Hi, I’m Dana. Today I wanna talk about the biggest mistakes you can make if you have a picky eater.

Now, this one is near and dear to my heart, people, because I tell you I had the world’s biggest picky eater. My first son was the pickiest eater that I have ever met and I made a lot of mistakes with him before I figured out a good strategy. So I’m going to spare you, hopefully, some of the common mistakes parents make when their children are picky eaters. The number one mistake that I made that you might be making is to try to force your child to eat. Now, why is this problematic?

The reason is that it sets up your child for a fairly unhealthy relationship with food. If it becomes a battle of wills between you and your child, often your child will win in that you actually cannot force a child to chew and swallow. That is something that only they can do. So they will often win the battle or they’ll start crying, you’ll get angry. It’ll end in both of you feeling very frustrated. And that’s not a great place for anyone to be. So the goal around food is to help your child determine hunger cues and fullness cues, what they like, what they dislike, and start listening to their body.

The good news is that all toddlers are very good at regulating their calorie needs. That’s just biology at play there. And we as adults tend to overestimate how many calories a toddler actually needs. Now, if you were to add them up over the course of the day, you would probably find that they’re hitting about 1,200, 1,000 to 1,200 calories. And that is as much as a toddler needs in a 24-hour cycle. And you’d have to add in beverages and snacks and you’ll probably find that it adds up to be pretty close to that. Maybe some days it’s a little bit less. Other days it might be quite a bit more. But on the average it’s balancing out. So please don’t force your child to eat.

The next mistake is to bribe or beg them to eat X number more bites. I hear this all the time. I love to eat out. I hear parents at the next table always telling their child, “Eat five more bites,” or, “Eat three more bites,” or, “You can have dessert if you eat five more bites.” Again, when we think about what this is actually doing is it’s making some foods good and some foods bad, right? I’ll eat five bites of my steak so that I can have the good stuff after, which is cake or cookies or sugary stuff. So it starts to send the message that this, you know, baked potato or salad or pasta, is the stuff I have to eat in order for me to have the good stuff, which is all that sugary sweets. And you can see how long term this is gonna set your child up for failure when it comes to developing a healthy relationship with food.

So a better question to ask your child is, “Are you feeling full?” And get them to start tuning into what that might feel like. Are you feeling full? If they stop eating, are you feeling full? If they say yes, then please trust them. Please learn to trust them. And this is gonna take some time. And you’re gonna in your mind think that’s not enough and they’re gonna be hungry. But if they get hungry an hour later, then that’s a consequence. And that’s also important for them to start putting together, that if I only have two bites of my dinner, in an hour from now or down the road or at some time during, you know, the next little bit of time, I’m gonna feel hungry. And getting them to start noticing what it feels like to be hungry, noticing what it feels like to be full. Because you forcing them to eat X number more bites is basically telling them that they can’t trust themselves, that you don’t trust them, that they can’t trust their bodies. And long term, again, you can see how this becomes challenging for a child.

I mean, our ultimate goal is for our children to grow up with a love for food, for health, for the good stuff, the bad stuff, whatever, like all foods, right? All foods are food and all foods have a role and a place in our lives. And here’s a little bit of good news. My son, the one that I told you was the pickiest eater, he grew out of it. He did. I took the pressure off. I stopped fighting the fight. I stopped making him eat X number of bites. I just provided opportunities to eat, right? I wasn’t a short-order chef so I was not making separate meals or only giving him, you know, zoodles because that’s all he would eat. Please don’t do that either because again, that’s you know, setting them up for failure long term.

I just provided him with opportunities to eat, I put a variety of things in front of him, and I just let him start exploring. And he is 20 now and he is a great eater. And he grew out of it. Like, you know, he did. It took time and he was always sort of cautious with foods. But now he eats a wide variety of everything. He’s completely healthy. And I would say that he has, you know, a relatively good relationship with food for a 20-year-old.

All right everybody, thanks for watching today. Sleep well.