Is Picky Eating Your Fault? The Impact of Parent Feeding Style

If you’re struggling to get your child to try new foods, you’re not alone. More than 50% of parents report picky eating behaviors by the time their child is 2 years old (1).

Many myths surround picky eating. This can cause well-meaning parents to implement strategies that exacerbate the problem.

In this article you will learn which feeding practices and family dynamics contribute to picky eating behaviors, and what to do instead.

What is picky eating?

Unfortunately picky eating is a term that is poorly defined. It generally refers to a broad combination of traits or behaviors.

These traits include poor variety of foods (or food groups) eaten, unwillingness to try new foods, lack of interest in eating, avoidance of foods based on sensory properties and eating very slowly.

Your child may exhibit some or all these feeding difficulties.

The challenge is that these traits and behaviors are lumped into an umbrella term, “picky eating,” when the underlying cause can vary widely. General recommendations you read on the internet or receive from a general practitioner likely aren’t tailored to your child’s specific needs.

Do parents cause picky eating?

Why is it that two children raised in the same household can have dramatically different eating habits? 

Eating is a complex skill that requires coordination of many nerves and muscles. It is also highly influenced by sensory elements such as sight, smell and taste. Understanding the basics of child development and how your child learns to eat (or not eat) are fundamentals every parent should learn.

While your child’s unique sensory profile, feeding temperament and developmental stage impact eating, your approach to feeding plays a role as well. Some feeding practices result in negative mealtimes and increased picky eating behaviors (2).

Negative mealtime strategies:

Rewards - Offer your child food (sweets, favorite food) or nonfood (TV, tablet, toy) as a reward for eating.

Disapprove - Show disapproval if your child doesn’t eat.

Withhold - Withhold favorite food or activity as a consequence of not eating.  If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have dessert or go outside and play after dinner.

Clean plate - Make your child finish all of meal before having dessert. Tell your child s/he can’t leave table until food is eaten or tries a bite.

Different Food - Make different food for your child before (or after) the meal if he or she doesn’t like what is being served. 

Positive mealtime strategies:

Make meals fun - Arrange food in an interesting way (smiley face) or make meal into a game.

Involve and teach - Teach your child about the food served. Involve your child in planning or preparing the meal.

Allow choice - Allow your child to choose from food served at the meal.

Praise and encourage - Praise child about eating skills or interacting with food.

Model – Sit down and eat healthy foods with child.

Carefully evaluate the approaches you use to feed your child. It is incredibly easy to utilize pressure tactics when you are struggling to get your child to eat. Having clear alternative approaches can help you pivot to more effective strategies.

How is picky eating related to parenting style?

While you were reading the feeding practices above, you may have identified with specific approaches more than others. Some may have struck you as pressuring or more accommodating.

In general feeding practices are grouped into two categories, coercive and supportive.

Coercive – restriction and pressure to eat

Supportive – monitoring, responsibility, modeling and encouraging

Coercive feeding practices are negative meal time strategies and are associated with an increase in picky eating behaviors (2).

The types of feeding practices parents use are closely matched with parenting style. However, parenting style encompasses more than just feeding.

Picky Eating Behaviors Linked with Parenting Styles

The way you interact with your child as well as the feeding practices you use are important determinants of your child’s eating habits. In fact, researchers have found that parenting style is associated with picky and non-picky eating behaviors (2).

Types of Parenting Styles

Parenting styles are used in child development to describe parent-child interactions. Two dimensions are used, control/demandingness and warmth/responsiveness (3). It’s easiest to understand when shown in a chart.

Authoritative parenting is associated with high affection and responsiveness as well as high expectations and limit setting. 

Authoritarian parenting employs strict discipline, may be insensitive to child’s emotional needs and may result in motivation by external controls.

Permissive parents may have low expectations for child self-control and set few limits, which has the potential to result in poor self-regulation of behavior.

Do specific feeding practices cause picky eating?

There is a relationship between parenting style and feeding practices (4). The approach you use to feed your child plays a role in the picky (or non-picky) eating behaviors your child exhibits.

Authoritative style parents use encouragement, balance parent control and child autonomy, model healthy food consumption and provide wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

Authoritarian style parents use control, pressure to eat, restriction, rewards for eating, and have lower fruit and vegetable availability.

Permissive style parents are more lenient, provide rewards for eating, less modeling of healthy food choices.

Picky eating behaviors such as eating the same food repeatedly, requiring specific food preparation and anxiety at meals are associated with authoritarian and permissive parenting styles (4).

Non-picky eating behaviors such as trying new foods, eating healthy foods and looking forward to mealtime are associated with an authoritative parenting style.

If you are struggling with a picky eater, efforts that fail to address your family’s specific dynamics are unlikely to be effective.

Your parenting style and feeding practices mesh with your child’s feeding temperament and sensory profile.  The feeding relationship is a complex dance and one that is understandably complex to address.

Download the Parenting Style and Mealtime Strategies Quick Reference

This one-page visual includes positive and negative feeding strategies and description of parenting styles.

Summary

Solving feeding issues isn’t about achieving “healthy” meals. It’s about mastering the “how” and healing the feeding relationship – supporting your child to be the best eater they can be. 

Rebuilding a feeding relationship isn’t about arranging food on a plate in cute ways, lists of recipes to try or foods to offer.

It means evaluating your parenting style and getting your spouse or other caregivers on the same page. It is about offering yourself kindness and non-judgement as you work to understand and improve your feeding practices and family dynamics.

Next Steps:

Ready to take a deep dive and understand the keys to successful feeding? Register for my Toddler Feeding Blueprint workshop. Attend live or watch the replay video from the event.

References:

1. Carruth, BR et al, Prevalence of picky eaters among infants and toddlers and their caregivers’ decisions about offering new food. J Am Diet Assoc 2004;104(Suppl 1)s57-64.

2. Podlesak AK et al, Associations between parenting style and parent and toddler mealtime behaviors. Curr Dev Nutr 2017;1:e000570.

3. Robinson CC et al. Authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting practices: Development of a new measure. Psychol Rep. 1995;77:819-830.

4. Hubbs-Tait L et al. Parental feeding practices predict authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles. J Am Diet Assoc 2008;108:1154-1161.

