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You are here: Home / Mama / Family Nutrition / How to Feed a Picky Eater

How to Feed a Picky Eater

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If you missed the beginning of our conversation, check out Picky Eaters and How to Handle Them

We continue asking questions, and our guest expert is  Katja Rowell, M.D., a family doctor specializing in childhood feeding and Jenny McGlothlin, MS, CCC-SLP, a speech pathologist and pediatric feeding therapist a few questions. Together they recently published a book  Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating A Step-by-Step Guide for Overcoming Selective Eating, Food Aversion, and Feeding Disorders.Feed-my-picky-eater

How can parents help their picky eater?

There are ways parents can support nutrition while working on routine, and other steps that help with picky eating. The fruit has many of the same fiber and micronutrients as veggies and may be more readily accepted. Maybe put some frozen blueberries in a little bowl and some sliced banana out with the Nutella toast. Don’t ask, just set it on the table and he can choose. Sit with him and enjoy some fruit with your breakfast.

Sauces and condiments, or adding crunch (think freeze-dried veggies and fruits) can help some children. You could offer similar but more nutritionally dense foods (e.g., whole wheat bread or crackers vs. regular, dark chocolate almond butter vs. Nutella). Providing a variety of foods within a routine is crucial; if children are allowed to get a little bit hungry, foods tend to be more appealing, and they are more likely to branch out. School-kids-eat-lunch

Is feeding therapy possible?

As a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) specializing in feeding development and disorders, including extreme picky eating or ARFID, Jenny provides feeding therapy to hundreds of children and their families. There are a variety of approaches to quality treatment, but when we are attempting to facilitate something that is so rooted in a child’s sense of control and bodily autonomy, we have to approach it with trust and responsiveness. Imagine that the child knows his body better than anyone else and any behavior or refusal is the child’s communication that they aren’t ready for that particular food. Being responsive to those communications helps the child navigate the often scary and unfamiliar foods so that they can feel safe and listened to. In this post, Jenny describes how feeding therapy can be accomplished with a relational focus that is crucial for building trust. Feeding therapy can best deal with oral-motor or significant sensory challenges, or when there is extreme anxiety around food if the parents need help.

Many children we work with have tried and “failed” feeding therapies. If therapy is still attempting to make a child do something they don’t want to do, and parents note increasing resistance, fights, gagging or vomiting, it’s not helping. Many children, even with extreme picky eating, particularly if there are no significant oral-motor problems, don’t need therapy. Typical picky eating certainly doesn’t warrant the time, hassle and cost of therapy, and may even make eating worse if the child resists all the attention and focus on her eating. However, parents need more information and support to help better their children at home. It’s why we wrote our book; it gives parents of children on the spectrum of picky eating, from typical to severe, precise steps to turn things around, suggests words they might say in the heat of the moment, teaches parents how to support appetite, stop fighting over food and actually help their child discover their curiosity and desire. Lunch containers

Are there any tricks you can advise our readers to try with their picky eaters?

There are many strategies and tips that can support your child’s eating and his relationship with food. Our immediate goal is to promote appetite and decrease conflict and anxiety— which kills appetite. Our first tip is to establish structured meals and snacks. In our book, each of our five STEPs gets its chapter to walk parents through scary transitions when it feels like children can’t be trusted with eating. The book includes three foundational chapters to 1) help you understand what ‘normal’ is 2) understand your child’s challenges and 3) understand your role. Building on this understanding then, we explain the five steps, each described in detail in their chapter.

  • Step 1: Decrease stress, anxiety (yours and your child’s), and power struggles
  • Step 2: Establish a routine
  • Step 3: Enjoy pleasant family meals
  • Step 4: Build skills in “what” and “how” to feed
  • Step 5: Strengthen and support oral motor and sensory skills

In chapter 7, we review ways to build on familiar foods and flavors and branch out to new foods. Sadly, there is no one trick, or rule, or sneaky cookbook that will help children branch out. It’s all about setting the stage, parents providing routine and pleasant meals and snacks with a safe food or two, not pressuring or trying to make a child eat (which often invites more resistance) and then allowing the child to discover his appetite and curiosity in his own time.

