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When I was a child, I was a fussy eater and a nightmare for my parents. I was the child who would hide food behind radiators, hide food in my clothes or anywhere I could to get rid of it and avoid eating. To this day, I am still not great with trying new food. However, the shoe is on the other foot now, as my daughter is falling into the same “Fussy Eating” category. So how do you improve fussy eating?
Managing fussy eating as a parent can be frustrating and can really test your patience. Many parents I have worked with feel the need to blame themselves. However, it is not always the parents fault if a child is a fussy eater. Some children are just by nature, not curious with food at all, regardless of how they were brought up. Which is why you can find many families who have multiple children, all parented the same way, but one may be significantly fussier than their siblings.
Despite this, there are ways and means of promoting your child to try more foods and reduce their fussy eating. Therefore, I wanted to share 10 ideas of how parents can improve fussy eating with their children. These are all ideas which I have seen be effective with families first-hand.
1. Eating together.
Due to the busy nature of family life, it can be a difficult task for families to all sit down together at meal times. I certainly fall into this category. Both my wife and I work full time. As a result, there are days in which our daughter will have already eaten by the time we get home. There could be times in which we have to make her food first and we will cook our own food later in the evening. So for us, it has to be a conscious effort to make this part of our daily routine.
There can be any number of barriers that make eating together difficult. However, if made a priority, eating together can make a significant difference to your child’s eating habits.
Eating meals together is positive bonding time for families. It is a chance to spend regular time together, talking, laughing and sharing. In regards to eating habits, it is a fantastic opportunity for your child to see you, as their role model, eating and consuming the same foods that you are asking them to. Eating together builds a positive eating routine, in which your child will learn to expect to sit together and eat together. Some children (mine included), like to take and try food of their parents plate when eating together as well, which can be a bonus!
Routine, consistency and repetition are all very important elements to improving eating habits. Therefore, the best place for this to start is to have a consistent routine of eating meals together. This helps the child learn when to expect meal times. It creates a positive environment for eating and allows you to role model all the eating habits you would like you child to replicate.
2. Helping you cook.
My daughter absolutely loves to help us cook. Even to just watch us cooking food, is something she thoroughly enjoys. The same can be said for a number of other children, as it can be seen as a very “adult” task. Therefore, it can be exciting for children to be able to help complete it.
The additional impact of allowing your child to help with the making of the food, is that there can often be an increased desire to then try the food…as they were the ones who made it! It does not always mean that they eat all of the food. However, if your child is like mine and getting them to even try new food is a challenge, this can be a really beneficial activity to complete together. If repeated over time, it can not only benefit your child’s understanding of preparing and cooking food, their overall interest in food may increase, alongside their desire to try new food and eat more if it.
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3. Manage portions.
Managing how much food your child is given is an important aspect to consider when thinking about how to improve fussy eating. It is very easy for children to be overwhelmed if given too much food or lots of different types of food. If overwhelmed, the child may just refuse to eat anything presented to them.
What may be helpful, is to start small when introducing new foods or looking to improve the quantity of food eaten. A portion is usually consider enough to fill the palm of the person’s hand. So with younger children, this will not be a large quantity of food.
To avoid overwhelming the child, perhaps start with one or two small portions of food on their plate. This can then be built upon over time if successful. When introducing new foods, consider accompanying the new food with something that child enjoys eating.
It is a detail that can be overlooked, but can be a significant barrier for children. Therefore, consider the amount of food being offered. Is there too much variety, too much new food or is your child becoming overwhelmed with what is being presented to them?
4. Being calm and patient
Having a child who is a fussy eater, will almost certainly test your patience. As a parent, you could spend time planning out what food to give your child, spent time preparing a meal all just so your child can refuse to eat it. I am right in the middle of this phase with my daughter and it is so frustrating!
As challenging and as frustrating as these phases can be, it is so important that this frustration or anger is not taken out on the child. Furthermore, it can be really unhelpful if you try and force your child to eat. This will only increase their resistance and more likely lead to issues going on for longer.
Phases like this can sometimes go on for months if not longer. Therefore, the frustrations felt by parents can be high. It is easy to say, “just be calm and patient”. However, when faced with a child who isn’t eating or is refusing to eat, it is harder to be calm in practice.