How to Get Toddler to Eat - Skip the Struggle and Worry!

“Tell me how to get my toddler to eat!” As a parent, you worry when your toddler starts to refuse previously eaten foods, or eliminates entire food groups like meats or vegetables. 

From a sudden preference for only crunchy foods to a shrinking list of vegetables that aren’t snubbed, concern is a normal and natural response. You may wonder if your child is getting enough of key nutrients or is destined to be a picky eater.

The Truth about Feeding Toddlers

Helping your toddler learn to try new foods starts with understanding normal development. While picky eating isn’t “normal” for toddlers, food neophobia (fear of new foods) does occur. How you respond during this phase will play a role in preventing persistent picky eating behaviors.

Feeding toddlers also isn’t a battle of will. What often happens is that well-meaning parents start using techniques that make things worse. Pressure, bribing, distracting and rewards for eating are common tactics.

There are far more effective, no-pressure ways to help your child try new foods.  By following key feeding principles, you can avoid the stressful meals that pressure tactics create and support your child to have a healthy relationship with food.

Getting Your Toddler to Try New Foods

Helping your toddler try new foods begins with understanding the steps to eating (1). You can then use strategies that encourage steps forward and confidently know what to do when steps backward occur.

These steps are the work of Kay Toomey, PhD a pediatric psychologist and expert in the field of childhood feeding problems. She developed the sequential oral sensory (SOS) approach to feeding. Dr. Toomey trains clinicians that specialize in feeding disorders and helping children that struggle to eat. I’ve completed this rigorous training, earning a certificate of completion demonstrating my expertise.

When you enter the steps to eating beyond your child’s skill level, you experience resistance.  If you try to pressure your child to move up the steps when he hasn’t yet mastered the current step, troubling behaviors can occur.  

Many of the behaviors that you interpret as picky eating are your child’s way of escaping an eating experience that is making him uncomfortable.

For some children, there is also a strong sensory component to why they struggle with new foods. Whatever the reason, the steps to feeding provide a framework to support your child to develop skills to try new foods without pressure.

What are the Steps to Eating?

Trying new foods doesn’t begin with chewing and swallowing. While some children (and for some foods) leap up the steps, for many foods like vegetables and meats, it a much more step wise process.

The steps to eating offer a reference point to gauge your child’s progress towards trying a new food or preparation method. Instead of defining success as taking a bite, you recognize and support the small, yet significant steps on the way. 

During feeding, you create opportunities through play, conversation and meal routine to help your child move up the steps to eating. Play is one of your most valuable tools to create curiosity about new foods.

How to Use the Steps to Eating

To use the steps to eating, you must tune in to the signals your child is sending. Overt signals like pushing a food away or becoming anxious or upset about a food on her plate, tell you that you need to move down the steps.  Also pay attention to subtle cues including posture and facial expressions. Use this information to determine where your child is on the steps to eating.  

For each food, your child can be at a different step. For example, pasta with butter at chewing/swallowing, but pasta mixed with red sauce at interacts. Your child may also move up and then back down the steps to feeding.

As you tune in to the signals your child is sending, you will be able to match the feeding experience with your child’s current skill.

When offering your child a new food, begin at the first step, “tolerates.” For other foods, begin at the step last achieved. Use the response of your child to guide you up and down (when needed).

Summary

Getting your toddler to try new foods is less about what you offer, and more about how you help your child master the steps to eating.

Match the feeding experience to your child’s current skill, paying close attention to the cues your child is sending you. Step up and down based on the response you observe.

Measure your successes not in bites eaten, but in watching your child master the skill of feeding. This provides your child with skills to approach all new foods with confidence.

Next Steps

A pediatric dietitian that specializes in helping children with feeding issues can assist you in learning how to master the steps to feeding. Providing your child with the just right challenge encourages skill development without causing struggle.

Book a complimentary discovery call to learn more about how I can help your family and child master trying new foods.

Get your FREE Picky Eater Survival Guide

Click the download button below to get your copy of the guide.

Ready to dive deeper?

My FREE Online Workshop Teaches Key Feeding Principles To Reduce Picky Eating And How To Create A Positive Mealtime Environment.

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References

1. Star Institute’s SOS Approach to Feeding. Accessed 2/28/2019 https://www.spdstar.org/basic/feeding-therapy

Why Your 2-Year-Old Won't Eat (and What to Do!)

Struggling to understand why your two-year-old won’t eat? This article doesn’t contain a magic wand with the power to get your child to eat when they refuse. What is does is far more useful. You will learn the root cause of your child’s behavior and what to do to help your child eat better.

Is it normal for children not to eat?

First, let’s clear the air on a common misconception. Most of the time, children that refuse to eat are labeled with negative terms such as bratty or difficult. This frames the challenges with eating as a behavior problem.

The issue is that most children that struggle to eat don’t have a behavioral issue. The behaviors such as refusing to sit at the table, throwing food, gagging or tantrums are really symptoms. 

If you are the parent of a toddler, eating and meals can feel like a roller coaster. The developmental changes your child is experiencing along with a normal slow down in growth contribute to food refusal.  Neophobia and picky eating are a hallmark of the toddler years.

Read this Toddler Feeding Guide for a comprehensive look at nutrient requirements, portion sizes and best practices. For even more help, this article offers specific ideas about what to feed your toddler.

No matter the age of your child, once you understand the underlying cause and implement strategies, the behaviors and food refusal can resolve. Meals can be pleasant and important quality family time.

Why Your 2-Year-Old Won’t Eat

Helping your child eat better starts with understanding common reasons why children refuse to eat.

1. Feeling Pressured

If your child turns his nose up a food or an entire meal, our natural response is to offer encouragement. The reality is that our good intentions contribute to picky eating.

Pressure creates stress for your child and stress promotes the release of adrenaline.  Adrenaline is a hormone that helps us be more focused and respond with a fight or flight response. Unfortunately, it also suppresses appetite.

It is easy for meal times to become a pressure cooker when your child is refusing to eat.  There can be bribery, lectures about the importance of nutrition, and threats of going to bed hungry. Even subtle pressure can create stress for your child, especially when there is a desire to please you.

While the goal of these well-intended efforts is to get your child to eat, instead they are turning off the appetite switch for your child. 

