Top Tips to Help Your Picky Eater

Feeding children 3 meals and 2-3 snacks each day can be a lot of work! This task can become infinitely harder if you have a picky eater on your hands. Check out our top tips for how to feed your picky eater:

1. Follow Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility in Feeding

   1. Parents are responsible for offering meals and snacks on a set schedule

   2. Children can decide whether and how much food they want to eat from what is served

   3. Be consistent about the parent and child roles to see positive results over time with your child’s eating!

2. Create a family mealtime routine

   1. Prepare 1 meal for the whole family to enjoy

   2. Include at least 1 preferred food on the menu that each child feels safe and comfortable eating

   3. Make sure meals are low-pressure and engaging! For example, try out table topic cards, theme meals, arranging foods in fun shapes, creative utensils, etc.

3. Focus on increasing flexibility with your child’s preferred foods

   1. Rotate the menu so the same foods are not repeated too often

   2. Switch up the brands, flavors, colors, shapes, etc. of favorite foods

4. Invite your child to help with the grocery shopping and cooking activities whenever possible! 

As always, if you are looking for more individualized nutrition support, reach out to our team to schedule an appointment!

Happy Eating!