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Picky Eating Toddlers:
The Ultimate Starter Guide To Overcoming Fussy Children's Eating Habits
Do some ‘food play’ during play time
6. Get your child hands on with new foods in a pressure-free, fun setting. Why? So they learn about foods, get more comfortable with foods, more curious and open toward them. THIS is what creates an adventurous eater who loves meals and mealtime!
Not sure where to start with food play? Check out my blog post on 6 Food Exposure Activities That Can Get Your Picky Eater To Try New Foods.
And grab my FREE Transforming Picky Eating Starter Guide herefor step-by-step guidance on how to change picky eating with food play and more, in 1-4 weeks!
Say some playful things about new foods
Keep mealtime light and enjoyable so they are happy and open
- How can I make this meal a calm and happy time for me and my picky toddler while also maintaining our new mealtime rules? (Psst: it’s about serving the meal with 2-3 things they like, weathering their big feelings, enforcing mealtime rules and moving on without blaming, shaming or battling)
- What can I do a little differently to make mealtime less of a stressful struggle? (Psst: let go of controlling how much or what your picky eating toddlers eat after you serve it, and instead serve 1 new food with 2-3 they love and get playful and direct when they say, “I don’t want that!” or “yuck!”)
Serve foods in fun shapes & with fun tools
Ask more questions
- Can you balance your carrot stick on your nose like this? (getting them comfortable touching foods is acceptance, and one step closer to them trying it!)
- Ooooh, these crackers are like my favorite cheezits! Yum! Crunchy! Are yours crunchy too?
- Oh! This is like rice! I love rice with my chicken! It’s a little creamy too. Is yours creamy like mine??
Bring some new foods out during story time
You eat and enjoy (exaggerate a little)
Set limits on foods and tell them why
Conclusion
Save this! Take some time to mull all of this over and slowly digest it all. There most likely will be unlearning to do and new habits you need to practice to make the changes you want to see.
Overcoming fussy children’s eating habits is NOT an overnight thing, so give yourself grace and keep the faith.
Give it a month of practicing all the tips you’ve learned in this picky eating toddlers starter guide and I guarantee you will come out of the 4 weeks with a very different eater than you went in with!! And, your family mealtimes will be more enjoyable!
Maybe share this article with a friend or two and do it together so you can check in with one another, keep each other accountable and share your wins and struggles with??
Xx Poppy
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Picky Eating Toddlers Starter Guide
Start setting ground rules & weathering their big feelings
1. If you don’t already have rules around mealtime that your toddler knows about and that you enforce – time to change that!
You can lovingly say and enforce a rule like “this is what’s for dinner tonight. I know you love mac n cheese we can have that with tomorrow’s dinner. Let’s look on our plate again for 2 things you love.”
They might cry. Ok, totally normal expression of their upset. Nothing that is going to sway your rule and enforcement. You can make room for listening to their cries, helping them through it, then moving on.
Weathering their cries might sound like, “I hear you babe, you really wanted mac n cheese. We’ll have it tomorrow. Let’s eat what we have here tonight. If you want to go hug your lovey and come back when you feel better, that is fine.” You also might offer a hug for a minute.
The more consistent you are with setting and enforcing fair mealtime rules (while also serving new foods alongside ones they love), the less outbursts you will see after a week or so.
Give your toddler a 3-day heads up about the new mealtime rules and then start reminding and enforcing them.
Try and get your partner on board but, know that if they struggle enforcing or listening to crying, that you taking the lead and giving the tips in this picky eating toddlers starter guide for a few weeks, will still work!
2. Always be sure to serve 2-3 foods your toddler enjoys at every meal and snack. Truth is, food in all it’s many forms is still so new to your toddler. They have actual fear toward unknown foods and when we recognize that, we can approach mealtimes with more compassion and preparedness for this fact.
Say you’re serving meat lasagna that you haven’t had for a couple of months. Be sure to add some strawberries and roasted broccoli along with it (if they love those things. Choose 2 things they love.)
I always go with 2-3 things when I can, that way if that is all they eat, I feel good that it was a couple or a few diverse and/or wholesome things.
Add snack foods they love as a side to their meals
For dinner, you could put some popcorn alongside their lasagna.
Remind them this is all there is for breakfast/lunch/dinner
Doing this reminds them of your mealtime rule and gets them focused less on what you are serving and more on how their body feels – am I feeling hungry? Oh, I better eat.
Leave the meal for them to come back to when they’re ready
5. If your toddler is saying they aren’t hungry or isn’t eating at the usual mealtime – no need to stress or push or engage in a power struggle (I know it can be hard not to want to engage!), try this instead: “Ok, your food will be here when you are feeling hungry”, and leave it on the island, the dinner table or their little table – somewhere they can access it on their own when they feel hungry.
Boom! How freeing for you and simple, right!? And the amazing news is – this WORKS SO WELL! I use it regularly for my twins and all my daycare and preschool picky eating toddlers. Fair, meets their needs and effective.
If you don’t rush right to bath and then bedtime, what’s the harm? Let the lasagna, peas, cantaloupe and goldfish sit for an hour. They might come back when they are less distracted, feeling more hungry, feeling less grumpy… whatever it might have been keeping them from eating something.
No power struggle at all! Magic, right?! DON’T knock it until you try it for a week 😉
You might choose to tell them to sit with the family during mealtime, whether they are eating or not, so everyone can hang out and talk (instead of letting them wander or play) this is different in every home. If you have them sit, it’d be best to engage them about their day, and old memory together or something so they aren’t fidgeting and fussing.
Also, remember that toddlers aren’t developing as rapidly as babies, so their appetite, no matter how active they are compared to their baby-self, is usually less. And toddlers don’t need much.
For reference, here is the recommended portion sizes of protein for toddlers, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics,
- 2-3 servings of 2-3 ounces of cooked lean meat, poultry, or fish per day. A serving in this group may also consist of 1/2 cup of cooked dry beans, one egg, or 2 tablespoons of peanut butter for each ounce of lean meat.
- are they grazing all day? You can help change that with more structure and mealtime rules.
- are you serving snacks within 2 hours of mealtime? Try and keep snacks at least 2 hours from mealtime. This is the guideline from the USDA feeding program I follow for my preschool and it works well.