To help your child eat better, skip the pressure at meals.

Following this guide will help you establish a relaxed and fun mealtime routine.

2. Grazing and Snacking Too Often

With hectic schedules and convenient snack foods for kids available in abundance, it’s common for kids to graze throughout the day. This leads to meals with little or no appetite, and then grazing again between meals.

It can be a cycle that can feel tough to break. You may worry if your child doesn’t eat well at a meal and want to offer food. Your child may also demand snacks and it can feel difficult to manage the inevitable tantrums that may arise if snacks on demand are eliminated.

Implementing a schedule for meals and snacks is essential to creating an environment for success. Use this step-by-step approach to make a successful transition.

3. Sensory Food Aversion

If you find that your child prefers a particular food texture or taste, you can benefit from a better understanding the sensory elements of eating.

Eating is far more than the physical action of putting food in your mouth, chewing and swallowing. In addition, there are an incredible array of sensory experiences your child must integrate and process as part of the eating experience.

This might be touching a “slimy” vegetable or processing the smell of roasted cauliflower or Brussels sprouts. The response your child has to the sensory experiences of food are most likely normal but may be different from another child the same age or even older siblings.

If your child eats only a single texture or you observe difficultly with chewing or swallowing, talk to pediatrician about your concerns.

One strategy that is particularly effective for children that are highly particular about food texture, flavor and refuse to eat foods, is food chaining.  This highly individualized approach to selecting foods creates a chain of similar food and over time expanding the number of foods accepted by your child.

4. Short Order Cooking

Preparing a special food for your child in an effort to thwart food refusal or to ensure that something is eaten is a trap that many parents fall into.

You might be thinking that your child refuses to eat anything but a handful of foods and that none of these foods are on your list of dinner ideas for the family.  These preferred foods are not your opponent, they are your secret weapon.

The key to eliminating short order cooking is to include a preferred food at meals and snacks.  A preferred food is one that your child eats at least 50% of the time when offered.  It doesn’t mean that it is a favorite food, just one that is usually accepted.

When you include a preferred food with the meal (even if it’s chips!), your child has the opportunity to be exposed to other foods in a low-pressure way.  He isn’t worried that there is nothing on the table that he can eat. 

Using a preferred food approach is incredibly powerful both because it eliminates the need to pressure your child to eat (there is a food he can fill up on available) and provides consistent exposure to new foods.

This strategy and how to implement is described in detail here.

Summary

How to get your child to eat when they refuse is about understanding the root cause of the problem. Focusing on the negative behaviors creates misguided efforts and does little to resolve the issue.

Get your FREE Picky Eater Survival Guide

Click the download button below to grab your copy of the guide.

Sensory Food Aversion, the Truth About Refusing Textures

Are you wondering if your child’s eating behaviors are signs of a sensory food aversion?

If your toddler will only eat crunchy foods like veggie straws or fish-shaped crackers, you know how frustrating and concerning it can be. Struggles with refusing textures like meats and vegetables can leave you seeking answers.

Before we dive into what to do to help your child, we need to better understand exactly what a sensory food aversion is and other possible explanations for your child’s behavior.

What is a Sensory Food Aversion?

When eating, you are exposed to a significant number of sensory inputs. From visual appearance of food, smell, temperature, taste and texture, eating is a demanding experience from a sensory perspective. 

Some children are over (or under) responsive to the sensory elements of food and eating. This can mean gagging at the sight or smell of certain foods.  It can also be vomiting or spitting food out. 

Sensory food aversion can occur for many reasons, but often it is the result of difficulty processing the sensory aspects of eating. Children with an aversion are often labeled as picky or selective eaters. 

Food Aversion and Sensory Processing Disorder

While sensory food aversion does occur in children with sensory processing disorder (SPD), having strong food aversions does not mean your child has SPD. However, it has been found that selective eating and feeding issues are more common in autism spectrum disorder and often are identified prior to diagnosis (1-2). 

If you are concerned about your child’s sensory responses, be sure to talk to your pediatrician. For children with SPD, the responses are often not limited to food. There might be an inability to tolerate clothing made of certain fabrics, difficulty with brushing teeth, or even loud sounds such as an ambulance.

For sensory related feeding issues, an Occupational Therapist can offer specific strategies and serve as a valuable resource to support feeding therapy efforts. A pediatric Registered Dietitian with advanced skills in working with sensory feeding issues can help to create a comprehensive plan for your child. 

Oral Motor vs Sensory Aversion

While the sensory elements alone are overwhelming and can result in the aversions you may be observing in your toddler, they alone may not be the culprit.

There are oral-motor issues that can result in food aversion.  In order to effectively eat foods like vegetables and meats, you need specific skills. These include the ability to move the jaw to chew effectively, use the tongue to position food on the molar surfaces and place the chewed food in the right spot to swallow.

When children lack the skills to handle foods, they will refuse, gag, vomit or spit out the food. Foods that require limited oral-motor skills such as crunchy foods that melt easily when chewed, are often preferred.

As a parent, it can be hard to know what to do when you child gags excessively or vomits when trying new foods. The reason for the behavior can often be complex.  Talk to your child’s pediatrician about symptoms you are seeing and ask for help.

A Speech Language Pathologist is the expert in oral-motor skills for chewing and swallowing. They can determine if your child is having any issues with skills such as using the tongue to position and chew foods. If needed, they can provide specific therapy to help. 

Working with a pediatric Registered Dietitian that is skilled in feeding issues can help to provide you with support to select foods and ensure that your child’s nutritional intake is adequate while undergoing therapy to build skills.

Helping Children with Sensory Food Aversion

Research on the topic of treating food aversions is limited. Along with intervention when needed from Speech and Occupational therapists, there are some common approaches to address sensory food aversions.  

Sensory-Based Food Play

For toddlers, this is often done through play.  Sensory related food play is a way to help your child get more comfortable with sensory experiences. 

The approach needs to be customized as each child will have different reactions to foods. One example might be using a napkin to play pee-a-boo with a food that causes a strong visual sensory reaction. Small glimpses of the food may be tolerated, and over time, the visual interaction with the food can be lengthened.

