I Don’t Force my Picky Kiddo to Eat, #sorrynotsorry

Before I had kids, I was a perfect parent (duh). In my little fantasy world, my children were going to be super well behaved, and wonderful eaters and sleepers.  No picky eaters in my family!  Spoiler alert: they are not those things. What they are is amazing, sweet, funny, charming individuals, who don’t give a hoot about my former plans. From the very beginning, I had problems with my older son eating. When he was five days old, my husband opened his diaper to find blood. A LOT of blood. You can imagine post-partum, hormonal freaking out that ensued. Our precious newborn was pooping pure blood and we couldn’t get to the pediatrician fast enough. If I go prematurely gray, this will likely be the cause. 

Turns out the kid had a dairy allergy, and his tummy wasn’t too fond of the formula I’d been using to supplement. So no more dairy formula, and no more dairy for me since I was nursing. It was a huge pain; you don’t realize how many places dairy can hide until you can’t eat it. Then when I fed him eggs at his first Easter brunch, he broke out in hives two minutes later. Surprise! We added an egg allergy to the list. Same deal with hummus (sesame allergy). From the start feeding him was a little complicated. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t offer him as many foods as I could have because of his allergies. Snacks at someone else’s house? Who knows what’s in there. Food from Mom’s plate at a restaurant? Didn’t ask the waitress if it had any allergens. As a baby, he had a decent food repertoire, but as he grew there was just less and less that he would eat. Stuff that he had always liked quickly turned into a “heck no”. Thank goodness he kicked that dairy allergy because that boy would be happy to survive on cheese alone.   

Initially, I did what every grandparent would suggest and told him that he needed to eat the meal that was served. Because they won’t starve themselves, right? Wrong. He would truly rather go hungry than eat certain (ok, most) foods. And honestly, I pay for him not eating as much as he does. On an empty stomach, he’s crazy emotional and has zero impulse control. So guess what? I serve him something he’ll eat. I don’t cook two complete dinners, but I’ll set aside some plain chicken or throw mac and cheese in the microwave. I give him some of what we’re eating too, and encourage him to try it. Sometimes I even bribe him with ice cream. But I’m simply not going to insist that he must eat the same thing as us. 

Honestly, besides the whole hangry issue, my biggest reason is that I was a picky eater as a child too. I was even worse than him, actually. I would basically eat hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly, and applesauce. I drove my poor mother crazy. Looking back, it was definitely a sensory issue. The food tasted and felt disgusting in my mouth. I didn’t even want to ‘try a bite’ because I was pretty sure it was going to taste like dirt, whatever it was, because most things did. But guess what? I grew up and grew out of it, and now I’ll eat almost anything. I love veggies, seafood, pasta – all things that were literally horrific to me as a kid. And my transformation had absolutely nothing to do with someone forcing me to eat the meal they cooked. So although it’s still pretty annoying when my son acts like a new food is going to kill him, I can also empathize with him. It really sucks to have to choke down something you hate. 

I’m pretty sure that half the people reading this post are saying ‘amen mama!’ and the other half think that I’m a terrible parent whose child is going to grow up thinking the world revolves around them. But eating is just one area of his life. I say no to him about 50 times a day. He has a little brother I’m always making him share with, I torture him every morning by making him put his shoes on and brush his teeth, and he’s very dissatisfied at the paltry amount of time he spends in arcades. So I’m pretty sure that he understands the concept that you can’t always get what you want.  Some chicken nuggets aren’t going to change that. And hey, bonus: guess who doesn’t think the world revolves around them? Me, the ex picky eater. 

So go ahead and judge me if you want, but I’m trying incredibly hard to be the best mom I can be to MY kids, MY little individuals. I care more about this role than I’ve ever cared about anything in my whole life, and this is the decision I’ve come to. It’s working for us, and I hope that if you’ve got a picky eater (or a scream-for-fun-er, or a sibling instigator, or an all-night crib partier) that you find a solution that works for you and them, and say buzz off to anyone who tells you you’re wrong.