CHERUBS Medical Expert Series: CDH & Feeding Issues (Dec 2-9, 2013)

[PatriciaH]

Hi Brad,

My grand daughter is 3 1/2 and will not eat meat no matter how small we dice it or chop it she will spit it out. She also does not like vegetables. She prefers fruit and pasta with Alfredo sauce. Any suggestions on how to get her to try other things without it being a fight to the finish. Her mom has said things like if you don't try it you have to go to bed and she says ok and gets down and goes to bed. Mom has tried making her sit at the table until she tries it and she will sit there until she falls asleep. I personally work on the theory of i will feed her what she will eat. I didn't start making my kids start trying a bite if everything until they were in school. Any suggestions would be helpful.

[BradMyers]

Hi Patricia- The important phrase here is "fight to the finish". Kids are bound to prefer certain foods, but if they have a true aversion and sensory processing issue with certain textures or tastes, forcing them to eat things that they do not want is probably doing more harm than good - especially in a child that is 3 1/2.

I speak from personal experience. I hate stewed tomatoes. I always have and I always will. I have no problem with ketchup, tomato sauce, salsa, and many other tomato-based products, but I can't handle stewed tomatoes. Just thinking about them now is making me nauseous. When I was little, my mom would try to force me to eat things with diced tomatoes and, if given the choice, I also would have gladly gone to bed without eating them. No amount of hunger or threatening can make me eat stewed tomatoes- to this day. You may be the same way about a food of some kind (my wife is the same way with guacamole).

So, imagine this response applied to several different foods. Encourage the foods that she WILL eat. In time, her palate will diversify, but this will only be the result of POSITIVE experiences. Again, when she starts school, this peer pressure will also work wonders. Do not force her to eat things that she does not want or you may end up with an adult who is as neurotic as I am with tomatoes! Good luck!!!