Often tactile stimulation or touching specific food textures can be problematic. Placing food in plastic bags and drawing letters or shapes is one approach that can be effective. Another is using an object such as a stick-shaped vegetable to touch or manipulate unfamiliar foods.  

Creating a play scheme that is tailored to your child’s age and sensory profile is an important for sensory-based food play. You don’t want to overwhelm your child and exacerbate the sensory reaction.

Working with a pediatric Registered Dietitian with skills in play-based feeding therapy can help you work simultaneously on improving food selections and reducing aversions to foods.

Food Chaining

Another approach to help children with food aversion try new foods is using food chaining. This can help with the day-to-stay struggles of deciding what to feed your child and help to expand the foods accepted. 

A food chain leverages information about the texture, taste and visual appearance of foods. With a complete map of your child’s food preferences (often sensory related), you can select foods that have the highest likelihood of being accepted. 

This approach eliminates power struggles and forcing your child to try new foods. It allows you to slowly and gradually make changes to accepted foods. The result is an expanded list of foods your child will eat.

Summary

Sensory food aversion is complex and as a parent can be frustrating.

Often, your child will be labeled as a picky eater or you will be told to just keep offering your child the foods that are being refused.

Expert intervention and specialized approaches to help children with food aversions can have a significant positive impact on both stress for parents and overall diet quality.

Next Steps

For individualized help with your child, book a complimentary new client discovery call. You can help your child become a happy, healthy eater with the doubt and struggle!

Get your FREE Picky Eater Survival Guide

Click the button below to download your copy of the guide.

References:

1. Chistol LT, Bandini LG et. al. Sensory Sensitivity and Food Selectivity in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord. 2018 February ; 48(2): 583–591. doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3340-9.

2. Beighley JS, Matson JL, Rieske RD et. al. Food Selectivity in Children with and Without an Autism Spectrum Disorder: Investigation of Diagnosis and Age. Res Dev Disabil. 2013 Oct;34(10):3497-503. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2013.07.026.

Picky Eating: The Top 3 Mistakes Parents Make

If your experience as the parent of a picky eater is like mine, you're an expert on what doesn't work.  You've tried just about everything and NOTHING WORKS!

So why spend time reminding you of what doesn't work? 

Don't worry, I'm not here to scold you or tell you that what you've done has caused picky eating or that you are to blame.  If you remember, even as an expert in pediatric nutrition, I had a huge serving of humble pie with my older (and VERY picky) son.

The reason I'm sharing with you what doesn't work is to help you start to peel back the stress and struggle you currently experience around feeding your child.  In order to turn around picky eating, you need to be given permission to let go. 

What we tend to focus on is getting our child to eat certain foods or food groups. But the truth is, raising a happy, healthy eater is far more than eating bites of green vegetables or meat. 

Our most important job is to help our child have a healthy relationship with food.  This means that they are able to choose foods they enjoy (yes, even vegetables and meat) and eat them in amounts they find satisfying (not a required amount to have dessert or their iPad).

The problem is that  our well-intended efforts to help our picky eater can be making things worse.

Picky Eating Mistakes

Here are the three most common mistakes parents make that sabotage a healthy relationship with food and contribute to picky eating.

1. Using pressure such as bribes, rewards and praise
2. Not following a schedule for meals and snacks
3. Being a short-order cook and preparing a separate meal
 

The good news is that these mistakes are easy to fix and that most families see a huge improvement in their child's eating when they take specific actions to address these three areas.  

Mistake 1: Pressuring Your Child

What's wrong with cheering for a bite of broccoli or requiring a bite of a certain food in order to have dessert?

Does pressure work? ….yes, well sort-of….

It depends on how you define “work.”

If getting your child to consume the correct number of vegetables each day is the goal, then you’ve hit the mark. 

However, research shows that pressure has effects that are less desirable, too. Children may eat a food under pressure, but are less likely to prefer the food.

Pressure creates a short-term win, but creates a long-term obstacle to helping your child have a healthy relationship with food.

What this means is that we must keep a long term outlook and provide no-pressure opportunities to try foods (including vegetables).

This means serving them at meals and snacks and keeping the response neutral.

No need to cheer a bite of veggies anymore than we would a cookie. Pressure can also come in the form of a desire to please you. Food is just food.

Teaching our children to be competent eaters and helping them have a healthy relationship with food is a long term goal. It doesn’t have the same immediate satisfaction of seeing a bite of vegetables consumed.  

I know it is hard to keep things in perspective when veggies have been on refuse “repeat."  You may fear that your child will NEVER eat vegetables without pressure.  

However, will your child learn to enjoy eating vegetables if it is learned under pressure?  Research says no!

The key to a successful, positive environment for meals is to NOT pressure your child to eat.

When you apply pressure (even subtle pressure), you create stress for both your child and you, and contribute to picky eating behaviors.

To learn no pressure ways to help your picky eater, check out this article I wrote on the topic.  

Mistake 2: Not Following a Schedule for Meals and Snacks

Does your child eat on a schedule?

A feeding schedule helps your child eat better.

Why? Children that graze throughout the day have a higher incidence of picky eating.

One of the first things I talk with my clients with young kids about, is the family’s schedule for meals and snacks. With the hectic nature of life, it’s easy lack needed routine.

A common mistake I see parents make is offering a snack after a meal when they are concerned their child didn’t eat well.

This approach can contribute to picky eating behaviors. It can also make it more difficult for your child to develop an ability to recognize and respond to hunger and satiety cues.

If you remember, our goal is to help our child develop a healthy relationship with food.  This means fostering the ability to respond to hunger and satiety.  Picky eating is often dramatically reduced when a schedule is implemented.

If you are struggling to develop and stick to a feeding schedule, this article provides a 5-step plan to implement a schedule.

Mistake 3: Being a Short Order Cook

But he won't eat anything else!  

If you find yourself in the situation of preparing a special food or meal for your picky eater, you're not alone! 

Short order cooking is one of the most common ways we cope with picky eating. Typically out of sheer exhaustion and concern for our child, we get into a routine of preparing a separate meal or food.

There is nothing wrong with serving your child a preferred food at meals.  The prior statement is really important and a huge block that prevents many parents from making real progress with helping their picky eater.  I'm going to state it again.

