neither do I. I learned to eat only one part of even casserole at a time picking each food out and eating all of it before moving on. To help my son learn the same technique I do make casserole and other mixed foods because my husband loves them but when I serve them to my son I put each part in a seperate pile on his plate. It does take a bit more time but he has learned how to eat different textures and try new parts of a dish. Sometimes now he will ask for it to be, "like Daddy" which means served all together. We do not allow the word yuck at the table. The kids always say thank you even if they don't like it. We also started with he had to look at a new food. The next time it was served he had to lick it. The next time taste it but he could spit it out. If after the 4th time, he still didn't want to eat it that recipe was put out of rotation for a few months and we tried again later. It has taken awhile. He rarely ate anything with texture before he was 2. My pediatrition nearly had us see an occupational therapist but we tried this method first and it works for us. We also don't serve anything else until the next mealtime.
I have a friend that spent 2 weeks using the eat it now or eat it at the next meal technique. I could never do it but she stuck it out, served creamed spinach for 2 days over and over before her son would eat it. Now he will eat anything the first time it's served. I felt bad for him because I wouldn't want to eat that either especially by the 5th time it was served but it did work for her after a lot and I mean a lot of tantrum throwing.

Maybe you could also have some Ensure on hand, especially for the little one, to make sure they get enough calories and nutrition.

I agree with Kristy, get rid of your frustration and just let it go. Try to avoid power struggles at all costs. They will eat if they get hungry and you can offer them healthy choices when they are. Don't give in and give them ice cream at those times. Give them two choices of healthy items that you know they like. But really the more frustrated you become, the more they will fight you on it. It is a control issue. They can control you with their eating behaviors and they know it. Let it go. If you model, healthy eating habits, then in the end, that's what they will have too. If you model that meals and mealtimes are frustrating, they will believe the same. Good luck!

You're doing all the right things...toddlers can be illogically picky. Just stick to your guns and eventually they will grow out of it. Give yourself time.

My 3 year old is exactly the same way. He has always been on the thin side and we've struggled with getting him to eat ever since we introduced real foods.

We are lucky because he does really like carrots (only raw), corn on the cob, and cucumbers. But we've always had a hard time getting him to eat meat. He just recently starting taking small bites of cheeseburgers and hotdogs, but nothing else. The corn on the cob is pretty new too.

The other day he tried spaghetti for the first time (and really liked it), but that was only because that's what they were eating on Blues Clues.

There are some days when he hardly eats anything (a little bit of banana, some crackers and milk....ALL DAY!) and I get really worried and frustrated. My doctor always tells me that kids will NOT starve themselves and as long as what he does eat is marginally balanced and he stays on his own weight curve then he's fine, but it's still frustrating to not be able to feed your child what you think they need.

I know that for him alot of times it is a texture thing (he HATES mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese) and I've NEVER been able to get him to eat any kind of casserole. Alot of times he will at least try a bite if he helps me make it, but more often than not one bite is where it ends.

There is a website called www.sneakychef.com that has some helpful advice/recipes. More than anything, I've tried to stop tearing my hair out about it and focus on what he WILL eat rather than what he won't and then try to make that as balanced as possible.

I've given up on trying to get him to eat everything that we eat because it was just getting ridiculously frustrating....for him AND us. I try to introduce at least one new thing every week, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, but we're much less stressed over it and he is much happier.

I hope you can find some peace and a solution that works for both kids. I have another baby coming in September and I'm praying that this one will be a little more into food. It must be so hard to have two to fight with. I can't imagine! Good Luck!

This is one thing I would do differently if I were starting over raising my kids. Don't fight with your kids about food! Offer lots of different healthy foods for meals and snacks and encourage them to eat at least one bite, but beyond that, leave them alone and let them figure it out. They won't starve, and fighting about it turns it into a long-term problem for them rather than a toddler thing. I've been amazed at how their eating habits change as they get older if I let them make their own decisions.