[1Y9M] A Battle With A Picky Eater

This was what happened 1 1/2 month AGO ……..

It’s been a nightmare for more then a month now when it comes to Angel’s meal time. Previously cooking and watching her taking her meals ware such blissful moments and sometimes, she would asked for a very large portion and would eat almost anything that’s lying on her table polishing her bowl squeaky clean. Everything to her was a feast and all food for her was delicious. But since her sudden changed in her appetite after CNY (i.e. becoming a picky eater after helping herself with junk food and salty adult’s food for few days), watching her finishing her meal is such a torturing process and basically asking her to finish her meal or even 1/4 portion of it is a mission impossible!

I have cut down on the portion of her lunch and dinner to almost 1/.2 of what she normally eat and yet, she would just simple dig in and have a few spoons and then tells me she wants to get down from her high chair (i.e. she is full already). So I thought that she don’t like her usual dish so I have changed from porridge to rice, spaghettis then to mee hoon, mee, pastas (with soup or dry) then also bread and homemade cakes, etc the results is still the same. She would try to have some carrots in the porridge and tells me

“YUCKSSS~~~!!”

then she don’t want to eat anymore. Or she would try to dig in and after taking the first spoon then making a vomiting face then stopped totally (but those food are not a new food to her). Even the veges in the ABC soup which she used to love so much was ended up on the floor with another few “YUCKKS~~~!!” (don’t know where she learn that words from ….) because she thinks the carrot, the potatoes, the onions, sweet corn, everything in it taste horrible, looks gross except for the meat (oh ya …. ) but strangely me and hubby also having the same soup but found nothing wrong with it at all!!!

In order to tried out what dish she likes, I let her have a varieties of vege and meat with her normal carbo and she would picked out all the meat from her carbo and eat them and left the vege and rice lying there, untouched! So in her next meal, I mixed the vege and making it into a meat ball hoping that she would eat them, at first she is very happy to see her ‘meat’ and once she chew on them then taste the vege, she would try to swallow them for the first few attempts then starts to spit them all out one by one and fuss + refused to eat anything anymore! She even reject tomatoes, tofu, sweet corns, sweet potatoes, cucumber (she used to love it so much and would eat them raw last time), pumpkin, mince meat, carrots, etc …… basically everything and only opened her mouth wide when it comes to pork meat which is from the soup bone, chicken drumsticks and fruits!! She even rejects tomato ketchup totally which normal kids would love to bits. If I was to offer her mee hoon, she would only eat the mee hoon plain but still, few bites then started to push all her food away or sometimes even dropped her plates on the floor making a mess!

If she was having bread, she would only eat them plain, also a few bites. If we were to feed her rice, she would eat them plain with soup, same …. Few spoon and she is full but will come asking for milk 10 minutes later. Cereal she would reject totally! If we try to feed her adult food, a dash of onions / garlic / any herbs you name it, she would make the gesture of wanting to vomit then spit them all out!!! (She rejects spaghetti sauce totally because there was onion in it!! And she hates tomato sauce too.) But I guaranteed potato chips / junk food which loaded with garlic / onion / even chillies she would eat them with her mouth opened wide LoL. I am so stress at times and even hubby who is so linear with her can’t even tolerate with her constant bad behaviour on the dinning table + extremely picky eating habit and once took all her food from her table and throw them in the sink and demand her to go to bed without her dinner. So there was few days that she is going to bed without having any solid for the entire day, just her milk, milk and more milk! Coaxing, talking nicely and even bribing her is just no use at all, she just doesn’t want to have anything to do with it when it comes to proper food! I even have tried rushing in and out of the kitchen just to cook her another different dinner after she rejected her first meal just hoping that she would eat her solid but then, she still prefers just to drink her milk only ……. I am so stress out!! I am worried that she won’t be getting enough nutrition and minerals she needed for a healthy and well-balance diet, I am worried that she will overly depended on her milk intake for the rest of the day, the month and the year, I am worried she is not taking any solid at all! :(

This was what happened 1 month LATER ……..

After more then a month of persistence in offering her with variety of healthy solids over and over, but do not force her to finished her meal if she rejects and also spending more time with her lunch and dinner time, I could see some progress in her, accept her solid one by one, more and more each day these few days! Since she is approaching her 2 years old in less then 2 weeks time now, I think it shouldn’t poses any huge problem to start introducing tiny bit of salt and other healthy options of seasonings that I could find into her meal but of course, to the minimum. I also started to notice that Angel

- loves noodles more then rice, still loves porridge
- loves ABC pastas but hates her animal / vehicle pastas,
- loves pork more then chicken,
- hates western style of cooking but prefers Chinese style
- prefers steaming rather then frying (strange!!)
- prefers soft moist food with texture
- and also, she would eat her porridge if she could see chucks of meat in them!

So I tried to chopped the vege to as finely as possible and to dice those meat to be as easily noticed by bare eyes as possible. I have been eating the same food (porridge) with her too sometimes, making her watching me eat hoping that she will dig in with me as well, and also feeding her 1 or 2 spoons of the cooked veges before her meal time (while she was very hungry and looking for me in the kitchen) just to let her taste how sweet those vege could be then show how I add them into her porridge hoping that she would not reject the dark green colours of vege in her meal, also offering her raw cucumber as snacks (chilled them for awhile). And now, she is slowly eating her carrots, having her veges, eating her tofu and taking her broccoli and spinach …… I am glad to see her progress day by day, eating more and more each day, food ending in the bin also getting lesser and lesser. I could see that her appetite is almost back to normal now but still, she would still picked out some stuffs from her porridge if she doesn’t like them.

I am aware that my battle with a picky eater at home is not totally over yet and will not be over so soon I guess, but I am glad that she is happily eating her solid now and even told me they were “NICE ~~~” at times :)