My Child Is A Picky Eater And The Recipes He Likes

Toddlers and preschoolers are notoriously picky eaters.

By Amy landsman

Pikesville mom Ayme Lederman laughs when asked if she has any picky eaters in her house.

“I have three of them!”

OK, one is her husband. Let’s leave him out of this. The others are her two girls, Sarah, 4, and Haley, 1.

“I’ll make something with meat and they won’t even try it,” says Lederman. “They just want mac ‘n’ cheese, noodles, chicken nuggets; your typical kid food.”

Towson-based family practitioner Sarah Whiteford says picky eating is a very common concern.

“Parents have an expectation that children should be eating a larger amount of food,” Whiteford points out. “Truthfully, it’s normal for children to eat smaller amounts of food.”

Plus, as Whiteford notes, adults are trained to eat at mealtimes, while kids generally eat when they feel hungry.

While some fussiness is fairly typical in small children, other youngsters may have serious problems transitioning to solid food.

Michelle Harrison says her older boy Evan, 4, was a great eater from the get-go. But Matthew, now 2, was another story.

“I would shove the baby food in his mouth and on the second bite, he’d scream. I never, ever got him to eat baby food. It was awful. At 9 months he never had eaten anything except the bottle.”

Today, it’s still touch-and-go with Matthew. “Chicken, he will almost always eat. As far as vegetables, he sees the pot that I put them in and screams. Even fruits, grapes are hit-or-miss,” Harrison says.

Leabe Commisso of Lutherville says her daughter Isabella, 2, was hospitalized last year after refusing to eat for three days.

“She got a virus and I think in her little two-year-old mind she decided that she had better not eat or she would get sick,” Commisso says.

Dr. Richard Katz, the director of the feeding day program at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital says most serious feeding issues quickly resolve themselves. Some cases, however, last months or even years. Children who have spent lots of time in the ICU, or who have developmental or oral-motor problems, are at greater risk for feeding disorders. For others, the cause is a mystery.

Katz says while some children require hospitalization, others can be treated on an out-patient basis.

“Sometimes they just need a few visits with a therapist who does feeding disorders. Parents shouldn’t be afraid to ask,” he urges.

(Don’t confuse feeding disorders with eating disorders, such as anorexia in a teenager. Children with feeding disorders want to eat, but can’t.)

Isabella’s hospitalization was very traumatic for the Commisso family.

“When she was in the hospital there was a lot of crying on both our ends,” her mom recalls. Today, the family focuses on getting Isabella to eat one good meal a day. “If she’s had that meal, we’re a lot more relaxed with the others,” Commisso says.

And if your toddler eats nothing but bananas for two straight weeks, then all of a sudden won’t touch them, well, welcome to the club.

“That is completely typical,” says Whiteford. “They might just be going through a prolonged jag and are ready to start something new. You’ve got to just keep trying.”

Nancy Lipira’s daughter Ella, 5, has acid reflux, so the Pikesville mom doesn’t serve orange juice and other acidic foods. Other than that, she tries to give Ella the same thing as the rest of the family. “I don’t want to be the mother who cooks a thousand different meals,” says Lipira. “The trick is you have to start from day one, otherwise you’ll be a restaurant, a short order cook. And that’s not me!”

Whiteford believes as long as your child is eating at least some fruits and veggies, you’re ahead of the game.

“If they’ve got one or two vegetables, wonderful! If they’ve got one or two fruits, that’s wonderful! You always know you can give them those. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep offering (new choices)… you just have to keep introducing the foods.”

Is your child drinking enough milk? There’s a good chance she isn’t, and Whiteford says that’s become a very serious concern.

“Beginning at age 12 months, kids, children and adolescents need to be drinking one liter of milk a day in order to get enough vitamin D for healthy bone development. That’s four 8-ounce glasses of milk a day. That’s a lot. So everybody should be getting vitamin D supplementation if they’re not getting that.”

(Breast milk doesn’t contain vitamin D, so doctors have always recommended vitamin D for breast-fed babies.)

Allergies also complicate matters. Ashli Zeigler of Lutherville says her 4-year-old, Sammy, is allergic to milk, wheat and peanut butter.

“He refuses to try new foods,” she says. “It’s very frustrating.”

Another frustration? Sometimes kids will eat just fine at grandma’s house, but not at home.

“They’ll eat almost anything when they’re with my parents,” says Lederman. “Seriously. My older one? She’ll eat fish!”

If nothing else, parents can just hang in there, and their kids may surprise them. Just when you think you can’t look another nugget in the eye, your picky eater may suddenly announce she’s ready for something new.

Kid-Friendly Banana Bread

Baked Stuffed Potatoes