There is nothing wrong with serving your child a preferred food at meals. 

In fact, every meal and snack you serve to your child should include a preferred food.  Does this mean that you have permission to serve pasta, chips, macaroni and cheese or breaded chicken bites with every meal?

Sort of...  Let me explain.  Stick with me on this one as it will take a bit of background information.

Family meals are the building blocks for raising a happy, healthy eater.  They give your child the opportunity to be exposed to new foods, you teach through role modeling food choices, and have quality time for conversation and connection. 

As we learned from mistakes #1 and 2, having no-pressure meals and a schedule for meals and snacks are essential prerequisites for successful family meals. 

Let's revisit the the topic of preferred foods.  Meals should ALWAYS include one of your child's preferred foods.  The key however, is to serve this food as part of the family meal not as a separate food/meal for your picky eater.

The expectation with family meals is not that your child will eat all the food on his/her plate or even take a taste or smell.  Resist the urge to pressure your child.  Remember that the key to a successful, positive environment for meals is to NOT pressure your child to eat.

For some children, it is necessary to use a divided plate or put new foods on a separate plate or place mat and slowly work up to having new foods on the same plate. 

I recommend serving meals family style as it gives your child a chance for more exposure to new foods.  By serving their own food (even children as young as 2 can participate in serving food), children have the opportunity to see, smell and interact with new foods.  Over time and with repeated exposure and role modeling, your child will learn to eat new foods.   

The key to avoiding mistake #3 of cooking a separate meal or being a short order cook is to prepare and plan meals that ALWAYS include a preferred food.  This article offers even more insight on how to end short order cooking.

Conclusion - Picky Eating Mistakes

By exposing your child to new foods, creating a no pressure environment and a using a consistent schedule, you will find that your picky eater will begin to explore new foods and flavors. 

If this sounds like it won't work for your child, I challenge you to give it a try for 2 weeks.  You will be surprised by the dramatic changes you'll see in your child.  What will probably shock you even more is how much less stress YOU will experience related to meals.  

If you are ready to make changes that can help your picky eater, but aren't quite sure how to get started, book a complimentary discovery call where I can answer your questions and offer you personalized recommendations. 

You can raise a happy, healthy eater without doubt and struggle!

Get your FREE Picky Eater Survival Guide

Click the button below to receive your copy of the guide.

Clearing Up Picky Eating Myths and Misinformation

Trying to feed a picky eater? You might be wondering what works and what is just a myth.

While kids are notoriously selective about foods, for some children this can be more than just a phase.

This article separates fact from fiction for common myths and offers solutions that you can explore if you child’s picky eating has become more than just a phase.

5 Picky Eating Myths

Myth #1: All kids are naturally curious about food.

If you are struggling with a picky eater, you’ve likely scoured the internet for tips and suggestions.  You’ve probably come across countless recommendations to involve your child in preparing food or playing with food. 

In general, kids are curious about food.  However, for some children, especially those that have strong sensory reactions, this may not be the case.  If your child reacts strongly to the sight, smell or presence of certain foods, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

My oldest son would run from the sight of foods and start gagging when foods he didn’t like were placed near him. This wasn’t something I could just turn off. He didn’t have any interest in any play activities with food. My younger son is the complete opposite. He grabs unfamiliar foods and plays or just eats them.  His reaction to food couldn’t be more different.

Food curiosity is a myth and while one of my key strategies for working with children and families with picky eaters is to use elements of play, it is necessary to individualize the approach.  For example, foods may need to be placed in sealed plastic bags to be touched if engaging in play-based feeding therapy.

Myth 2: Picky eater children will eat when they are hungry

One dangerous and false statement that is made frequently is that children will eat when they are hungry.  This isn’t true. 

For some children labeled as picky eaters, there are difficulties with chewing or positioning of food in the mouth which may need the expertise of a speech therapist.  Other children may struggle to maintain proper positioning in their chair to eat and be unable to effectively eat.  An occupational therapist can be helpful in many elements related to the feeding environment.

Maintaining a feeding schedule to be sure your child has adequate appetite at meals and isn’t grazing throughout the day is essential.  However, this is very different that taking the approach of just letting your child get hungry enough to eat what is served or specific foods.

Myth #3: Picky eaters are just being difficult

Many people label children that struggle to eat as difficult and parents fall into the trap of thinking picky eating is a behavioral problem.  While some behaviors you may see at the table may appear to be just “bratty kid” problems, think again.  This is also a myth.

When a child is struggling to eat, their instinct is to escape. The behaviors at the table are usually a method of escape. It can be throwing food, not sitting in chair or many others.

The good news is that when the underlying feeding issues are addressed, the behavior improves as the need to escape is eliminated.  With an individualized approach and a thorough review of your child’s specific feeding problem, you will likely find that your child’s table behaviors change completely.

Myth #4: If you just offer the food 10-20 times, your child will try it.

Trying new foods does take many exposures to the food. However, there is no magic number of offerings before a child will accept the food. One specific example that is difficult for many parents (and children) is eating meat.

As a pediatric Registered Dietitian, I often hear from my clients, “my child won’t eat meat.” Meat is one of the most complex foods to chew because it requires rotary chewing.  Some children have difficulty with meat because they never mastered this feeding skills.  One of the first things I do is determine if the child needs any additional evaluation from a speech therapist for swallowing problem. 

In many cases, it isn’t related to a deficit in chewing or swallowing, but the texture of meat is to blame.  When you eat meat, the texture changes as you chew. 

This is a strange and uncomfortable sensory experience for some children.  They may not know what to do with the food as they chew it or have trouble managing the sensory experience.  They develop an aversion to eating meat and avoid this food.

Feeding is an incredibly complex activity and requires nerves, muscles, senses and much more.  Oversimplifying the process of eating a new food into a simple mathematical numbers game of exposures is certainly a myth.  If your child is struggling with a feeding issue, there is no number of times you can offer the food to make it be accepted.

Myth #5: There is nothing I can do about picky eating.

If you’ve tried everything to get your child to try new foods, you may fear that there is nothing you can do about picky eating.  The good news is that this is also a myth.

