Picky Eating
My toddler is a very picky eater. Should I be concerned?
Our Mommy MD Guide’s reply: Feeding toddlers is tricky; toddlers can practically live on air. The way I look at it is that toddlers eat by the week. At any one meal, or even on any one day, they might not eat very much. But if you look at the bigger picture of an entire week, you’ll see that it all evens out.
I think parents get into trouble when they worry too much that their toddlers aren’t eating enough, and this causes them to cave to toddlers’ requests for not-so-nutritious food. Well, at least he’s eating something they think, even if that something is Goldfish crackers for breakfast.
No toddler ever starved himself. Take the long view, and be sure to offer healthy choices to your toddler.
—Victoria McEvoy, MD, a mom who raised four children; a grandmom of six-, four- and two-year-old grandsons; an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School; the medical director and chief of pediatrics at Mass General West Medical Group; and the author of 24/7 Baby Doctor, in Boston, MA
Our Mommy MD Guide’s reply: Each of my sons has gone through a crazy picky eating phase. My husband and I have a three-pronged approach to deal with this. First, although we often like to try new foods, we only introduce one new food at a meal. For example, if we’re trying a new vegetable, we prepare familiar proteins and starches that we know our kids love.
Second, my sons know that they don’t have to eat everything on their plates. However, if they want seconds of any one thing, they have to finish everything else first.
Third, no matter what we’re eating, our sons can always request a few healthy foods to eat in addition. I’m not a short order cook, but they can always have hummus and pita, carrots and ranch dressing, or peanut butter and bread.
The key with toddlers is to offer them choices with limits. I don’t have any kids with failure to thrive, so I’ve never been concerned about any of them starving.
—Deborah Gilboa, MD, a mom of nine-, seven-, five-, and three-year-old sons, a family physician with Squirrel Hill Health Center in Pittsburgh, PA, and a parenting speaker whose advice is found at AskDoctorG.com
Our Mommy MD Guide’s reply: My older daughter was the worst eater ever when she was a toddler. She didn’t like anything. Plus she would literally take hours to finish her meals. Eating was such a challenge.
At the time, I was 28 years old and running a major trauma center. I simply didn’t make a big deal out of my daughter’s eating. I never reacted to it. If I had reacted to something like that, what would I have done when someone came in to the trauma center after being run over by a car?
Instead, I took what I had learned as a physician and practiced it at home. I would sit with my daughter at the table for what seemed like forever. I didn’t punish her, and I didn’t lose my patience. I just sat there as long as she wanted to sit. I kept her company and tried to entertain her while she ate. I never made her feel that there was something wrong with her. I just didn’t make a bit deal out of it.
However, I made sure to offer my daughter any healthy foods that she did happen to eat. For example, at one point she loved raisins. So I gave her plenty of those.
Keep in mind that this was 30 years ago—a very different time. The information that we had those days wasn’t as accessible nor as detailed as it is today. On the other hand, the information we had back then also didn’t lend itself to creating as crazy-worried a generation of moms as we are creating today.
I believe that you have to learn who you are, learn who your child is, and work with who she is. I helped my daughter overcome her eating challenges by not making a big deal out of them and by supporting and encouraging her. By the time my daughter was three, she outgrew it. By age 10, she was eating sushi. Today, she’s 32, an attorney, happily married, quite successful, and eats perfectly fine!
—Erika Schwartz, MD, a mom of two, Bioidentical Hormone Doctor, and director of DrErika.com, who’s been in private practice for over 30 years in NYC, specializing over the past 15 years in women’s health, disease prevention, and bio identical hormones