Help with a picky eater!!!

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To say my son is a picky eater would suggest he actually eats. He just turned 3 and has a very limited diet. He claims he HATES everything i ask him to try. Dinner time is suc h a fight. Can anybody suggest any cookbooks or recipes. Thanks

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  • sjtreely
    sjtreely Posts: 1,014 Member
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    What are some things he does enjoy eating?
  • RJSuperMan
    RJSuperMan Posts: 52 Member
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    Relax. They all go through it. Let them eat what they want (within reason), but set the example of eating a wide variety of healthy foods. Pretty soon they'll start trying bites of your food....

    Start them on a good multi vitamin.
  • donbet69
    donbet69 Posts: 133
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    My guy is 4, he eats chicken nuggets, pasta, rice, fish sticks and anything sugary. He actually loves fruits. Try the fruits in cups.
  • chickenhead99
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    Your son sounds exactly like me as a child and now as an adult:) i ate grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup and alphaghetti. , My mom used to say i was going to look like alphaghetti. They tried everything, lots of fights, tears etc. our family doctor said too just keep putting a spoon of whatever on my plate even if i didnt eat it. Good news , i am very healthy. I do eat more of a variety of foods:) although I still will not touch vegetables.YUCK! His tastes will change , for now just keep offering what he does like.
    Good luck!:wink:
  • Peep_chic
    Peep_chic Posts: 369 Member
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    I know.. it seemed to happen at that age with both of my kids. My daughter will turn 4 soon. She recently accepted scrambled eggs but at the same time declined another food she used to eat. If you let some time go by before you show it again it can help. Also while I'm cooking and they're hungry I discovered they're more likely to try something. Its something that he'll get over but If you want to sneak a few veggies while he's still @ his picky age you can check out the sneaky chef.http://www.thesneakychef.com/
  • Tiffanydepiano
    Tiffanydepiano Posts: 169 Member
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    i saw this amazing kid recipe the other day.
    Cut hot dogs into 2 inch chunks
    Take dry spaghetti and break in half
    Stick the spaghetti into one end of the hot dog (about 12 pieces)
    Boil until pasta is done
    Top with sauce

    They look sort of like little sea creatures.
    My friends kids loved them and it made the spaghetti easier for them to get on the fork.
  • kaetra
    kaetra Posts: 442 Member
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    That's a hard one because every picky eater is different. For some it's texture, for others it's strong flavors, etc.

    I too have a picky eater. I have tried EVERYthing, having her help make things, making up spectacular names for things, making things look fun and appetizing, trying lots of kid-friendly recipes. Sometimes we get lucky, but most of the time it's a NO GO. As she's grown up her food selections have dramatically increased, but she's still pretty picky.

    I swear she lived on practically nothing but Dino chicken nuggets and green beans for at least a year around age 3. She's 8 now, and wouldn't touch a Dino Nugget if it was handing her a PlayStation.

    To this day she will not eat anything that's got multiple ingredients mixed together or any kind of sauce. But through trial and error of preparation we've managed to expand her selections to: plain pasta noodles, homemade meatballs (really plain, basically hamburger balls), smashed potates (never whipped), luckily she's always eaten lots of veggies as long as they aren't mixed together (even green ones), fruit cups, melons, grapes, apples slices with carmel dip, butter-crunch peanuts (but she will not eat peanut butter), fruit snacks, dry cereal, cheddar cheese (the only kind of cheese she'll eat), cucumbers, homemade Panko breaded chicken tenders, homemade fish fingers with Panko breading (she will not touch any frozen meat products), low sodium ham sandwiches (we realized regular ham was too salty for her taste) and she loves sushi rice.

    For her it's both texture and strong flavors that put her off. These days if I let her she'd live on Blueberry Eggo waffles only. And she refuses to drink juice or milk, even chocolate milk. She only drinks water. And she doesn't really like candy either, she loves the idea of candy but she says it's "too sweet" and doesn't really eat it. We give her calcium gummy supplements every day, but I do get concerned she's not getting enough calcium.

    Family Fun magazine does have tons of kid-friendly and fun recipes if you want to take a look there for ideas - http://familyfun.go.com/
  • kaetra
    kaetra Posts: 442 Member
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    Relax. They all go through it. Let them eat what they want (within reason), but set the example of eating a wide variety of healthy foods. Pretty soon they'll start trying bites of your food....

    Start them on a good multi vitamin.

    When my kid was very little she would show interest in and eat what we had in our hands, but if the same food was given to her as her own she wouldn't touch it. So my husband used to make an extra hamburger or sandwich to "eat" and she'd come eat bites off of it until it was gone.
  • balancebean
    balancebean Posts: 96 Member
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    My daughter is the same way. I thought she'd grow out of it, but she is now 16 and still just as picky. I wish I had pushed the veggies back then. Things I can get my daughter to eat are apples, grapes, corn, baby spinach (raw) and snow peas (raw). There is a book called "The Sneaky Chef" that tells you how to hide nutritious veggies in baked foods. I don't want my daughter eating all the carbs though; she gets enough.
  • Uerzer
    Uerzer Posts: 273
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    Make your meals look cool! draw faces and stuff... mix ingredients he likes with new ones, so he gets used to them and avoid all that hating XD

    food+art.jpg