One approach that is particularly helpful for toddlers and younger children is play-based feeding therapy. Typically these sessions are run by an expert with you as a parent engaging in the session and learning skills that you can apply on your own.  By incorporating a play scheme that involves food, your child over time becomes more comfortable with new foods.

Food chaining is a specialized approach to helping picky eaters.  It is especially beneficial for those with strong sensory reactions to food.  For example if you child has very limited number of foods accepted or is extremely specific about texture, appearance and smell of foods.  

Is picky eating a disorder?

Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is new term that is used to diagnose children with extreme picky eating.  There is little awareness of this relatively new diagnosis, but for some parents, it is the answer they have been searching for. 

Why ARFID occurs is unknown but can be related to some of the factors I mentioned above such as sensory response.  Other cases are thought to occur due to a traumatic event such as choking. 

Research on ARFID is limited as is information on the best treatment approached.  Finding a practitioner with expertise is essential to treat this disorder.

How do I stop picky eating?

For most children, there is a lot you can do to both limit picky eating behaviors and help your child try new foods. 

The three most common mistakes parents make that contribute to picky eating are:

1.       Pressuring their child to try foods

2.       Not following a schedule for meals and snacks

3.       Being a short-order cook

As a parent, you will see dramatic changes in your child’s eating behavior when you address the mistakes above. 

Summary

The truth about picky eating may not be easy to find, but there are myths that contribute to making it hard to solve the underlying issues.

Eating is an incredibly complicated activity for the body involving muscles, nerves, and senses.  Picky eating is the symptom you see when something in the eating or feeding process isn’t working just right. 

It can be tempting to label your child as a “picky eater” with a behavioral problem.

Avoid falling into the trap of believing the myths debunked.  Take action to correct any feeding mistakes you are making, and you might be surprised at the results you see. 

If implementing key feeding principles doesn’t help, seeking out the expertise of a professional with expertise in food chaining or play-based feeding therapy can help.

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Feeding Schedule for Toddler - Nutrition Guide

A feeding schedule for your toddler is essential. If you’re struggling to figure out when and what to feed, this article will provide you with the basics of toddler nutrition and contains a sample toddler feeding schedule and meal plan. 

A feeding schedule helps your toddler eat better. Children that graze throughout the day have a higher incidence of picky eating. Taking the time to develop a feeding plan for your toddler is an excellent decision.

How Many Meals a Day Should a Toddler Have?

Most toddlers eat 3 meals and 1-2 snacks per day. It is important to remember that the incredible growth experienced in the first 2 years of life starts to slow down. You will likely notice that your toddler’s appetite may be variable and matched to this new pattern of growth. 

Intake at meals will vary from day-to-day and you may find that your toddler is hungrier at a certain time of the day or associated with a growth spurt. Don’t pressure or encourage your toddler to eat. Your feeding schedule will provide plenty of opportunity for your toddler to meet his nutrition requirements.  As a parent, it is your job to provide the food and your toddler will decide if he will eat. 

Avoid the common mistake of offering your toddler an extra snack after a meal that you feel he didn’t eat well at. This approach can contribute to picky eating behaviors. It can also make it more difficult for your child to develop an ability to recognize and respond to hunger and satiety cues. 

If your child has already settled into a frequent snacking or grazing routine, establishing a routine for meals and snacks is essential. 

How Many Snacks Should a Toddler Have Per Day?

Most toddlers need 1-2 snacks per day. It is not uncommon for younger toddlers to eat 3 snacks per day. Additionally, if your child is currently a frequent grazer, you may need to offer 3 snacks per day during the transition to a more consistent snack routine.

Snacks serve to supplement meals, not to replace what wasn’t eaten at a meal. Your snack schedule should be consistent and provide enough of a gap before the next meal that your child will have a good appetite for the meal. A sample feeding schedule is provided in this article.     

Portion Sizes for Toddlers

It is easy to serve more food than our toddler can eat. It can be very overwhelming for a toddler to have huge portions of food on his plate. A general rule of thumb is to serve 1 tablespoon per year of age (up to age 10).

While 2 tablespoons of a food may look like a very small portion to you, remember that your 2 year old has a much smaller stomach. If your toddler is still hungry after eating the initial portion, you can always offer more.

Letting Toddler Serve Own Food

It may seem like a disaster waiting to happen and a recipe for a messy meal, but allowing your toddler to serve his own food is a best practice. In addition to giving your child a chance to develop fine motor skills, it allows your child to be exposed to new foods.

Typically with family-style meals, each person takes a portion of each food offered. For your toddler, you will likely need to offer some assistance with the serving utensil, but allow your child the space to learn new skills.   

It is likely that your toddler may not be excited about each of the food served at a meal. Stay calm and communicate that he doesn’t have to eat it.   Remember that trying new foods takes many exposures. By interacting with the food from a visual and smell perspective is helping your child to develop the skills to try the food in the future. 

Sample Toddler Feeding Schedule

A feeding schedule for a toddler will typically include 3 meals and 2 snacks per day. A bedtime snack is optional and may be necessary for some children. 

The table below shows a sample feeding schedule for a toddler.

Sample Toddler Meal Plan

The foods your family eats will likely be different, but this sample, one-day menu shows food groups and serving sizes for your toddler. Below the sample menu, you will find a list of food groups and serving sizes.

Recommen​ded Servings for Toddler Meals

Recommended servings are based on a 1,000- to 1,400-calorie food plan. A toddler's needs will vary depending on age and activity level. To create an individual plan for your toddler, log on to choosemyplate.gov, click on "Daily Food Plans," then choose the age of your toddler.

Dairy: 2 cups per day; be sure to choose lower fat selections.

Count as 1 cup:

1 cup (8 ounces) 1% or skim milk

1 cup low-fat yogurt

2 cups low-fat or fat-free cottage cheese

1½ cups low-fat or fat-free ice cream

1½ ounces of low-fat hard cheese (cheddar, mozzarella, Swiss, or Parmesan)

⅓ cup shredded cheese

1 cup pudding (made with milk)

1 cup of calcium-fortified soy milk

Protein Foods: 2- to 4-ounce equivalents (or the amount of a food that has a similar nutrition value as 4 ounces of meat).

