Tricks to Raising Good Eaters

Picky eaters make dinner a chore and ramp up every parent’s frustration.  But you don’t have to have picky eaters.  No matter how old your child is, you can take steps to either prevent or break this habit once and for all.

Here are my top tips for making mealtime easier for everyone by instilling good habits right from the start.

Don’t Use Purees

For a long time it was standard practice to introduce your six month old to pureed food.  

Why? 

We didn’t have blenders in the early agrarian ages.  We didn’t mash up broccoli and corn for our babies to eat when we were hunter/gathers.  Children ate what adults ate.

When we seperate what the whole food looks like from the taste, we are doing our children a disservice.  They associate the taste, smell, and texture of the food with how it looks so they know what is safe to eat and what isn’t.  We can’t expect babies to get used to purees and then jump them to the whole food without incident. 

Babies need to explore the real food in all its forms.  They need to feel all the buds of the broccoli, and peel the leaves off a brussel sprout.  

How do children get weaned without purees?  Give them healthy, whole foods off your plate from when they start to reach for them.

Steamed carrots, corn, peas, healthy cereals and oatmeals, and green beans are all great places to start.  Just make sure you are not cooking with salt, sugar, or honey and they can pretty much eat anything off your plate. And it is much less work for you.

We started with apples.  My husband would sit with our baby in the rocking chair and they would share an apple.  In the beginning, the baby would only take a bite or two of the flesh (completely avoiding the skin).  Now, at 2, she can demolish a whole apple in about 15 minutes.

If you want me to do a post on baby-led weaning, let me know in the comments below.  

Let Toddlers and Babies Explore Their Food

Babies aren’t the only ones that need to explore their food.  Food has a lot of textures, smells, and tastes.  New food and new food configurations are a full sensory experience. 

Give toddlers the food in every format you can think of.  Hand them raw components of dinner (where appropriate, don’t give them things that could be dangerous like raw meat), and then show them the cooking process before giving them the finished dish.

Don’t comment on the mess they make as they deconstruct their dinner, and don’t make them eat all of every component.

Toddlers are very in tune with their bodies.  They are learning to listen to the nutrients their bodies need and then provide them with exactly that.  

Because they are listening to their bodies, one day a toddler may eat a full box of strawberries only to reject strawberries entirely the next.  They might ask for meat and only eat a couple of bites one day and demolish your steak the very next.   

They don’t need to eat all of their meal as long as they explore each component of it.  And the less you react to their explorations, the less picky they will be about their meals going forward.

Give “Yucky” Food From Your Plate

Kids think your food is a thousand times more delicious than theirs, even if you obviously pulled the food from the same pot.

Mommy and Daddy food is somehow a magical, forbidden treat.  Use that to your advantage.  

When our baby was first learning how to eat, we only gave her food directly from our plates.  She would sit on someone’s lap and eat their food with them.  As she got older, we would serve her her own small plate from the food on ours.  

Now we only do that to introduce new foods or feed her foods she is apprehensive about.  

We will load her plate with the familiar aspects of the dinner we are serving and leave the new or “yucky” foods only on our plates.  It doesn’t take her long to notice we have something she doesn’t.  So she grabs her fork, places it on the table next to our plate, and climbs in someone’s lap to try and “steal” the new food.

Sometimes we protest a little “Hey! That’s mommy’s food!” just to make her feel like she is getting over.  She loves it.  And then she “steals” bites of the thing we wanted her to try.  

Sometimes she doesn’t like it, so she only eats a couple of bites.  Sometimes she loves it and demolishes our adult-sized portion of the new food.

When she only eats a little, we know to put it back on our plates next time so we can repeat the process.

When it comes to older kids, keep healthy things they don’t like on your plate, and make them ask for them.  Say that this food is only for adults, after all, kids don’t understand these complex flavors.  It would be a waste to give it to them…. They will start wanting your broccoli soon after.

Try Foods Several Times

Humans like things that are familiar.  New foods and dishes are not familiar.  It takes introducing something new 7-10 times before we are accustomed to it.

Introduce a new food 7-10 times before you listen to your children complain about how they don’t like it.

During this trial period, you can fight with the older kids about trying it.  Institute a one-bite rule or go with the “this is dinner” ultimatum route.  Or you could just keep the “new” food for you and make them ask for it.  But don’t use any of these methods with toddlers and babies.

In fact, don’t react to what the toddler or baby does with the new food at all.  Let them explore it without interference and don’t get discouraged if they do nothing with the food.

