My kids won’t eat what I cook. Should I care?
I used to love cooking. I made dishes like coq au vin, marinated flank steak, and chicken piccata. I peeled potatoes, boiled them, and whipped them into heavenly clouds of lumpless fluff. I roasted asparagus to the point that the tips would get browned and crispy and salty. Mmmmm. Ahhhh. Excuse me while I have a moment.
But now? I have kids.
And my kids are the type of kids who won’t eat anything that appeals to taste buds older than, say, five years of age.
I can list the main dishes they will both eat on one hand: Peanut butter and jelly/fluff. Meatballs. Pasta. Turkey dogs. Mac & cheese. Chicken nuggets.
Okay, I need a sixth finger. But you get my point. Can I even count PB&J as a main dish?
I don’t get it.
I ate everything when I was a kid. It wasn’t an option to have something different from what my parents ate. I never asked. They never offered. Fish, meat, exotic fruits, and yes, even brussels sprouts – I ate it all. And I loved it all. I was a foodie before age five.
I was thrilled to bits to dine at fancy establishments when on vacation. For me it was as exciting to go to the five-star restaurant at the Williamsburg Inn as it was to go to Busch Gardens.
So how did I, lover of all food, end up with kids whose palates are seriously deficient?
Apparently it is all my fault. As usual.
My pediatrician says: “Make the kids eat what you eat.”
What this turns into: Me and the hubs eating chicken nuggets with the kids.
I tried. I really did. I believe it all went south when Anne was little and just starting to eat table foods. Hubs and I would eat a normal dinner. Anne wouldn’t eat it when it was offered.
I, being first-time parent of a 90th percentile height and 10th percentile weight toddler, freaked out that she’d lose more weight and gave her something she’d eat.
Anne realized that she could make her newbie mom feed her what she wanted, whenever she wanted.
Fast-forward five years, and if I want the kids to eat what I eat, I’m eating something beige and toddler-sized.
Website advice columns say: “Cook dinners that the whole family will eat.”
What this turns into: Me hurling the computer with said advice across the room when my kids reject my latest attempt at a family meal.
For a few blessed times, everyone ate pasta and homemade meatballs. For another short stretch of time, it was lasagna. Once it was a casserole. But what always happens is one of the girls – usually Anne – suddenly refuses to eat the accepted meal. And one or two people end up in tears over it. I am always one of them.
So it’s not like we don’t eat. I still cook. But I don’t love it.
And I want to love it again. But I am tired of making separate meals for the kids and for the adults. I hate that when Hubs and I devise a plan to get everyone to eat the same thing, it doesn’t work – either because I can’t take Anne’s tantrums anymore or I am worried she will waste away into nothing if she doesn’t eat.
Grace is a bit more open to trying new foods and I am fully taking advantage of it. At least she’ll try what’s put in front of her. But Anne … not so much. So it’s a conundrum.
What about you?
Do you cook different foods for the kids and adults in your life? If so, are you okay with it? If you are unhappy with the situation, how have you tried to fix it?
And if you all eat the same thing at mealtime – how, in all that is holy, do you do it?!
I, like you eat everything as a child. You eat your brussels sprouts, I eat (and loved) the liver my parents cooked for me. When my boys came along I was determined it would be the same way, and it was. Up until they turned 2 at which point it all went downhill.
Now that they are older its gotten much much better. They eat a huge variety of foods. Veggies are still not big one list. But each boy seems to have chosen one green veg that they love and eat it all the time, although I’m bored to tears cooking them.
I guess my one bit of advice is keep at it. Offer foods over and over and over.
Banterburbia recently posted… Unsentimental Mamma
This is my life! Well, except that I have no idea how to make coq au vin. I was a picky eater as a child and occasionaly my mom would make me something different, but often, I just wouldn’t eat. Now with three sons and a baby, I feel like I’m a short order cook. We only have one who will eat what Hubby and I eat. And I have a tiny, skinny one, too that I worry about. I wish I knew the answer. I am going to feed the baby anything and everything and see if he becomes a better eater.
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When I was a child, I ate only one food from each of the four food groups:
Protein – peanut butter
Fruit/vegetable – applesauce
Bread – mashed potatoes (& it had to be boxed)
Dairy – milk (only w/strawberry powder in it)
I was a colossal pain in the ass. I remember my parents rejoicing when I learned to tolerate lettuce. ICEBERG lettuce. Really? It tastes like water.
