I admit it. I have been spoiled with the eating habits of Boog, my almost 3-year old son. He’s always eaten pretty much everything that was put in front of him (when asked if he wants Brussels sprouts for dinner he often yells “Yum! Brussel Sprouts!” Seriously.) I think his only eating downfall is that he takes after my eating habits a bit too much in the sweet-tooth area. He’s also a big fan of dessert before dinner 
And thus, not so coincidentally, he’s always been a pretty solidly built kid-near the top of the charts for both weight and height.
I just thought that’s how it was. Until little Hercules came along.
She started off on the wrong foot by not gaining back her birth weight for about 4 weeks (we had weekly weigh-ins for her first 6 weeks). But not long later she showed a real interest in food. She would stare at us when we were eating. Literally following the food from our plate to our mouths. Imagine a baby at a tennis match and that was Hercules watching us eat.
Then she ate. Or at least she tried food.
It’s not that she doesn’t eat (although she is 70% on height and only 30th on weight). It’s just that she has a very selective palate. She only likes fruit. Heck, she even likes prunes.
But put anything else in front of her and you get any of a variety of tactics to keep the offending vegetable or meat out of her mouth. Some of my favorites include:
• The Push – pretty simple but effective technique
• The Double Arm Swipe – much more advanced and effective since it includes a flailing of both arms that keeps anything and everything away from her face
• Defending the Goal – she adds a little defense to her tricks when she sticks her hand/arm/anything in the vicinityof her mouth to keep any food related item out
• The Head Turn – typically used when her arms are held down in an attempt to keep her from using the three tactics above. Again, simple but pretty darn effective.
And if by some miracle you are able to maneuver a spoon of orange, green, or puke brown food by the first level of defense and get food into her mouth, she has a whole additional arsenal of tools at her disposal:
• The Drool – self explanatory
• The Spit – a more dangerous version (for those feeding her) of The Drool
• The Rapid Fire Spit – watch out when this one is employed!
• The Gag – she actually ends up eating the food with this one, but it scares the crap out of me and keeps me from feeding her anything else since I know there’s the potential for:
• The Throw Up – she tends to go here for peas, but it has been utilized for various meats as well (although it’s hard to blame her on the meat front. Those jars smell nasty!)
In some ways I’m impressed by her stead-fastness and dedication to not eating something she doesn’t want (yes, you could say that she’s a strong willed child). But, at the same time, I’m the mother and I’m supposed to make sure that she eats a well balanced diet.
The only thing I’ve been able to figure out so far to make her eat veggies and meat is to mix them with fruit. However, it requires a heavy proportion of fruit vs. veggie and nothing seems to work in hiding peas or green beans – except prunes, which I’m a bit nervous to use in excess given what that could lead to!
So, those of you with picky eaters out there, let me know any and all secrets you might have. PLEASE! In the meantime, I think I might add a plastic shield to the front of her highchair in an attempt to minimize the impact of The Rapid Fire Spit.
I’m assuming she’ll still getting nursed or formula-fed, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. If she’s watching you guys eat, chances are she’ll eventually adopt the behavior you are modeling. So don’t make a big deal out of it. Keep introducing the foods.
My mom (a retired public-health nurse) gave me great advice for feeding my son. Moms decide when, what, and where their kids eat. Kids get to decide whether or not they eat, and how much they eat. Saved me a lot of battles about food.
She’s at an age where you can try to introduce teeny tiny finger foods (will help her develop the pincher grasp too). Cheerios (fiber), small pieces of cheese (we sliced it thin and get gave little pieces off the slice), little pastas (they even make pastas will extra protein).
Also have you tried baby yogurt? My son practically lived on baby yogurt. We did the yo-baby brand which has a strong fruit taste.
Okay, that sounds an awful lot like my number two too. Sadly to say, at 4 1/2 she remains picky. I have to totally agree with Robin. We don’t make battles with it. It is impossible to force a kid to eat. So we just keep providing opportunities (again and again). Peas and green beans make her gag to this day. She doesn’t get other choices to what we eat (although we keep the Ranch handy, because that makes a lot go down). Her big sister eats everything. And I just keep telling myself that it will work out eventually. My sister ate NOTHING as a child and was a tiny little peanut. Today there isn’t much she doesn’t eat. Or she will grow up and still be picky, but then it won’t be my problem!
Amy,
I’m am laughing at this one, such a difference from Boog. Mixing with fruit was my first albeit obvious suggestion. I agree with previous poster – see if she likes the real thing. Make her real green beans and cut them small. Make sure they are mushy first. Sweet potatoes and carrots are sweeter veggies and well cooked they are soft. Mine were always great in the baby food department. Now, sometimes I wonder what Kiersten does actually eat.
