Feeding a fussy eater

fussy eater lunch

As a child I was a terribly fussy eater, I didn’t like vegetables, I didn’t like meat, I didn’t even like chips. I’d eat one thing constantly for months and then one day just decide I didn’t like it anymore. I’m sure I drove my Mama nuts {sorry Mum!!} Now it’s my turn to be on the receiving end. Baya is my fussy child. As a baby, we made purees and home cooked baby food, and she would eat pretty much everything I gave her. As she grew into a toddler, she started to get fussier. Now at almost 5, there isn’t very much that she will eat.

Breakfast and snacks are fine, she loves fruit {apart from Banana’s which she suddenly developed an allergy to late last year} , yogurts, bran flakes, oatcakes with peanut butter. Meal times are harder. Once she’d eat cheese on toast, or cheese sandwiches, or cheese and crackers for lunch, but now she doesn’t seem to like cheese, and a plain wrap somehow doesn’t seem like a whole lunch.

Come dinner time, she’ll eat {homemade} pizza – as long as I use the right sauce, with just a sprinkling of cheese, or the pastry of Linda McCartney veggie sausage rolls, and once in a while a Linda McCartney sausage {!}. Homemade chips are always a winner, but that is the extent of it.

If you search online, you’ll find lots of articles on ‘how not to raise a fussy eater’ – yet, with three children, fed the same way from babies, one is ridiculously fussy and the other two will eat most anything. I think sometimes, some children simply are just fussy.

There are also lots of suggestions about how to make encourage children to eat other things. The thing is, I remember trying to be made to eat things I didn’t like as a child. Did it make me like them? No, in fact, it made me more determined to NOT like them. The more I was told I had to eat what was on my plate, the less likely I was to actually do that. Whether it was a factor in the eating disorder I developed in my teens, I don’t know.

All I do know, is that forcing a fussy eater to eat things they don’t like is a sure-fire way to make meal times into a battleground. I don’t want that, I don’t want her to hate sitting at the table, to see food as ‘the enemy’. There is an article on The Telegraph that I was reading recently called ‘Fussy eater or food neophobic‘  – neophobia – fear of the new. Psychologists say that from age 2 up until age 6/7 it’s actually pretty common, and goes back to an inbuilt survival technique of only eating foods that won’t harm/be poisonous.

I’ve no doubt that Miss Baya is healthy enough, she has boundless energy, is slim but no stick, is always happy and smiling and eats lots of the foods that she does like. We let her eat the foods that she feels comfortable with, encourage but don’t force her to try new things, lead by example – she sees the rest of us eating things, and recently she as started trying a few new things. Now, she didn’t actually like them, but that’s not the point. She often tells me “I’ll try that when I’m 10 Mama”

The key seems to be making things look so good that she is tempted. I do remember my Mum cutting my sandwiches into various shapes so that I would actually eat them {house shaped sandwiches anyone?!} and letting her help make the meals. We’ve been testing out a ‘Pop Chef’ this past week, letting Baya use it to cut shapes out of bread, cheese, fruit slices etc She has loved cutting out fancy shapes from the food, at lunch time’s she’s been creating mini sandwiches {with an actual slice of cheese inside} for herself, I also made an altered version of these granola bars {leaving out the nuts/seeds, processing the oats so they were finer and adding in a little cocoa powder} then cutting out shapes before they had set.  The appeal of flowers and sun shaped food does seem to encourage little children to try new things {and my bigger girls are pretty keen on them too!!}. If it helps Baya add a few new things to her ‘will eat’ list, then I’m all for it!

I know one day she will grow out of this, after being super fussy as a child, I will now eat {and try} most things – I even tried and didn’t quite hate brussel sprouts this winter!!

The best suggestions I can make if you have a fussy eater are:

*honor them, and let them make the decisions about what they will eat/try

*but lead by example, let them see you trying new things, and eating a wide variety

*eat all together as a family for the reason above

*don’t bribe them with puddings/sweets if they eat something

*don’t turn mealtimes into a battle zone

*let them pick foods out to try in the supermarket

*let them help prepare the meals

*make food interesting, if a sandwich being in a flower shape helps, then why not?!

Do you have a fussy eater?? What advice do you have to share with other parent’s in the same situation?

9 Comments

  1. Lori

    February 25, 2014 at 12:42

    I’m dealing with this at the moment, it’s the one thing that causes mass anxiety. So today I was cutting dinosaur shape sandwiches out at 7am for lunch, which did the trick. Mine just want sweet stuff so trying to reintroduce him to fruit. I’m hoping it’s all just a phase x

  2. Gill Crawshaw

    February 25, 2014 at 12:54

    I was a really picky eater too (I wouldn’t eat anything with lumps or ‘bits’ in, anything with a strong taste, and woudn’t try anything new) so thought I was bound to have a child who was a picky eater. But she’ll eat most things, and I don’t think it’s really down to anything we did with her, so it’s fascinating to read that you did the same with all three and they’re different. The tips sound great xx.

  3. Vicky

    February 25, 2014 at 13:03

    Such a good post – Daisy eats almost anything and everything, while Ben is incredibly fussy. I always try not to coerce him; he’s rarely ill (touch wood!) and is certainly not under or overweight, so I figure he’ll grow out of it in time. I can get irritating though when you’re eating the same dinners over and over again!

  4. Jess @ Along Came Cherry

    February 25, 2014 at 15:16

    Really good tips. Cherry is slowly improving but she eat pasta with pesto about five nights a week! I am so wary of not making an issue around food though because I don’t want it to lead to bad food associations or eating disorders. My OH forgets sometimes and the way he asks her to eat sounds really forceful so I have to keep reminding him too how important it is, it’s hard though. I’ve bought her some multivitamins from the healthfood shop just incase, she likes most fruit but vegetables, not so much! x

  5. Lottie :: Oyster & Pearl

    February 25, 2014 at 15:24

    Oh, it’s so hard, isn’t it? My youngest isn’t a great eater. But, to be honest, I try not to pay it too much attention and he gets what he’s given. I don’t really mind whether he eats it or not, but I’m definitely not going to start making several meal options for the family to pick and choose :) They get there in the end. I’m sure I read somewhere about food fussiness being an indicator of intelligence, which is something of a consolation.

  6. Rachel

    February 25, 2014 at 22:26

    so hard to know what decisions are going to affect things, isn’t it. so far Pip doesn’t show much sign of being fussy but then she’s not quite two, so perhaps hasn’t grown into the ability to be fussy. Time will tell!

  7. Kay

    February 26, 2014 at 00:20

    I am lucky enough to have a pretty well rounded eater. She eats at least a few things from every food group which pleases me! I agree with not forcing. I still remember being forced to eat my green pepper as a child, despite my protests of not liking it, and to this day it still makes me gag. Even the smell is nauseating! The only rule I do have is she has to try at least ONE bite of a new food (we only ever introduce a new thing one at a time) and if she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t have to eat it. It’s worked great so far, and she’s discovered new foods she loves that way too!

  8. Laura

    February 26, 2014 at 00:56

    I too was a really fussy eater when I was a child – my mother keeps telling me she is not sure how I managed to survive on cut up cheese and apple but I did and now I am have a huge variety of things I love to eat. I think all your tips are great :)

    Laura x

  9. laura redburn

    February 26, 2014 at 10:04

    we didn’t even have the choice to be fussy eaters when we were kids! we had to eat what we were given and that was that! once my dad gave me bacon and liver and i sat at the table crying and moaning for hours because i just COULD NOT eat the liver. yuck!

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