My kids were the opposite. They ate everything in sight. The first time my said tried a banana he ate the entire thing. And he was 6 months old. I had fed my children broccoli for breakfast when the toddlers because I felt they had eaten so much that I could only imagine giving them pure nutrition as seconds. (Or fourths.)
And now? Well, short of red meat, I eat everything in sight. Sigh. I am easily the least picky person in my household (to my husband’s most, by the way). And my kids? The ones who would eat sushi at one and bok choy at two? Well, those little pains in the butt now balk at the brand of macaroni & cheese I buy. One doesn’t like mashed potatoes and the other is finicky about the kind of cheese I serve. Really?
These are not my kids. I mean … the moral of the story is … whoever they are now has NO bearing on who they will be as eaters. For now, enjoy the chicken nuggets. Your metabolism won’t be able to tolerate them forever. And I highly suggest a peanut Thai dipping sauce.
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My apologies for my typo-ridden comment. I attempted typing from a steady pace on the treadmill. Oops!!! And, now that I’m re-reading it, it drives me nuts!!!!
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Typing while running, great way to get stuff done.
Mercy recently posted… Arrrg…
Sometimes I make my daughter something separate from what my husband and I eat, but usually we all eat the same thing. My daughter tried doing the same thing yours does, but I grew up in a household that proudly carried the standard tradition of you don’t eat what is put in front of you, you go hungry. My pediatrician also told me that basically she will eat when she is hungry, she won’t starve herself to death and that it might take awhile before you figure out what she actually does not like. So far the only thing I have found that she really dislikes is spaghetti and sauce. I remember if I used to throw tantrums over the food I was served, I was sent to bed without supper. Giving in is only making the problem worse, which is something you’ve already figured out. Good luck!
My son eats about 5 foods. He has sensory processing disorder AND reflux, so both of these things have caused him to have severe food issues. He occasionally has trouble eating at a table where there are lots of strong smells and sights. IT. IS. A. LIVING. HELL. My daughter is pretty open to trying foods and she gets what my husband and I eat, but my son always gets a different “meal” (can’t even really call it a meal). Once I tried saying, you are eating what we are eating and he ate nothing for 2 days, until I caved. I hope Old Dog New Tits is right and he can change someday.
But, until then… I hear you. Wish I had some advice for you. With my daughter, we just put it in front of her and I consider myself satisfied if she has a few bites. Often she will eat the whole thing and want seconds, but on those picky days, I am fine if she eats three bites. Having my son first really put it all into perspective.
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My son (11) has a sensory processing disorder as well. He only eats about 10 things and I have caved for so long that it is a HUGE issue. I dread dinner time… My daughters (5 and 7) are pretty picky as well. I can usually get them to eat one thing at the table each night but I end up adding/making extra things. Right now we are on a wait list for an eating clinic at Duke for kids with selective eating disorders and their families. The hardest part of it all is I am such a healthy eater and I feel like such a hypocrite serving my kids the foods they eat/want. But if I ever served them quinoa it would end up as a gagfest!
I’m like you, Chicken nuggets are a regular feature on our menu. I used to love cooking, now I hate my kitchen. I shouldn’t complain, my kids love fruit, cereal and toast, all fairly healthy, easy to prepare foods. But I miss whipping up a lovely 3 course meal for hubby and I, just because I want to.
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I was like you. No surprise there, as we are finding out. I had a plate put in front of me and I ate everything on it or I would not get my precious Nutty Buddy for dessert. Oh the horror!
My children ate everything I gave them. Tuck refused to give up baby food until 12 months. Weirdo. Anyways, Mags made it to six months with the stuff and I was grateful. She devoured EVERYTHING! Olives, avocados, meat, cheese, papaya, mango and sprouts. You name it, she ate it and followed it up with “MMMMMMMMM”. Now, she is the Picky McPicky pants and Tuck has turned it around. He hit six and eats whatever I put in front of him. Literally I sat and stared at him the other night when he DEVOURED a stuffed green pepper in a minute.
So I do the chicken nugget thing? Yes. I eat it with them. I do make them try a “no thank you” bite for everything, though. Mags is always the first to make a face. Grrrr!
My rambling is coming to a close, no worries. I say they will come around. There tastes will change as they grow. They will find what they like. As long as they are healthy and growing…I say you are good.
Mel recently posted… THE NOT SO TYPICAL DAY
Usually, we all eat the same thing. Sometimes, I’ll make the children something that I know their dad won’t eat (like…anything with tuna in it, for example), but usually it’s one meal. I try to include at least one thing that I know everyone will eat. Or, for example, mashed potatoes because child A will eat them, but won’t eat anything else that night, and carrots, because child B will like them, but not anything else.
