Mealtime Madness: Navigating Life with Picky Eaters

February 22, 2024

Let's talk mealtime at our house. Instead of a peaceful family gathering, it's more like a chaotic disaster.

With two girls, ages 5 and 9, you'd think we'd have it down to a science.

But nope, it's an ongoing challenge, a never-ending saga of culinary defiance that's enough to drive any parent insane.

I've shared our mealtime struggles in videos on my page, adding humour to lighten the mood.

But truth be told, dealing with kids who reject dinner or change their tastes constantly can be very tough and frustrating.

The Heart of the Issue: Limited Choices

Our main problem? Limited choices. We are not overly strict about organic veggies, nor do I want to serve cereal every night.

We aim for balance, but with the few foods our kids will eat, finding that balance is like walking through a minefield.

One Day's Favourite, the Next Day's Nightmare

As parents of picky eaters, finding a new food they like feels like a win. But it's short-lived.

That new favourite can quickly become tomorrow's nightmare. Scrambled eggs today? Sure. Tomorrow? They look at it like you’ve just served them up cat shit.

Restaurant Woes

Eating out? It's a challenge. Restaurants stress us out because our kids hate everything on the menu. Chicken nuggets and fries? “Disgusting”.

Even McDonald's is met with resistance. So we tend to try and feed them before we go out to avoid hungry meltdowns

Dealing with Conflicting Advice

Parenting strategies on this can be conflicting. Some say be tough—let them starve if they don't eat what's served.

Others say that's a bad idea and can even cause food disorders. My wife and I are on slightly different sides of this debate.

She feeds them no matter what, even if it means cooking multiple meals.

I lean toward tough love, thinking catering too much to their fussiness only makes it worse. But I am certainly no expert.

To be honest, we have heartily tried lots of tips, but staying consistent is hard, especially when we're stressed.

Here is some consistent information that resonates with us and I am going to really try and implement (I have also included some helpful links with more advice):

Eat together as a family, even though our schedules make it tough. We could do this more at the weekend.
Keep offering new foods, even if they reject them at first. Experts say it can take 10 times for a child to like a particular food.
Get the kids involved in meal planning. We tried a fun challenge where our daughter made a meal with Play-Doh, and it worked.
Don't force them to eat. We've fallen into this trap when we're desperate. But this is so easy to do when you desperately want them to eat.
Introduce new foods slowly, rather than all in one meal.
Don't make a second meal (oops).
Take the pressure off. Sometimes we stress too much about them eating, which doesn't help according to the experts.