HELP! MY KIDS WON'T EAT ANYTHING!!!
Find a Conversation
| Wed, 04-20-2005 - 6:14pm |
Hi All,
I haven't been here for a long time.......anyway, I sometimes wish I could be a fly on the wall in all the homes in my neighborhood to see what everyone is feeding their kids! My husband travels a lot, and when he's home, comes home at all different hours.........so I don't often cook dinner for "us", I usually play short order cook for the kids (they are 5, 4, & 3).
What are typical breakfast, lunch & dinner foods your kids eat????
Also, at what age do I say "ok, we are all eating the same thing"????
I feel like we're the only ones that don't sit down together as a family for at least one meal. I love to cook, & when I cook, I like to cook somewhat gourmet stuff for my husband & I.........but even when I cook "kid-friendly" meals, it seems that no one eats it anyway, so I may as well cook what I like. My 5-year-old is the only one that will even try anything different. I always end up going back to the same old short order cook meals so they will at least eat something.
HELP!!!!! I would appreciate anyone's two cents.
Thanks so much,
Tanya :)

They have all sorts of ideas. For the whole family, just the kids, and they are fast and easy.
Hope this helps.
Hi, I second the family fun site Mel gave to you on the same site they have a "picky eater" tool that helps you take out any ingredients not wanted http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/kids/tool/pickyeater_tlp/
I never let my children be picky when they were little. I do not think it is too late to start over just make dinner and if they don't like it-well they don't. They are not going to starve and will get the hint quickly to eat or go without. But I wouldn't turn it into a fight If they don't eat just say "okay it is in the fridge when you want to eat" I seve desert usually and my kids know if they do not eat they don't get desert! lol
My kids eat most anything and are willing to try most anything because of this. For dinner tonight we had a chef salad with shrimp scampi and brownies with twix candies for desert. lol
Well, honestly, the right time to say "we're all eating the same thing" is probably about now. Except for nights when you make something that the adults want and the kids obviously won't like, that is, and even then, make all three of the kids agree on ONE other menu item for them. If you keep playing short order cook now, the pickiness is only likely to get worse, and you'll end up spending WAY too much of your time in the kitchen. Your time counts too, you know!
The thing about pediatric nutrition is that you have to look at it over the span of weeks, not days. If your kids fall short on veggies/fruits for one day, it won't hurt them, but you need to balance it over the course of their week. When you try to get them to eat a completely "balanced" meal at every sitting, it ends up frustrating for you and them.
I will tell you what a VERY old pediatrician told me--he said that through the years he had had countless conversations with distraught and worried moms who were convinced that their child was on the verge of starving to death because they wouldn't eat anything except (fill in the blank). He said that in all of his years of practice he had never seen one even partly dead child because the kid wouldn't eat. Before they starve, they will eat. You will endure tantrums, you will hear whining, you will probably develop a twitch, but you won't starve your child.
We went through this with our now 8 year old, who I have to tell you, was the the BIGGEST pain in the tushy on the planet when it came to eating. I finally reached a breaking point when he was about 5, and his two brothers were 2 (and starting to pick up his habits), started making dinner, serving his plate, and telling him he had to at least try everything on his plate, then it was up to him if he ate or not, but he wasn't getting anything else. If he tried something, and obviously DID not like it, he could opt to not eat that particular item, and I just made sure that there was SOMETHING on his plate that I knew he could eat if he would just not be a weeny (potatoes, macaroni, something easy and kid friendly). We had a couple meals where he ate very little, and was none too happy when dessert came around and he didn't get any. He was starved the next morning, and complained horribly in the hours after dinner, but after about 2 weeks of really sticking to the NO SNACKS for kids who don't eat their meals thing, he decided that being hungry kind of stunk. We use the same tactic for all three of the boys, and now, three years later, there are still things that they don't want to eat, but they are becoming more open to at least trying them, and they know that when I say either eat dinner of go hungry, I mean it--and whining and crying isn't going to sway me. I can't tell you how much LESS stressful mealtimes are because of that. Plus I know that they're not filling up on goofy stuff and then not eating.
As far as menu options, try allrecipes.com which has a completely seperate section for kid friendly recipes, sent in by real people, and rated with a star system. It's pretty cool.
Good luck--and stop being a full time short order cook in your own house--you're more important than that!! :)
Angela