What do your kids EAT?
Mealtime in our house has been pretty special as of late. And by special, I mean it goes a little something like this:
{Penelope wakes up from her nap}
Mom: Penny Jane, are you hungry?
Penelope: {shakes head no}
Mom: Ok...do you want to just try a sandwich?
Penelope: {continues playing with her dolls, completely freezing Mom out in total ignorance}
five minutes later...
{Penelope walks over to Mom, grabs hand, pulls Mom to refrigerator and puts up her hands in a 'pick me up' motion}
Mom: {opens refrigerator} What do you want to eat? We can make a sandwich...
P: no! {whines}
Mom: How about pasta & veggies with cheeeeese? Yum!
P: No! {whines more}
Mom: Ok...how about a cheese stick? or a Babybel!
P: no! {whines and points to nothing}
Mom: Hummus? Do you want the hummus?!
P: {whines turning to crying and wiggling out of Mom's arms}
Mom: Just tell me what you want to eat! Please!
P: {points to cabinet...repeat above refrigerator scene at pantry cabinet}
...sooo yeah. This seems like an exaggeration, but it's really only slightly {but kind of not even at all}. I hate to say that Penelope is a picky eater, but I guess she is becoming one. And man...it's really annoying. Shaun and I are both willing to make her just about anything that she would eat and I could even accept it if she just didn't want anything at all. But the whining. Oh dear Lord, the whining.
She still loves her fruit and of course, loves all kinds of snacks like fruit snacks, lollipops and other sugar-laden goodies that I try to avoid all together on most days. It's a constant challenge to keep things interesting for her, but also to get her to actually TRY things. I can spend time making her something new and exciting only for her to physically push it away before I even set it down on her tray. It's enough to make me want to pull my hair out some days, or just give her a giant sippy cup full of milk and call it a day.
Here are the foods that she will sometimes eat {depending on the day}:
pasta with tomato sauce & lots of parmesean cheese
cheese sticks, babybel cheese, cheese slices, cheddar cheese & crackers {notice a pattern here?}
ramen noodles
fruit {mostly any kind at any time and would live on a sole fruit diet if allowed, but especially grapes, melon, strawberries & bananas}
dip, hummus {which I'm trying to convince her IS dip}
cream cheese & jelly; when served on whole wheat, she will open the sandwich, lick off the cream cheese & jelly and discard the rest; when served on white bread, she might eat the whole sandwich.
yogurt {any kind; whole milk vanilla, plain Greek w/maple syrup}
fruit snacks, lollipops, ice pops, doughnuts, cookies, cupcakes or any other terrible for you snack.
So that's the mealtime story in our house lately. By some miracle she actually ate the banana pancakes that I made for her last week (which she helped with!), but when we tried to give it to her another day, she refused.
What do you feed your kids and toddlers?
Any tips or tricks to share for getting them to actually EAT?
And just for my sanity...how do you deal with toddler whining?!
5 Comments | January 12, 2015 | Share Article | Email Article | in Baby Talk Tuesday Print Article | Permalink 
Reader Comments (5)
Oh man, I am wondering what life will be like with L when he has the ability to choose what he wants to eat. I ate everything as a kid but Matt was SUPER picky so it will be interesting!
The big mistake I always made was asking what do you want to eat.
Just make it and put it out.
Get going on recipes that you can hide things in. Even if it means putting broccoli in fruit snacks.
How about some baked sweet potato fries?
1) My first question is, is she hungry enough? One of my friends just went through something really similar with her 2-year-old boy, + after talking to their pediatrician, they realized he was filling up so much on milk all day long that he didn't really have a good appetite for meals. After (literally) pulling her hair out for months over this, they reduced his milk every day, which upped his appetite, + while it's not easy peasy every meal, they did say he is eating MUCH better. That's my first question/thought. =)
2) Like Sandy said above, I find that if I ask Baby A what she wants to eat, she asks for kettle corn (YUM!) or a cookie (YUM!) or simply gets overwhelmed + walks away. So now, I give her two options. Like, "Do you want pasta for lunch? Or Meatballs?" Then, "Do you want it with corn? or peas?" With only 1 or 2 options, she seems to feel happy that she's helping "choose," but isn't overwhelmed by a whole fridge/pantry worth of choices.
3) Does she eat any meat/chicken/fish? Or is she vegetarian?
4) Since she seems to love cheese (who doesn't?), have you tried pizza? Real pizza, english muffin pizzas, homemade pizza, etc.? There are a lot of riffs on pizza that are pretty darn healthy + they are all favorites of my little one. =)
I think those are my first thoughts! I was a super picky eater as a child (all the way through my teens, into college), as was my husband, so we really really wanted to do everything possible to prevent our little one from being like that! As you can see, I've put a lot of thought/energy into it. Ha! So far, it seems to be working, although even she goes through pickier phases + more agreeable phases.
This sounds tough! I am obviously not there yet, but I have watched tons of kids who I had to make dinner for. I always couldn't get over that kids are willing to eat the same thing over and over again, but I see now that it was more their parents getting them to eat ANYTHING at all!
I remember most kids, even picky ones, liking ham or other lunchmeat (goes well with cheese!). Does she like hot dogs? I know that's not super healthy either, but at least it's not cheese/carbs.
thanks for all of your comments! last night, we tried a new approach: sitting P down in her chair and placing a plate of food in front of her and walking away. she ate ALL of it. in fairness, it was pasta & turkey meatballs so who can resist that? she also had strawberries & grapes for dessert!
Rachel