Let’s talk picky eating with kids. There was a post recently on a mom’s group I’m part of. It was amazing to see the number of parents who are concerned with their kids eating. I am not immune.
My oldest was a great eater…
… until she hit about 2.5 years old. She’s 6 now. My husband and I didn’t really change the way that we cooked or ate until around that time. She just went with the flow. Part of that is the normal toddler autonomy. And it just happened to hit right when we were pregnant again.
During my pregnancy with my middle son, there was a lot going on. I was working more (to store up some extra money for maternity leave) and I was really tired. At that point, the job I had would keep me out until after she was in bed for the night, which meant that my husband was feeding her dinner. Or even on the nights we were all together, if I was too tired to cook, this question would pop up: What do YOU want for dinner?
Well, she’s a 2.5 year old, so what does she want? She wants chicken nuggets or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (I don’t hear many toddlers asking for shrimp on a bed of sauteed greens…) And that was when her window of accepted foods was getting smaller and smaller. It was definitely exacerbated by the fact that my husband and I weren’t providing her with a variety of foods.
We failed to follow the sDOR
Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responisbility (sDOR) states that parents are responsible for the what, when, and where of eating and kids are responsible for the whether and how much to eat. We were giving our daughter a job that didn’t belong to her. And that was causing “picky” problems.
As my middle son approached six months old, we were planning to start baby-led weaning and that did force (in a good way) me to start cooking again and providing family meals. But, then we were pregnant again with our youngest and the fatigue was insane. I probably spent more time on the couch during that pregnancy than I did off of it. But this time, both of our kids were impacted. It was really a bummer, too, for our middle son who was still in that honeymoon phase of eating and accepting most foods.
So, now that baby 3 is eating, we are trying to again focus on family meals and maintaining that division of responsibility. We’re still not perfect, but it’s progress.
If you find your kids in a picky eating rut…
try incorporating the DOR in your house. You decide what’s on the menu (try to include at least one food that they are usually okay with eating – usually for kids, that’s a carb – bread, crackers, potatoes – or a fruit). They can eat as much or as little of each provided food as they want – but no grabbing something extra from the pantry or fridge to supplement the meal. Meals and snacks should be provided at regular intervals so they know that they are always going to have a chance to eat again. Only water should be offered between meals.
If you are concerned that your child will only eat “fun” foods – sweets or salty carbs (chips, pretzels, etc) and that their variety is very low (limited fruits, dairy, veggies, or meat), tune in next week when we will talk about salt and sugar intake and how to take those foods down to the same level as all other foods.