Count as 1-ounce equivalent:

1 ounce lean meat, fish or poultry

1 egg

1 slice lunch meat

1 tablespoon peanut butter

¼ cup cooked kidney, pinto or garbanzo beans

Fruits: 1–1.5 cups

Count as 1 cup:

1 medium banana or orange

1 small apple

1 cup canned fruit

½ cup dried fruit

Vegetables: 1–1.5 cups

Count as 1 cup:

1 cup raw vegetables

1 cup cooked vegetables

2 cups raw, leafy vegetables

Grains: 3- to 5-ounce equivalents (or the amount of a food that has a similar nutrition value as 3–5 ounces of a grain).

Count as 1-ounce equivalent:

1 slice bread

1 cup ready-to-eat cereal

½ cup cooked cereal, rice or pasta

1 "mini" bagel

1 small tortilla, 6 inches in diameter

1 pancake, 4½ inches in diameter

How Do You Feed a Picky Toddler?

If your toddler seems disinterested in eating the foods you’re serving, stay persistent. A toddler’s appetite is fickle and often will take 10 or more offering of a food before it will be accepted. Avoid pressuring your toddler to eat and utilize age-appropriate strategies to help your child.

Most importantly, remember that your responsibility is to offer foods and allow your child to choose which of the foods you’ve offered will be eaten (if any). Keep committed to your feeding schedule and resist the temptation to offer an extra snack or fall into a grazing pattern of eating.

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Toddler Meal Ideas

Are you constantly searching for toddler meal ideas? Do you struggle to find foods and recipes that your toddler will eat? 

I have an important truth bomb to drop here. If you regularly prepare a special meal or serve foods that are different from what you eat, you are setting up a future that involves preparing two different meals. 

Your picky toddler will not wake up one day and decide that he prefers the regular chicken you make over the special breaded chicken pieces you prepare for his meal. 

Right now, you can be teaching your child how to enjoy the foods YOU eat! Feeding a toddler doesn’t require special foods or recipes. If you are skeptical and sure that this approach isn’t going to work for your picky eater, read on.   

This article shows you how to create toddler friendly meals from the foods you like to prepare and eat. You will be able to end the time-consuming searching for toddler meal ideas and simplify mealtimes.

My other articles on feeding children offer even more ideas and resources to help you feed with confidence.

• Toddler Won’t Eat - How to Help Your Child Eat Better

• Is Snacking Making Your Child Picky? 5 Steps to Implement a Schedule

• No Pressure Ways to Help Your Picky Eater

Building Blocks of Toddler Meals

Your active, growing toddler needs nutrient dense foods. The foods that meet his nutritional requirements are nearly identical to the foods you need, too. It isn’t necessary to serve special foods or recipes for your toddler. While you may find that you need to make small adjustments to your meal plan to accommodate your toddler’s feeding skills, remember that you are teaching your child how to eat the foods you enjoy, not serving the foods you think he wants or likes to eat.

In general, aim to serve 1 tablespoon per year of age for each of the foods at a meal. It’s easy to overwhelm your little one with more food than he can eat. 

By keeping portion sizes age-appropriate, you will be setting your child up for success and be more able to recognize hunger and satiety cues. 

Include a protein such as eggs, beans, tofu, meat, fish or poultry. Dairy products such as milk and yogurt are also a great source of protein, but are low in iron, a key nutrient for toddlers.

Calcium rich foods such as dairy products, beans or fortified plant-based foods such as tofu should be offered at meals and most snacks. Include a fruit or vegetable (or both) at meals as well as whole grains.

Be sure to include healthy sources of fat such as nut or seed butters, avocado or plant oils.  Egg yolks are also a source of fat for your toddler. Fat offers a concentrated source of energy for your toddler and helps to promote fullness.

As adults, we should be aiming for 8-10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, so offering fruits and vegetables at meals and snacks helps you meet your requirements and gives your toddler plenty of opportunities to be exposed to a wide variety of options as well. Keep your child’s skills in mind and serve pieces that are easy to pick up or eat with utensils. Your toddler needs practice with feeding skills but can become frustrated if foods are difficult to eat. Keep a balance of skill building and easy to eat foods.

Choose Recipes that Can Be Deconstructed – Toddler Meal Ideas

An easy way to find toddler meal ideas is to choose recipes that can be deconstructed, and various elements served separately. This might mean serving pasta separate from the sauce and meatballs or serving the ingredients for tacos separately. Help you toddler explore various foods by playing games without pressure to eat the food.

It may take many times of offering a food or combination of foods before your child decides to try a taste. 

Playing with food, touching and smelling it are all necessary steps on the journey to trying new foods. 

Toddler Meal Ideas - Include an Anchor Food

A toddler palate can feel limiting when planning meals for your family.  Including an anchor food at meals will allow you to prepare a wide range of foods, but still offer foods that are accepted by your toddler. An anchor food is a food that your child easily accepts.  This might be bread, pasta, rice, fruits or crackers. When you are serving a new food or one that is less preferred, including an anchor food will provide your toddler with a food that he can “fill-up” and prevent you from worrying about if he is hungry or has eaten enough. 

Summary for Toddler Meal Ideas

The search for toddler meal ideas can start you on a path that leads to preparing a second meal for your child. However, remember that your real goal is to teach your child to enjoy the foods you eat. 

Each culture and family has a different tradition when it comes to food as well as flavor profiles. By taking a feeding approach that is aimed not at serving what your toddler seems to like eating, but instead is focused on helping him eat the foods enjoyed by your family, will help create a positive and low stress mealtime environment.

Understanding the building blocks of a toddler meal and choosing recipes that can be easily deconstructed are valuable for successful meal planning. Including an anchor food with meals allows you to expose your child to a wide range of foods.

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Toddler Won't Eat? How to Help Your Child Eat Better

There are few things more frustrating as a parent than when your toddler won’t eat. You want to help, but don’t know how to get your child to eat.

Reasons Your Toddler Won’t Eat

Normal development explains the primary reason that toddlers become difficult to feed. The energy needs for a toddler are substantially less than infants when evaluated from a per pound of weight basis. The growth and weight gain in the first two years of life starts to slow which translates into decreased intake and appetite.

Appetite is correlated with growth and toddlers are notorious for highly variable intakes. It may seem like some days your toddler is eating twice as much as normal and other days surviving off of bites of food. Expecting your child to have a consistent appetite is not reasonable. In general, toddlers are more in tune with their hunger and satiety cues than most adults.