Resetting expectations.
However, a way of helping yourself remain more calm and patient, can often be a case of resetting our expectations. I have been guilty in the past of having unrealistic expectations that I would give my daughter a plate of food and expect that she would just eat all of it. This rarely happened. Ultimately, this led to more frustration as it was my own expectations not being met. Therefore, I changed my expectations to be based more around her attempts to eat her food, or the interest she showed in it, rather than quantity eaten. This simple change in mindset helped me stay more calm and patient, as I began to notice when she would show more interest and appreciate when she would make more attempts to eat.
Therefore, to help improve your chances of staying calm and patient, perhaps think about your own expectations and mindset around your child’s eating. This small change around expectations, can sometimes help you appreciate and notice small improvements and ease the pressure that drives frustration.
5. Changing how food is presented.
Children can be visually led and they may just take a look at a meal and decide they won’t eat it. This can be frustrating for parents on a number of levels. You have just spent time making the meal. They didn’t even try to eat it. The child is basing their decision on what the food looks like rather than what it takes like. All very annoying! All things I did when I was a kid (Sorry Mam and Dad!).
A potential way around this, can be simply changing how a food is presented. This could be how it is practically cooked and made, or how it is visually presented to the child. For example, you may have a child who doesn’t want to try a pasta dish, so you could try a different type of pasta so the meal looks different the next time, but is the same meal. Alternatively, you may have a meal that could be cooked in a different way, so it visually looks different. Furthermore, rather than putting a meal on a plate, you could change it to a sharing bowl, or display it differently in front of the child.
Repetition in what you offer/present to the child is important. I would suggest sticking to a method for at least 10 times before considering a switch. But when switching, it doesn’t always have to be a different meal altogether. Have a think about changing the visuals and see what difference this can make. It can go a long way in improving your child’s fussy eating!
6. Link meals to things the child enjoys.
This is a new strategy we are currently trying with our toddler to improve her fussy eating. We are trying to associate ingredients, meals and food with things she enjoys, to encourage her to try them. For example, we have bought a bunch of stickers of her favourite TV characters and we are putting them over the ingredient packets.
The goal is that we can show her these stickers on the food and sell them as food from her favourite characters, in the hope she is more encouraged to try them.
It is early days in our attempts with this, but one thing is for sure, our daughter is very excited at seeing the food and ingredients. When it comes to the eating, she is certainly more intrigued by meals. However, trying them is still coming along slowly. We are definitely going to be sticking to this idea, as her interest has been peaked and with repetition, we hope she will start to try the food more.
Even though it is still early in our own trial of this idea, I still wanted to share it. It may be something that works well for you and your child, especially if they have a keen interest in certain characters/items or people that can be utilised to your advantaged when it comes to fussy eating.
7. Try to avoid making multiple meals.
I have worked with many parents who, in an attempt to ensure their child is eating, will make multiple meals if their child refuses the first. Very simply, my advice would be to avoid doing this. If this is done repeatedly, the lesson the child is learning is that they can just refuse what is on offer, with the idea that a more preferable meal will be made.
This routine of the child being able to request multiple meals, will not make it any easier to address fussy eating or encourage your child to try new things. The reason being, you are inadvertently telling them the opposite, by helping them avoid meals they do not want.
If a child refuses to eat, consider the option of keeping the meal to one side. When the child is hungry again or asking for more food, this meal can be reheated and given again. This sends a message to the child that if you are given a meal and you choose not to eat it, there will be no other meals offered. However, the original meal will remain available should the child wish to eat it. The child has a choice of trying and eating the meal provided, or they choose to remain hungry. Children will soon learn that it is better to try the food once they know plan B isn’t an option!
8. Creating a fun environment.
The environment created around meal times can have a big influence on the likelihood of your child eating. If it is a tense, frustrated or negative atmosphere, this will likely lead to your child not eating. A warm, fun and encouraging atmosphere, will likely lead to the child eating or trying more food.
How you create this positive atmosphere will vary family to family. It may just be a case of the family being together and talking, laughing and sharing stories. This can provide a positive distraction away from any pressure on the child to eat or try food. Sometimes this distraction alone and the fact that nobody is applying any pressure, can make a big difference for fussy eaters.