What do they say – they have to try it 15 times. I would serve 2 veggie varieties (one green and one orange) at every meal and be prepared for the “feedback”. Get the tiny jars and spoon it out beforehand so you do’t get germs in the jar. In addition only give her fruit with veggie in it and slowly adjust the amount of fruit to veggie ratio. Again do this at every meal. Does she like cereal? Do you mix in veggie with it too? Start tiny 1/10 ratio and work your way up to actual bites of all veggie.
Keep us posted and I want to see pics of the”feedback”
Good luck.
I have a two year old and we’ve been struggling with food for several months.
My PED just said “you control what and when and he controls if and how much.” And that is what we’ve been doing.
Some days he literally eats crumbs and that is it and others he snarfs down the food.
I hate to see it. I hate to know how bad his diet is. But the more I try the worse the food fight gets.
Nell
Hopefully it is a phase? I remember Tommy going through something like this. And believe it or not, he was a tiny peanut until about his first birthday. I drove myself crazy trying to get that kid to eat. At one point, he was in the 5th percentile for weight. Yes, the 5th. My ped wasn’t even concerned (he was perfectly healthy) but I was a nut! He eats pretty well now–although we don’t get the same reaction to brussel sprouts:) PPs had good suggestions and I agree with you on the jarred meats–I thought they were gross too!
Have you tried making your own? There is nothing to pureeing steamed/boiled whatever and it tastes a lot better than out of a jar. Sweet potatoes might be a good place to start.
Hello: It is not ‘you, the parent’ as some think, but the baby’s palette/taste buds/character. After 6 kids and then raising 68 over the years, I can say that mixing fruit (and prunes is fine too and you don’t have to worry about ‘overload’ of them usually)…with the veggies is ok – you are killing the taste of some veggies and regardless of how much fruit you use, the veggies and/or dinners, are still going down! At 9 months, it’s time for little tid-bits of people food, especially if there are a few teeth at least and even at less than 3 teeth, soft foods can be cut into tiny pieces and put on the tray for that ‘big kid’ graduation/treat… You can still get in some babyfood as best you can at the same time. If the peas, green beans or beets are a disaster – omit them for a while and then resume in a few months. If the ‘real foods of these groups’ won’t work either, don’t fret – later on they will eat so much you’ll wonder why you were so frustrated over this. There have been kids that ate nothing but hot dog bits and cheese and they now eat everything!! The more frustration you show at mealtime, the more the toddler will perform negatively! Make meal times happy and distract from the not so good tastes if you must—it works at times! Good luck and don’t hesitate to email me for any other help.
What worked with my daughter when she was making it all too clear that every vegetable (and she tried to like them) was met with disgust, was to bypass them… go on to meats… after ensuring they didn’t offer any food reactions (cause you never know, right?), I started bringing BACK the veggies… she loved meats (unlike my other two, who were naturally vegetarians until they could eat it without having it mashed into goo first… let alone if it was the goo from the jar)…
so I picked a veggie (having smelled and tasted all these veggies before with her being my third and all, I grabbed the one I knew would be hardest to taste in the meat…
I started small… mixed just a few babyspoonsfull of meat and my choice (sweet potatoes) together… I started with 6 of meat and 2 of veggie… so 3 times the meat to the veg… and then finished each meal with fruit as dessert… (each week, we did more veggie until it was pure half and half)… VOILA… she gobbled it down.
You hear of moms doing this for their school age kids (hiding veggies in the meatloaf, in the spaghetti, wherever and however they can)… do it NOW… while you can manipulate more into increasing the amount of veggies until one day, you offer a spoon of just the dreaded vegetable… and she takes it.
My daughter now loves loves loves her green beans, peas, and all things veg… she eats salad with the best of them (she calls it “malice”… her attempt at saying Lettuce)
And I think it’s because I didn’t throw the hat in, I didn’t push… I just mixed it in with something she liked until she got used to the different texture or flavor.
Remember, babies aren’t just reacting to a new taste, it’s also new textures… and veggies are distinctly different than fruit in that respect.. they aren’t as soft… so when you mix them with something else, not only the taste changes, but the texture as well.
Heck, I found that when I mixed some of the meat (beef, turkey, chicken, whatever it was) from the jar or even ready made that made me a little ill just seeing how it looked with a veggie and (further down the line to thicken it) some mashed potatoes… heated it up… heck, I would have eaten it if I didn’t have the exact same thing in adult form sitting in front of me.