Mealtime Strategies for Picky Eaters

Mealtimes can be incredibly frustrating, and often stressful for all family members, when you have a picky eater at home. While changes in a child's preferred food items and appetite are normal, it’s important to find the balance between encouraging children to explore their preferences and ensuring that they are being exposed to a variety of foods. Increasing exposure to foods and variety in your child’s diet can help establish a healthy relationship with food as children get older.

Expanding your child’s diet and trying new foods can take time. It is important to encourage exploration of foods while decreasing power struggles, fear, and meltdowns. Check out these strategies that you can implement to help make meal time go smoothly while also introducing your child to new foods!

Make Food Fun

Playing with food doesn't have to be a bad thing. A child is more likely to eat foods that are fun, easy to manage,and appealing. This can be achieved by cutting foods into fun shapes, offering colorful foods, using fun plates, and even pairing foods with a dip. Cookie cutters can help create fun shapes out of sandwiches or you can make mealtime more entertaining by trying to get to the finish line with this fun plate.

Involve Your Child

A child is often much more willing to try a food if they've been involved in choosing or preparing it. Coming up with ways to involve your child in food selection and preparation can be a game changer. Ask your little one to help find items on your grocery list, and let them pick out a few foods at the store to include your child in mealtime decisions. Or, get your child involved in the cooking or preparation process by letting them help with pouring, mixing, cutting (using these kid friendly knives), and serving. However you do it, your goal is to get your kid(s) excited about food and interested in exploring it!

Offer New Foods

When working on getting your kids to increase the variety in their diet, it's important to consistently introduce new foods. The key here is to take your time while adding in new foods to decrease any overwhelmed or anxious feelings. Offering one new food at a time, and serving it alongside a preferred or familiar food can really help with this! If your child loves pasta, try adding a vegetable or protein to their plate as well. You can add one piece at a time and reload the plate as necessary.

Exposure is crucial to successful feeding. A child may not try a food the first time you offer it, but seeing it on the table or on their plate puts them one step closer to tasting it, which is a step in the right direction. Don’t stress if your child doesn’t eat the food, even after being exposed many times. You could try to follow a sensory approach instead by working up to touching and smelling the food prior to tasting it. The more familiar the food becomes, the less intimidating it will be!

Timing Is Everything

Every family schedule and dynamic is different and what works for others may not work for you. Sometimes when introducing a new food, it is best to pick one meal time a day to do so (e.g., always introduce that new food during dinner). As your child becomes more successful with trying new foods, you can work up to offering these foods at multiple meal and snack times. It’s also best to introduce new foods when your child is actually hungry; they may be more likely to try it! That doesn’t mean you should skip meals or snacks before introducing a new food, but having set meal times and snack times will help here.

Keep Trying!

If your child completely refuses a new food the first time you offer it, keep trying! Kids often need to be exposed to a food many times before they’re willing to take a bite or two, or even to just have some on their plate, especially when it comes to our picky eaters. Keep in mind that it can take 15 or more exposures to a food before a child tries it. Just having the food on the table or on their plate counts as an exposure!

Add Condiments

Sometimes, all your kid needs to eat veggies is a little bit of ranch dressing or maybe some yogurt to dip a new fruit in. Try adding a fun, tasty condiment when introducing new foods. Sometimes, just the idea of dipping a food makes it more fun for kids.

You’ve Got This!

As you're working with your picky eater, try not to worry if your efforts aren't successful at first. Kids can feel our stress, and in turn, become stressed too! Kids often eat one type of food for a while and then switch to something else. The key is to be patient while remaining consistent and creative as you work to expand the foods they feel comfortable with without adding pressure.

Keeping an eye on what they are consuming over a month’s time is a good indicator if their food repertoire is increasing. If you are struggling to increase your child’s food repertoire, or have concerns about your child being a picky eater, contact us. We can complete a comprehensive evaluation and work with you to create an individualized treatment plan to support your child’s needs!