Toddlers are also developing independence and are becoming increasingly curious about the world around them. This means at mealtimes, they will often be distracted and have a strong desire to express their independence which may take the form of refusing to eat dinner.

How to Help When Your Toddler Won’t Eat

Helping your toddler eat means that you need to recognize and support your child to develop curiosity about new foods and flavors. Typically parents focus most of their attention on how many bites are consumed, rather than focusing on encouraging their child to be a food explorer. While touching, smelling, licking food or smashing it on their head or arm may not seem like productive eating behaviors, this is how toddlers learn to eat.

When a toddler won’t eat the food you’ve served, it can be easy to resort to using pressure, bribes and other coercive approaches like sneaking vegetables in other foods to get your child to eat. While these tactics may work in the short term, they have negative long term effects and can create battles at meals that quickly create stress for the entire family.

What to Do When Toddler Won’t Eat

1. Get messy - Toddlers are learning to eat. Wearing your food is part of the process of learning to eat that food. It is important to remember that your child has far less experience with food than you do. Expecting your toddler to excitedly put a new food in his mouth is unrealistic. A more normal reaction would be to first get comfortable looking at the food then perhaps exploring it with a finger. The next step may be smashing or spreading the food on his arm or hair. These are steps your toddler is taking towards eating the food, but are often unappreciated, as parents we focus on “take a bite.”

2. Make food fun - To help your toddler eat new foods, use your most valuable tool, play. This can mean peek-a-boo or hiding a food under a napkin. It can be helping your child stack and topple over foods, or singing favorite songs with a food theme. Your toddler is learning to eat and you need to accept that it won’t be a neat and tidy stage of development. Encourage messy fun with food.

   In addition to play, think about how you present foods and get creative by cutting food into fun shapes with cookie cutters. Just as toddlers are drawn to colorful and engaging toys and activities, they will be drawn to foods that elicit their imagination and love of play.

3. Trust your toddler’s appetite - It can be difficult to avoid encouragement when your toddler is not eating. As a parent your job is set the schedule for meals and snacks (when food is served), the location eating occurs (i.e. table, car, picnic at the park) and which foods are served. Your toddler’s job is to decide if they will eat from the food you have offered and how much.

   By using the power of play and fun, you can create interest in exploring new foods without pressure to eat. You might be surprised how effective messy meal and playtime at the table is for your picky toddler.

4. Create a meal/snack routine - toddlers thrive with routine and this can be used to your advantage at meals and snacks. Be consistent with the steps you follow before meals, the way foods are presented and how you respond to behaviors. You child will feel more comfortable and have an easier time exploring unfamiliar foods when the rest of the meal environment is very predictable.

5. Don’t attempt to reason with your toddler - toddlers are not capable of understanding cause and effect. Toddlers are in magical thinking and are not able to easily make the connections between events or apply to new situations. Fight magic with magic. Instead of trying to explain why they need to eat or offer reasons why eating vegetables is important, use play and fun to engage your toddler in exploring food.

6. Implement a meal and snack schedule - Snacks are an important part of a child’s diet but can also create meal time difficulties when an unstructured approach is taken. A common reason why parents allow frequent snacks between meals is because their child doesn’t eat well at meals. However, this approach creates a situation where your child isn’t hungry at meals. Snacks serve to supplement meals, not to replace what wasn’t eaten at a meal. This article offers details on how to implement a snack schedule.

Other Reasons Toddler Won’t Eat

However, there are other reasons for a toddler not eating. Some children struggle with a feeding problem. This can occur for a number of reasons from prematurity, sensory processing or autism spectrum disorders as well as other problems related to the development of oral motor skills needed to master learning how to eat.

The incidence of pediatric feeding disorders is not well defined. However, research shows that in autism spectrum disorders, up to 90% struggle with food selectivity (1). For babies delivered extremely premature, the rates are about 25% (2).

It is important to note that picky eating or struggling to feed your toddler doesn’t mean your child has a feeding disorder. What the evidence does show is that picky eating is far more likely to occur in some populations and may be one of the first symptoms identified (3). Picky eating can be a symptom that requires more in-depth evaluation.

Typically many parents are told that picking eating is a phase and that a toddler not eating will “grow out of it” or will eat when they get hungry. This is not true for children with a pediatric feeding disorder. This resource compares common symptoms of problem feeding vs. picky eating and can be used to help you identify if your child has a more severe feeding problem.

Feeding Therapy for a Toddler Not Eating

Eating is a learned skill and for some children, additional support is needed to help them master this skill. Feeding is a highly intense experience from a sensory perspective. For some children that have under or over responsiveness to senses such as touch, vision and smell, learning the skills of feeding can be difficult.

The oral-motor demands for feeding are often not appreciated. Learning to maneuver the tongue, use teeth for chewing and positioning food in the mouth for a successful swallow can be a challenge for some children. This can often be masked as a picky eating or a preference for certain food textures or foods. Children that are struggling with oral-motor aspects of eating can be difficult to identify and many of the symptoms are subtle and may not be recognized in regular child visits.

Feeding disorders typically require intervention by skilled professionals. Feeding therapy can help your child develop skills needed to eat and provide you with education about feeding strategies. Typically feeding therapy is conducted in a clinic or can also be performed in home. Play-based feeding therapy with a focus on sensory exploration is a popular approach for toddlers.

Conclusion: Toddler Not Eating

A child refusing to eat is a frustrating experience. It is important to distinguish picky eating from problem feeding and seek out additional evaluation for your toddler if you are concerned the symptoms may indicate a feeding disorder.

Using the strategies presented can help your picky eater toddler explore new foods and develop confidence at meals. Eating is a learned behavior and takes time and practice for your child to develop.

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References:

1. Williams, K.E. et al (2010). Food refusal in children: A review of the literature. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 31, 625-633.

2. Samara, MR et al (2009). Eating problems at age 6 years in whole population sample of extremely preterm children. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology.

3. Sharp, W.G. et al (2010). Pediatric feeding disorders: A quantitative synthesis of treatment outcomes. Clinical Child and Family Psychology, 13(4), 348-65.