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Comments

  1. Robin (Masshole Mommy) says

    September 4, 2015 at 9:46 am

    My 8 year old has ALWAYS been a picky eater. He’s getting better slowly, though.

  2. Jeanette says

    September 4, 2015 at 11:31 am

    I have been lucky that our kiddo is not a picky eater over all. There are some things I have tried for years and he just won’t eat like 100% whole wheat bread, but he eats so little of it I decided to stop making him. He LOVES fruits and some veggies. Great post to help people!

  3. Brett Martin says

    September 4, 2015 at 1:38 pm

    We have a picky eater and a not so picky eater. We just let them try a new food every few weeks and we built up his diet from there.

  4. Aubrey says

    September 4, 2015 at 1:38 pm

    I’m so glad I don’t deal with picky eaters. Sure they have one or two things they complain about, but for the most part, no problems. I feel bad for parents that deal with this.

  5. Maureen says

    September 4, 2015 at 1:55 pm

    I am glad that I do not have a picky eater. These are some wonderful tips for those that deal with them though. I am sure it is very frustrating.

  6. Mistee Dawn says

    September 4, 2015 at 2:11 pm

    My daughter is such a picky eater! I will definitely be trying some of these tips!

  7. Amber Edwards says

    September 4, 2015 at 6:29 pm

    My daughter is my pickiest eater. She is also the one with SPD. We do a lot of food therapy with her trying to get her to try new things and not be so picky. But we also do a lot of offering of healthy foods I know she likes and it helps.

  8. Mandi @ Moments With Mandi says

    September 4, 2015 at 6:43 pm

    We have picky eaters but I think it’s more of a test of who’s going to get their way rather than a sensory issue. There are a lot of great tools and resources out there though that help.

  9. tess says

    September 4, 2015 at 8:19 pm

    I have a picky eater at home. Thanks so much for the great tips.

  10. Autumn @Mamachallenge says

    September 4, 2015 at 11:46 pm

    Great tips! My kids can be picky eaters, so I will try these out!

  11. Sabrina @ Dinner, then Dessert says

    September 5, 2015 at 2:15 am

    One of my kids is such a picky eater! Nothing I do seems to help!

  12. Ourfamilyworld says

    September 5, 2015 at 10:23 am

    My first born is a picky eater. I’ve tried all the tricks, but nothing worked. She love fruits, though, so I make sure she eats lots of fruits.

  13. Ann Bacciaglia says

    September 5, 2015 at 10:37 am

    My Daughter went threw a picky phase. She would only eat cucumbers and ham. We waited a few weeks and she eventually out grew it. Now she eats everything. I was lucky. I know it can be so hard when you have a picky eater.

  14. Tammy Roy says

    September 5, 2015 at 10:39 am

    This is such an interesting post. I will have to share this with my friend. Her little girl is 5 and Autistic. She does not like to eat most things because of the texture.

  15. gingermommyrants says

    September 5, 2015 at 10:43 am

    I have been very lucky with my kids. They love to eat everything. I could not imagine if one was super picky and i had to make separate meals for them.

  16. Elizabeth Lampman says

    September 5, 2015 at 10:46 am

    I did not know you could get therapy for a picky eater. I would want to do that if i had a extremely picky eater. I would be worried the kids were not getting enough nutrition.

  17. Kristin Wheeler (Mama Luvs Books) says

    September 5, 2015 at 7:31 pm

    My kids can be so picky too! Thanks for the tips. It’s so easy to just let them win, but we really need to teach them healthier options.

  18. Jennifer Pridemore says

    September 7, 2015 at 9:41 am

    These are some good tips. I’m fortunate that my daughter isn’t too picky of an eater.

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