We also have a rule that you have to have 3 bites of everything before you can declare it to be horrid.
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Dad’s a meat and potatoes man, Mom gave up trying new foods for him. I grew up on meatloaf (sorry but turning meat into bread still doesn’t do anything for me without being drowned in ketchup, and I despise ketchup) and overcooked vegetables. I’m pickier than my husband, who, bless his heart, tries everything under the sun to get me to eat vegetables. I’m learning, but I still don’t like them. But my upbringing: children are seen and not heard, don’t ask for seconds on anything until it is quite clear that everyone is finished with their firsts, eat what’s on the plate before you, these rules were drilled into us as kids because my mother would not be embarrassed in the homes of her friends and families. To this day, if someone has gone through the trouble to prepare it, I eat it without complaint. Even my husband’s stew (my absolute least favorite meal in the world, next to deep fried crickets) I eat and say thank you for supper honey. I don’t have kids, but my niece and nephew both need a lesson in the above rules because I leave restaurants angry when we’ve all dined out together.
I didn’t know what a chicken nugget was until I became an adult. Maybe they weren’t invented until then. Maybe it was strategic on Mom’s part to keep me clueless. I dunno. I wish I had some gem of wisdom I could impart here that doesn’t result in a paddling. Have you tried the “Deceptively Delicious” cookbook?
I wish you luck and give you the sympathetic hug over the internet.
shelton keys dunning recently posted… Story Dam: So Done
Oh, the stress of meals. My eldest ate pretty much anything I gave him until he turned 3 1/2 and it shocked me at how picky he got. At first I tried forcing, insisting, yelling, withholding, etc, but it ended in tears and frustration for both of us. He overnight quit milk, the one thing he had loved as a toddler and that I felt was so needed for his growth. That was a tough one. He is also the type of kid who loses weight easily when sick, and if I recall correctly, he had been sick shortly before he got picky.
What I found was that I had to stop forcing him to eat at all, and when he was hungry he would eat. I also allowed him extra snacks of some things he did like so he could regain the weight he lost – mainly buns and pancakes. Now at 4 1/2 he is still picky but is slowly eating better.
I learned that 1) getting upset only made it worse for everyone, and 2) I had to see what he was eating and not what he wasn’t. He loves fruit, carrot sticks, yoghurt, plain salted chickpeas, breads, rice, fish, chicken, and meat. So instead of freaking out that he didn’t want milk, I gave him extra yoghurt. Instead of making him eat the chickpeas in the spicy sauce (that he loved as a toddler), I let him eat them plain. I never cook two separate meals, but I always try to serve something I know the kids will eat. Now my daughter is almost 3 and is getting pickier. She used to be a great eater, but I don’t get upset like I did with my son. Mealtime is more peaceful for all of us. I also taught Logan to tell me nicely if he didn’t want to eat a certain thing instead of screaming like he used to, and it makes it easier for me to let him not eat it cause he is being nice about it.
I also make sure their snacks are healthy. They love peanuts and rasins, dates, saltine crackers, and banana chips, so that is one of their main snacks (a little of all of it mixed). I figure the important thing is that they do eat, not what or when, so if they don’t want breakfast when I serve it, or they just eat the fruit, I know they will be hungry in an hour so I leave it on the table and they always amble back and finish it. I also keep junk food out of the house and they know that chocolate is a treat, not something they can have daily.
My top advice? Relax, let them eat what they want to eat but do offer new stuff frequently, and save the special hard work meals for later. Last night I made spicy fried chicken, mashed potoatos and salad. My picky eaters just had the chicken. Argg, I knew I shouldn’t have worked so hard on it. (At least my husband liked it.)
Maybe I need to write a whole post about this.
Mercy recently posted… Arrrg…
I DO NOT make special meals for my four kids. I did that with my oldest and it was a BIG mistake. My pediatrician says that I should have at least one thing on the plate that everyone will like. If they are hungry, they will eat. But I have the same weight problem with my kids – they are like 10th percentile for weight and they are about the same for height so I always feel the pressure to make them eat. I actually hate the pressure. I always say, dinnertime is my least favorite time of the day.
Thanks for all the comments, everyone!
