Does your child struggle with picky or selective eating? As a registered dietitian nutritionist, let me assure you that this is completely normal even if it may feel frustrating at times and like you have tried everything.
Let’s discuss a variety of strategies you can use to get your child more interested in trying new foods.
1. Eliminate mealtime stress.
If mealtime feels stressful for a child, they will be less likely to accept and try new foods. Familiar foods may be sought after as a form of comfort. Kids are often very in tune with their surroundings and can pick up on a parent’s emotions, including stress around food.
Strategies to reduce mealtime stress can be to establish a routine eating schedule, engage in positive, easy-going conversation, or try taking a couple rounds of breathwork with your child to help calm the nervous system beforehand.
Be mindful of different background noises, such as the fan that may be overstimulating and add stress to the environment. When it comes to music or TV background noise, your child’s response may vary so take notice as to what works best for your family.
2. Ease them into dinner mode.
Instead of joining a meal when in the middle of a show or game, it can be helpful to ease into mealtime by having your child set the table.
Make sure your child’s sensory or emotional needs have been met before coming to the table.
One way to do this is to have them engage in a form of movement before joining the table to eat to burn off any built up energy.
3. Get your child involved in meal prep.
This exposes your children to different foods and gets them interested in the cooking process.
Depending on age, this could include something as simple as pressing a button on an appliance to assist you or scooping, measuring or chopping ingredients.
There are a variety of child safe knives on the market to choose from to ensure safety with involvement. Plus, the added bonus of a confidence boost your child will feel when the family enjoys the dish they helped create.
4. Add an element of fun into the table setting and plating.
Use new fun plates, straws or cups to get a child excited to eat the food. Cutting food into different sizes or shapes with cookie cutters or a knife will create an intriguing presentation of the food that keeps a child curious.
5. Be strategic with the time of day.
Try to introduce new foods when there is the greatest likelihood of acceptance, which means doing so when your child is at their best time of day.
When a child is too hungry, full or tired, a familiar food will be accepted before something new. It can help to space snacks and meals out by at least two hours.
6. Introduce new foods alongside a familiar, favorite food.
Luckily, you control what options your child has to pick from. Try offering an entire snack tray where they get to choose what to eat, but are exposed to a variety of different options.
Offering a familiar food can kick start the eating process and encourage trying something new on the plate. It is usually best to offer one new food at a time.
7. Change the presentation style of a favorite food.
If your child is struggling with accepting a variety of different foods, try to change the way you present their accepted foods.
Let’s take the classic example of bread and add variety to it by:
- Toasting it
- Adding a spread (jam, nut butter, hummus, avocado/guacamole, cream cheese, butter)
- Adding spices or herbs to their favorite spread like cinnamon or garlic to butter bread
- Serving a different type or brand of bread
- Cutting it into different shaped pieces
While some of these options may not seem very different at all, any variation in the usually accepted foods can help increase the diversity of your child’s diet. It can take 10-15 exposures to a food for a child to accept it.
We can work together to create a plan tailored to your specific child’s needs.
Call us today to book an appointment for a consultation.