The first time we introduce a new food to our 2-year-old, she almost never eats it.  She deconstructs it, feels the texture, licks it, puts it in her mouth and spits it out, and then moves on to something else.  This whole process takes between 15-30 minutes.  She has explored the food and is now done with it.

The second time the food is introduced, she explores it again and then actually eats 3-4 bites before moving on.

The third time she often eats a toddler-sized portion of the food, and the 4th time she sees it is generally when she only eats that “new” food for a meal and decides she likes it.  

As long as your child is exploring food in this way, don’t comment or react to how they interact with food.  Once they switch to the immediate “I don’t like it” phase, then you start mandating bites.

Don’t React to Food

Notice this doesn’t say don’t react negatively to food, it says don’t react to food.  At all.  

Don’t praise your child for eating or trying something.  But don’t react negatively when they make a mess on their plate or spill their drink either.

Praise and negative consequences both get associated with the food on the table and can contribute to picky eating.  

After all, if you can’t figure out how to eat cottage cheese without making a mess and you get shamed for it, would you like cottage cheese?  

But the opposite is also true.  If you get praised for everything you put in your mouth, would you want to eat when that praise goes away?

So don’t react.  Let them eat, let them make a mess, and let them learn to enjoy the process all on their own without your interference.

*A quick note.  This rule does not apply to curtailing hurtful or otherwise bad behavior.  Only how they eat/ interact with the food.  If they are throwing food or behaving intentionally badly, they must not be hungry, so feel free to pull up their plate until they can behave.  But if they are exploring something messy (like soup) and get it all over themselves in the process, that is not bad behavior, that is unintentional mess; so feel free to ignore it.

Make Mealtime Social

Meals have always been social affairs for humans.  We sit together and eat and talk about everything and nothing in particular.  

This is one of the most important aspects of food, even for children and babies.

For at least one meal a day, drop everything and just eat together as a family.  It doesn’t matter if you eat at the dining table, or if you eat around the coffee table.  Just make sure to eat together and socialize without screens.  

Your children will start to see mealtime as a special time when they get their parent’s undivided attention.  They are more likely to eat when they feel mealtime itself is special.

Include Them in the Process

When you feel like you have control over something, you are more likely to enjoy it. 

Every child can be involved in the food process.  Babies can smell, touch, and explore the dish’s components.  Toddlers can help wash and process produce.  Older kids can help with meal planning and grocery shopping.  

Pick out recipes together.  Plan the meals for the week and then let your kids pick which of the pre-planned meals you are cooking tonight.  Then let the kids help you as much as you have time for.  It is amazing how much more they like food when they are part of preparing it.

Offer Only One Food Option at a Time

Too many options lead to confusion and the idea the child can ask for anything and it will be provided.  

You don’t have to have a bunch of food options available.  At mealtimes offer only the food that everyone has decided on.  Don’t give appetizers or snack foods.  If there are snack foods still available from earlier, take them up.

At mealtime, everyone should eat the same thing and not be confused by other food offerings.  If you are all eating the same thing, it will encourage the child to eat what everyone else is eating.

Keep Giving the Rejected Meal Until it is Eaten

If a meal is wholesale rejected by an older child, assume the kid is not hungry.  When they come back and ask for a snack later, give them their leftovers.  

If they still insist they will not eat (or even try it), feel free to assume they aren’t hungry again.

Repeat the process until they eat it (or at least give a valiant effort).  They won’t starve.  

During this process don’t barter, cajole, or get emotional.  Just let them know this is what is available to them for food until they eat it.  Generally, it takes 2 or three tries before they eat it.

Just make sure that when you save the food on their plate, you do it in a way that keeps it fresh.  It isn’t fair (or kind) to let the food go stale or dry and then still expect them to eat it.  

Grow Food

Being involved in food production is always a way to make it interesting.

Growing a garden helps kids feel connected to their food.  It lets them play in the dirt and eat food straight from the source.

Kids love it and it encourages them to eat their fruits and veggies.

If you don’t have space for a garden, head to an orchard or farm to pick fruit and veggies in your area.  It is a super fun outing that inevitably ends in a fresh feast.  

Bringing it All Together

Children learn from our example. The more we make eating every kind of food seem normal, the more our children will think so too.

Involve them in the process wherever possible and expect everyone to eat the same food. Model trying things you don’t like, and model eating as a social group.

And teach them to meal plan, grow, and cook food. Life skills surrounding food can start as soon as food is introduced, and they will use them the rest of their lives.

What are your favorite tricks to getting your kiddo to eat? Let me know in the comments below. And don’t forget to like and share!