Just today I saw an article in the Boston Globe on this topic. The attacks by some commenters are just mind-boggling. People love to throw stones at each other over this! I left a comment there. Sort the comments by “latest first” and you’ll see mine. Here’s a link to the article:
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/articles/2012/05/09/at_the_end_of_the_day_its_the_scariest_question_a_mom_can_face_whats_for_dinner
My son is 3 1/2 he Literally will only eat yogurt, cereal, mac and cheese, sometimes an apple and sometimes a banana. I’ve tried everyhting from hiding foods in his food, to not giving him what he wanted (that didn’t go well at all, he ended up not eating for two whole days it made him sick) he’s in the 8th percentile for his age and now his dr wants me to do the whole don’t give him what he wants thing again. Does anyone have any advise? Its such a struggle at meal times I can’t even get him to try other foods. I’m worried about him bc I want him to grow, and bc I think he’s hungry all day bc he is always asking for food. How can he ever get full if he’s really always eating grains?
@ Amanda B:
My son never asks for food, always says he’s not hungry, will not eat unless the pain of not eating (missing out on the playground etc) is greater than the pain of eating. Take heart, it’s long but at the end I have a suggestion.
I have a 3.5 year old. He’s not a picky eater, in that he tries a wide variety of food (from eggplant to quinoa to mango chicken and all the in between stuff) – HE JUST WON’T EAT more than a 1/2 bite of it.
So, being barely 30lbs (actually, that’s fully clothed) and short, naturally I’m worried he’s starving himself. In fact at age 17 months he was tested by a pediatric gastroenterologist. And yep, he was. Starving himself that is. His protein intake came back similar to a famished Ethiopian toddler (super low prealbumin). The reason for the referral was that from age 12 months to age 17 months he had only gained 4oz! He was 15.1lbs at 12 months and 15.35 at 17 months.
Just a 1/4 of a pound in 5 months – and at that age! When I stopped BF at age 12.5 months (he weened himself as soon as he learned he could run away) he basically stopped eating all together. spitting out foods, having horrible stools etc. he was getting baby food/real food from age 5.5 months on.
I refused to starve a 17 month old who didn’t know any better (it was NOT a power struggle issue!!! – And I’m really bugged that people still say it is).
Thankfully a very smart and wise friend recommended we have our son treated with NAET: Nambudripads Allergy Elimination Treatment. I will explain that later.
Now keep in mind our son had just had 12 vials of blood drawn in one day – in search of any and every food allergy imaginable. None were high enough to be detected. Also keep in mind, I’m quite fine with standard American medicine as hubby is an MD and I’m now resigned from the medical field. But it wasn’t helping my son. NAET uses knowledge from chiropractic and acupuncture as a compliment to standard western medicine.
NAET – it defines allergy as anything our body doesn’t know how to process or what to do with (i.e. alcohol in perfume: reject from absorbing into the body; calcium from milk: digest/accept). It’s a treatment that is non invasive and actually acts to reset the nervous system (seems weird I know) to retrain your body to properly absorb or reject substances (FOOD in the case of my young son).
I kid you not, after 3 NAET treatments (acupressure and exposure to the foods / substances in question, including saliva and digestive enzymes) my son gained 2 Full Pounds and his stools became normal. He ate well for the next 24 months. It’s only now that I”m having a regression (age 41/42 months) . He’s scheduled for follow up treatment in March.
He will drink Fruitables juice (just 4-6 oz/day) and takes a gummie vitamin in the AM/PM; plus a fiber gummie.. Sometimes drink 3oz of Boost vanilla or Horizon organic milks. Or 6-7 pistachio nuts.
My hubby (MD) and our sons pediatrician both say “no neurologically intact child will starve himself”; yet my son will go for hours if not 2 days without eating. Not even foods he used to like, like pizza, mac n cheese, cereal, carrots, apples etc. Well apparently, bright as he is, perhaps he isn’t as “neurologically intact” as we had thought.
And, especially since he’s giving up his nap, leaves me with a grumpy, tired and very irritable 3.5 year old. How happy are we adults when we’ve not had anything but juice and 3 fish crackers in 9 hours?!?
http://www.naet.com
also YouTube NAET success stories.
Love the appetizer idea: We’ve basically gone to having no afternoon snack. Then the 3-year-old is served a decent dinner, which he doesn’t have to eat. Sometimes he doesn’t eat, but he doesn’t get other options.
My kids are still very small, but I have no problem sending them to bed hungry. I’m lucky that they are not overly skinny kids. They probably get far too much pasta from the nanny, and we’re too lazy to fix that, but she does get them to eat fruit too.
We had a problem for a while with him only wanting bagels, until I realized that I didn’t actually have to keep bagels in the house. So I stopped buying them. Problem solved.
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