My oldest would eat anything until he was 3 years old, then when he was 4 he became really really picky. At 5 we instituted the rule about having to eat one spoonful of everything. It took until he was almost 6 and 1/2 before the crying subsided and that was a long time.
The child will be a picky eater if he thinks he can get away with it. The trick is to not let him get away with anything
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i’m glad that worked for you but I think it can also backfire.
I grew up with parents who forced me to eat 2 ounces of meat every day until I was a teenager. And now I am an adult who won’t touch it with a 10-foot-pole. So while getting my kids to be obedient is of course one big goal, getting them to not HATE foods because I forced them on them is another big one.
I also think that kids in earlier times had fewer foods they ate over the course of their childhood – so the parents had more opportunities to make them eat certain foods. Growing up we had rice, lentils and goat curry for almost every single dinner. My kids eat different meals every day, so we’re trying to get them to be not picky about lots of foods at once.
Honestly, though I feel that it has to be the only thing they know. With my kids is all they’ve ever known. If they had other alternatives they’d probably take them. Again, all of us have foods we don’t like but those are the exceptions for us, not the rules. If we sit a table of 8 foods and they don’t like one of those, ok. They are still going to get full on dinner. If they don’t like all 8, then they are welcome to go to bed hungry.
It’s all about choices and being willing to accept the consequences of those decisions. Much like life.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s. We had a variety normal southern foods. We ate what was put out or we didn’t, but we didn’t get anything else of we opted not to eat. No one forced us to eat specific portions or any of that but my mom cooked, the kids sat the table and we all sat down to eat when Dad got home. Whatever was for dinner, was for dinner.
I don’t disagree that it can backfire. It would have been tough to pick any one thing though. Until my youngest got diabetes we always made two new recipes each week, so the choices were very varied.
can we separate this into a different thread? I’m not sure how to do that…
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Done. I was thinking about it yesterday but didn’t get around to it.
Just found it!
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This is similar to ours, although it’s “X bites” – where bites is the number of years old they are. So my 6-year-old has to eat 6 bites and our 4-year-old has to eat 4 bites. The secondary rule is no seconds on something if you don’t eat what’s already on your plate.
I think this was me as a kid. The *smell of eggs cooking would make me gag. I could not be in the dining room with my parents when the fan was going if they were eating eggs. Same with fish. And the smell of cooking bacon (something I know many people LOVE) is so intense I avoid restaurants that smell like that.
Not sure if I’m a supertaster though – I’m definitely a supersmeller. My husband often has no idea that something smells awful and I’m basically gagging.
Funny timing on this topic - my little T1/Celiac is 2.5 years at the moment and is just grown into slow/picky eating. Stuff he loved last week he now will not touch.
The instinct is to just say if you don’t eat it you will go hungry, but when you have already given the kid insulin this turns into a royal pain the backside.
So we decided last night - insulin happens during/after eating. We will see how it works. 
we bolus after dinner a lot. Definitely helps take the edge off these discussions. And for every meal except breakfast it really isn’t so bad for our son’s BG. The other thing we might do is bolus for *part of the meal upfront, but a small enough part that we can always just treat with a glucose tab if we have to. the rest is after he’s already eating.
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Ditto. If we aren’t sure that Liam is going to eat part of, or all of, a meal (even if he’s all hyped up about it, history has proven to us that the hype doesn’t always equate to actually eating something), we will only partly bolus, then finish the bolus after we see he’s completed the meal.
Liam is a lot different from the other kids, though…we definitely make exceptions for him because we have too. If he doesn’t eat and he’s been given insulin, there are potentially bad repercussions, so at the end of the day, we’ll always cater more to him because it is life and death. But we still instill in him…“Don’t ask for something if you aren’t going to eat it.” And we discontinue giving him foods (even if he begs for them) that he’s proven he just won’t eat. After a few weeks or months, we try that food again. Kids very much go in stages for the foods they like…what they love today, they may not want to have anything to do with for a month or two.
Of course the same applies to adults. My eyes are bigger than my stomach. ( 
) Can’t count the number of times I get halfway through my meal and decide I’ll save the rest for lunch next day. Or finish it but decide there’s no room left for dessert. But I’ve already bolused …
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Liam doesn’t ever seem to mind because that means “sweet hearts” as he calls them (sweet tarts) or skittles. 
Liam loves @docslotnick’s low methodologies, so we employe them. lol
- EXACTLY!
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Yeah, I think I’m more a super-smeller than taster myself actually too. That super-smelling ability I think as a kid just increased my disgust sensitivity to food across the board dramatically, which meant even if it wasn’t something that smelled so bad, once that disgust response was triggered, it was so robust eating whatever kicked in it felt impossible. Even as adult, while that kicks in very rarely now, if it does, it’s overwhelming and my appetite suddenly dies entirely. So it’s why I think for kids who have that level of pickiness, it can be tricky, because it’s not necessarily something they have a lot of control over, especially in that moment.
I love the “Venn diagram” comment (not sure why it made me smile). 
Luckily my girls, who are grown now, were fairly adventurous eaters from the start. Two memories around the subject:
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My Mom swore there was no way my 18 month old would willingly eat the salad I ordered for her at a restaurant. She happily finished the whole salad!
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As a toddler, the same daughter told us she decided she wouldn’t eat potatoes until she was 6 (a novel idea…growing up in my Irish/Polish family, potatoes were practically served at every meal). We didn’t make a big deal of it though as she generally ate well. What do you know, on her 6th birthday she asked for French fries and never looked back.
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I’m super picky about desserts. Generally, I pass on cakes (except carrot with cream cheese frosting), cookies (no exceptions), and donuts (except apple fritter or maple iced on occasion), and any other kind of similar pastry. Milk and white chocolate are gross too. I love dark chocolate though!
I’ll eat almost any meal. I’m really not picky at all. I’m just really particular about sweets, and I’m truly not just trying to be healthy. I don’t like the flavor of most sweet things. I’ve often wondered if negative diabetes experiences with sweet things (e.g. high blood sugar) may have influenced my taste buds somehow… except I do like some sweets so probably not. Not sure things work like that anyhow.
I’m very picky about desserts, too, and that started long before diabetes ever came around. Actually, I find it harder to resist desserts I never cared about before now that I have celiac disease and diabetes - especially due to CD. I see GF versions of desserts and get all excited that hey, there’s something I can eat! And then I remember I don’t even really like it. 
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