Question:  I have 3 kids - ages 5 years, 3 years, and 20 months. Their eating
habits are all different. The 5 year old will not eat any vegetables,
meat of any kind, most fruits, or most whole grains (brown rice, whole
wheat bread, etc...) What I mean by she won't eat it is, a typical
healthy dinner (chicken breast, brown rice, and mixed veggies) takes
at least an hour for her to eat. We discipline her, tell her how good
for her it is, restrict sweets, and give her small portions cut small.
She will take a bite, gag - spit it out. We will discipline and try
again. Usually after an hour or so she has eaten 6-8 bites and we let
her be done. This happens EVERY TIME that the meal has her forbidden
foods. She has been like this for as long as I can remember. Her
favorite foods are cheese, pasta, bananas, tortillas, yogurt..... What
do we do???

Our second child who is 3 eats everything!!! She loves veggies and
meat. She has eaten everything since before she had teeth. What can we
do to keep up her good behavior?

Our 20 month old just started eating solids. He was a preemie and
needed to be on Pediasure for his calories. Since he has started
eating small meals (bites) how can we know he's getting enough to eat.
How many calories does he need? What can we do to ensure he has
healthy eating habits??

Ok, last question, do any of the kids need to be taking any vitamin or
mineral supplements?

 
Answer:  I also have two children, ages 7 and 9.  Although their reactions to
foods they don't like aren't quite as bad as your 5 year old, they
still sometimes don't want to eat what we serve them.  My son would be
quite happy if we fed him pasta and bread all day long.  What we have
found are several things that I hope help!

 1.  No child will starve themselves.  If the food choices they want
are suddenly not available - REALLY not available - not for breakfast,
lunch, dinner or snacks - they will eventually eat what is served to
them.  It may take a few days to break the old habits and break the
addiction to unhealthy foods (especially cheese) - but they will not
starve themselves.  (This can be quite an emotionally difficult couple
of days for the parents to endure.  Don't have unhealthy food choices
available during those couple of days or you will give in.)

2.  Nothing quite works as well as true hunger to help a child eat
what is served to them.  If I make something for dinner that is not
my son's favorite food - I make sure he is really hungry by dinner.  I
will either eliminate snacking after lunch, or make sure it is a very
light, healthy snack at least 3 hours before dinner.  I also try to
take into account my child's taste-bud differences.  We love homemade
salsa but have found our 9 year old prefers store bought salsa.  I
just figured out that she, like her Nana, does not like cilantro -
which I use a lot of in our homemade salsa.  So, I have recently
modified my salsa recipe to better accommodate her tastes as well.

3.  If they don't eat what we serve them, then they get it at the next
meal until it is gone.  We don't let out children hardly touch their
plate at dinner and then get a nice snack before bedtime.  We save
their plate, store it in the refrigerator, and then heat it and serve
it to them when they say they are hungry.  Just last night, our son's
prayer before going to bed was 'Please God, don't make me eat my
dinner for breakfast."  We did have pity on him after that prayer and
he got something else to eat for breakfast today!

I hope these suggestions help.  It can be quite hard to break food
habits in our children, because we hate to see them "suffer".
However, it's better to let them suffer a little now and learn good
food habits which will last them for a lifetime.  Also, we as parents
have to make sure that we are modeling great eating habits to our
children.  They see it all - no matter how much we think they don't.