What constitutes a fun and positive environment for your family is up to you. However, it can be useful to make this a specific focus around meal times, to ensure the focus of meals is not about your child eating every piece of food or being made to feel like they have to. More so, that it is a time for the family to come together, be together and enjoy this time together.
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9. Repetition.
There are many parents out there who are making creative meals, have good routines and environments around meal times, but yet still find themselves struggling. Often, the piece of the puzzle that is missing is the repetition element.
Parents may try offering a meal, or trying something once or twice without success and therefore look to change what they are doing. In most cases this is not enough repetition for the child to have time to adapt and get used to seeing the new meal/food in front of them.
As an example, we have been trying to encourage our daughter to try carrots for what feels like forever. In reality, we have given her carrots on her plate on around 20 different occasions (perhaps even more), and she has only just started picking them up and putting them towards her mouth. She still isn’t eating them, but her interest is growing and we are getting closer.
Of course, every child will be different and there is no set amount of time to wait or try. However, it just gives an indication of how long you may have to try and repeat offering a new piece of food, before you start to see progress.
10. Finding the right meal times.
Finally, the timing of your meal times can also determine how much success you may have in improving your child’s fussy eating or trying new foods. Are your meals times too close to their bed time? Could they be tired? Impatient? Low on energy? Not hungry enough? Too hungry? All of these can impact how likely your child is to try new food.
Furthermore, if your child is snacking through the day or there is too little time between meals, this will also impact it. I also think that children’s appetite can vary throughout the day and may be different child to child. Our daughter absolutely loves breakfast and it is the first thing she wants to do each day. She could eat and eat, she will eat a variety of things and is rarely fussy at all. At lunch, she is little bit fussier, but generally this is fine and manageable. However, evening meals are our battle ground, her appetite is just not there are she seemingly would go without this meal if she could. Therefore, we have had to ask ourselves some of these questions, is she not hungry enough, is she too tired etc. After which it can become trial and error to find the sweet spot!
Ultimately, do not forget to think about when you are offering your child their meals. Are they evenly spread throughout the day? Is snacking allowed and if so when? Are meals too early/too late? All of these factors and others will play a role in the success you have.
Summary.
Fussy eating can sometimes be a phase or sometimes be a longer term battle that parents have. I have been both a fussy eater myself and now the parent of a child who is seemingly a fussy eater. Could it be genetic? Is it parenting? Is it just the individual personalities of the child? I don’t know.
What I do know, is that there are steps that parents can take to try and encourage their child to be more food curious and improve fussy eating. The 10 ideas above are examples that I have seen be effective from both parents I worked with and my own experiences.
Whilst not all of these ideas are unique, my hope is that parents out there who are struggling can take some inspiration from these ideas. It may even be good practice to use a combination of these ideas together for an even more effective approach.
Dealing with fussy eaters is frustrating, tough and can be exhausting. If you are struggling with this, you are not on your own. However, try to stay positive, be patient in your approach and manage your own expectations. Fussy eating is rarely resolved overnight. However, I hope these tips have been of some help when thinking about how to improve your child’s fussy eating.
Please feel free to share your thoughts, experiences or stories in the comments below!
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ARFID can sometimes be a possibility. Then the advice is to feed your child whatever they will eat, chicken nuggets for every meal, separate plates for foods, extra calories by whatever means! No amount of persuasion or bribery will help.
Of course, the advice will completely change if there is a diagnosed condition. This post is not focused on these diagnosed conditions.
I loved this post! Out little Baby T is currently going through a ‘picky eating’ phase and I’ve been taking on board anything I can to encourage her to eat her normal foods. We’ve found that sticking with what we call ‘safe foods’ for 2 out of 3 meals a day and introducing something there is a potential out little one will throw on the floor for one of the meals, we also change up which meal we add the ‘picky food’ to.
Thanks for all the tips, we will 100% be coming back to this post!
Yeah it can be such a battle and trial and error at times. We are still battling away with our two year old haha, she just isn’t curious with foods at all! Thank you for your kind words 😁