Daughter doesn't eat

amother

Sun, Jan 15 2023, 5:58 pm

My 4 year old refuses to eat anything healthy.
All she eats is cereal, yogurt, crackers, deli, sometimes chicken and nosh of course.
How can I get her to eat healthier?
I offer her many choices but she will refuse and will end up eating crackers.

amother

Forestgreen

Mon, Jan 16 2023, 5:10 am

Will she eat soups? Can you put spreads on the crackers? Also, seconding the you can easily hide veggies in muffins. I also add shredded veggies to meat balls if she’ll eat that. Or blended into the red sauce. You can add a whole zucchini to a potato kugel without changing the flavor or texture

amother

Mon, Jan 16 2023, 5:14 am

Thanks for ideas!
I'll definitely try the smoothies and muffins.
I have tried ww muffins but she didn't like them.

Curious why you would ask about GI issues? She does complain of stomach pain frequently.

amother

Lightcyan

Mon, Jan 16 2023, 5:32 am

amother OP wrote:

If she's not eating any real fiber.

amother

Indigo

Mon, Jan 16 2023, 5:48 am

It sounds like she’s restricting to highly palatable foods, which is what a lot of kids do as long as that option is available. Most kids won’t choose broccoli and salmon, or grilled chicken and butternut squash, if they know crackers and strawberry yogurt will appear shortly if they just hold out a bit. It’s not necessarily a conscious choice process. Personally, if I ruled out medical issues like allergies, intolerances, reflux, and also oral issues like tongue restriction, and if she wasn’t at a dangerously low weight, I would remove those options for 3 days and see what happens.

amother

Mon, Jan 16 2023, 6:08 am

She won't touch soup.
She used to like peanut butter on the crackers but now gave that up also.
I talk alot about the food groups and how we need fruit and vegetables in our diet but she still won't touch it.
I read somewhere that in order to get children to eat veggies you should serve it even though they won't eat it. And after 3 times of it sitting there they will warm up to it.
Anyone tried this?

omega

Mon, Jan 16 2023, 6:12 am

I personally don't make a fuss about what the kids eat as long as it's healthy. Maybe remove the sugared food from the house. She can have whole wheat crackers for supper. One of my kids only ate soup at a certain point. I hid pieces of shredded chicken in it and he didn't make a fuss. Maybe do rule out sensory issues. Some kids avoid certain textures and as soon as they get used to it they start eating it. Pay attention to that. She may also wanna feel the food with her hand first. Experiment with her. My kids all outgrow it very fast. Still picky but they eat bh

amother

Hyacinth

Mon, Jan 16 2023, 6:20 am

I did these three things:
1) had fruits and vegetables washed, cut up, and out in the open
2) rewarded for tasting a bite of new foods and a bigger reward for finishing a small portion
3) didn't have as much of a variety of the highly processed foods in the house.

The picky son is now 10 . He went from only eating highly processed foods, tomatoes, and chicken to eating meat, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, cheese, chicken soup, scrambled eggs, red peppers, grapes, blueberries, fruit smoothies. Just last week he actually had a bite of salmon and received a kite.
Still not a ton, but enough to make a balanced diet.

amother

IndianRed

Mon, Jan 16 2023, 6:32 am

I always place everything in their plate but they can remove it or leave it at the side if they don't want it. It's no magic but my 5 year old is starting to taste more foods.
I am a fussy eater and I don't like any cooked or baked veggies besides potatoes so I offer a lot of fresh veg or on their plate or on a central platter (it always gets emptied!) Or a salad (the young ones don't like this).
Also when my 5 year old was 3 he was really difficult and I felt that first I need to make sure that he is eating and sleeping normally so I packed away all biscuits from my snack drawer into the freezer which was out of sight for him and not so accessible. In the drawer I only left dried fruit and rice cakes. I really felt it made a difference because he stopped snacking.

amother

Purple

Fri, Feb 03 2023, 11:41 am

I have a child with poor eating habits and severe behavioral issues. I realized that often he was starving and when he was starving, his behavior was out of control. It got to a point where I didn’t care what he ate as long as he ate something. He didn’t even realize that he was so hungry. I was fine with cereal, crackers and whatever else he was interested in. Once in a while he would eat an apple cut up sometimes he dipped in honey, he wouldn’t drink milk so every once in a while he drank chocolate milk. Main thing was that he shouldn’t get to the point where he was hungry and out of control. My doctor said that as long as he’s growing, was he n the normal percentile for weight and was generally healthy I did not need to worry.

amother

SandyBrown

Fri, Feb 03 2023, 11:46 am

amother OP wrote:

Yogurt deli and chicken all have protein. I consider that a win. My kids are super picky, you can't force them to eat. I try to limit the nosh but nothing wrong with cereal and crackers.

amother

Saddlebrown

Fri, Feb 03 2023, 12:49 pm

Tell her she needs to eat a x amount of bites from the supper you prepared and then she can have her preferred food. That's the way she can be motivated to try new things and still have her preferred foods.

amother

Amaryllis

Tue, Feb 07 2023, 9:31 am

Does she have milk with her cereal? If so, really not a terrible diet if she sometimes has yogurt, deli and chicken too.

About veggies, keep trying but without stress so she does not feel pressured and it doesn't become a power struggle. One day she may just decide that the baby corn or cucumber is worth tasting.

Also, what does she eat on Shabbos? My very picky eater (who is now in high school) will not touch chicken but always loved cholent, so I would make a separate Thursday night cholent, she would have some of the Shabbos cholent on Friday afternoon, and then again for Shabbos lunch. That's 3 days a week I knew she actually ate some real food!

amother

Pear

Tue, Feb 07 2023, 10:52 am

amother OP wrote:

That works for mildly picky kids doesn’t help one iota for my extremely picky children.
One reacts well to peer pressure like lunch at school and bribes which I know isn’t ideal but it works. The other is clearly a sensory issues. They’ve gotten better with OT but it’s extremely slow progress and we stopped for now. I’m hoping that both will grow out of it or at least just become regular picky which is more liveable as they get older.