Picky Eater - Wilmington, DE

Sounds like my 13 month old girl. She loves meatballs, meatloaf, chicken, cheese crumbles, grilled cheese, omelet with cheese, bananas, mac n cheese, and pasta. She does nothing but play with the vegetables.She is also breastfeed, still.

Girl you are busy ... I nursed my first until 18 months and it seemed like she wouldnt eat anything... but string beans... she loved a can of whole string beans... she would eat a whole can for dinner...

She is very healthy 7 yr old now and still loves string beans

R.

Uuumm..."The Picky Eater"! I think they are all going to go through this at some point in life. Mine won't eat meat, but I can get him to eat garbanzo (chick peas) beans as a finger food. I buy them in the cans and I just squeeze off the outer "skin" before I would give it to him. I think it was a texture thing!

I know there has been a lot of good and bad talk about the Jessica Seinfeld cookbook "Deceptively Delicious", but I presonally love it and it makes me feel better bout what I am feeding my family to know that they are getting veggies even if they won't eat the whole ones on their plates. The book is a great read too. You might check it out and see what you think.

Good luck, I am hoping at some point it gets easier (I am not there yet, but mine is only 23 months).

My little guy is 10 mos and loves frozen waffles and bagels. He also goes nuts for little strips of cheese. The easiest thing I've found is canned fruits and veggies. Its hard to find them sometimes without added sugar, salt, etc, but you can pretty much just crack the can open and give it to him since canned foods are already pretty soft. Another good idea I saw but havent tried yet: take leftover mashed potatoes, meat, veggies and put them in the food processor. Then use the mixture to make logs (like fish sticks) and bake them. Hope this gives you some ideas!

Try pasta. Spaghetti Os and Macaroni and Cheese were always hits with my kids. Since he likes cheese, I would try the mac and cheese first. Plus with all the different shapes of pasta, it makes it interesting for him. We like the tricolored pastas and the whole wheat pastas at our house. I'd also try some rice. You can toss in some peas and carrots with the rice. Try to stay away from hot dogs for now. They are one of the most choked on foods out there.

Good luck with your picky eater.

To add a little variety to the three foods you mentioned maybe make a "trail mix" type snack using different cereals, offer applesauce or yogurt as a dip for the bananas, and try different breads for the grilled cheese. What about sneaking very thin slices of apple (without the peel) to the grilled cheese sandwiches? Also if you nurse first then offer food, maybe switch it around and offer food before nursing.

My kids are 3 and 2 and have gone through various picky stages. Here some tricks I used to sneak in the good stuff:
-adding baby food or finely chopped veggies to spaghetti sauce
-doing the same for meatloaf, meatballs, hamburgers and mashed potatoes
-adding pedicare type drinks to their milk

Some of my kids' long-time favorite foods are fruit of any kind, applesauce, spaghetti (I use thin pasta and cut it up after cooking so they can eat it with a spoon), pretzels, Gerber fruit juice snacks, beef vegetable soup, chuck wagon corn (corn with diced onions and green pepper), pickles, cold cuts (sliced thin and rolled into tubes) and various types of crackers.

Hi J.,

Kudos to you for nursing your son for such a long time! That is great! When my son was that age, he didn't eat much either - so I was always happy that I was still breastfeeding because I knew he was getting nutrition from me. I wouldn't worry about it too much - it does get better with time. My son now eats almost everything in sight. I would say try giving him what you are eating. They often like to do whatever mommy and daddy are doing. My son loves meat - he will eat steak, chicken, lamb and we had buffalo for the first time the other night and he ate more than I did! Some of the things that he liked early on were: chicken nuggets, organic chicken based sausages - especially the chicken/apple ones, puffs cereal (made by gerber - easy to eat and fun too!), earth's best organic breakfast bars - come in a variety of flavors. My son also loved to dip things, so I would give him babyfood veges and let him dip his chicken or crackers in them.

Having your breastmilk also exposes your son to lots of flavors - so try some adventurous eating on your part to give him some new flavors there as well.

J.
A Mother's Boutique
www.mothersboutique.com

Hi J.

My son is also a very picky eater, I even asked the pediatrician about it and she said calls it the "toddler diet!" Try PB&J, very little peanut butter with the sandwich cut up into small pieces, pasta/spaghetti, my son will eat most types of pasta if it is covered in spaghetti sauce (so I add stuff to the sauce so he doesn't know he's getting extra veggies). Chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, fruit cut into pieces- my son loved grapes cut into quarters and strawberries, pears, peaches,bananas, still loves them all but won't eat veggies or meat (except chicken nuggets). You could try the "dip" appeal, apparently toddlers like to dip their food into say dressing or cheese sauce (my toddler missed that memo.) Also, just try to give him whatever the family is having cut up or mushed up to the texture he can safely chew. Good Luck!

When my son transitioned to solid foods he would eat absolutely anything I put down for him. It didn't matter if it was fruit, veggie, or meat. He loved everything. Then one day he just started refusing to eat anything, so I went to the store and found the Gerber Toddler meals. I don't know why its different than what I cook for him, but he adores them. He eats every single kind. When I make green beans he won't touch them, but when they're with a Gerber meal he eats them all and asks for more. He also love the Pasta Pick-ups. They have meats and veggies in them so he gets the nutrients he needs.