What's Worked for Us-Food Choices

Having a 2 year old can be a food challenge in and of itself. Having a toddler who is not used to American food and may think most of it seems like something scraped out of a witches' caldron is even more challenging. Thankfully, Kenson has done fairly well with this. He'e gone from eating anything and everything on the way home ("I don't know if they're gonna feed me so I just better eat it!") to wanting to only eat things he knew he liked ("I love peanut butter sandwiches and pancake syrup.") to wanting to eat whatever we're eating ("Yes, I know I won't like that sour dill pickle but give it to me anyway.")

I'm from the school of thought that believes kids learn to be picky eaters because of their parents. It has been hard for me to give him the freedom to be picky at times or to watch him consistently eat the same foods over and over. I want him to have balanced diet, to learn to love all sorts of foods. But truth be told, vegetables are a real no go right now. They're too crunchy for the most part and the ones that are cooked are just not things Kenson enjoys the taste of. And strong or unusual flavors are not something he desires either. I've had to reevaluate my thinking and decide that it's not what he eats as much as it is if he is eating and getting full.

I'm also from the school of thought that I will not prepare two meals because someone is too picky to eat the one that I made. I cook once and that cooking is a gift to my family. Turning your nose up at it is like turning your nose up at a gift. It's rude. You may dislike it and choose not to eat it but you may not complain or demand a different meal. If you have a real aversion to it, you may fix something else on your own. (But that's only on rare occasions.)

With Kenson, we always offer what we are having unless it's something we know he won't eat. Generally, we started out by modifying his meal so it was reflective of but not identical to ours. Now he wants exactly what we're having. If we're having apple slices and I dice his instead of letting him have an apple wedge, he won't touch it because Mama and Papa are eating apple wedges not diced apple. So I'm now making him a plate identical to ours. Either way, I've had to lighten up a bit on the "eat it or else you can be hungry" mentality. To ease some of my stress over the thought of having to possibly fix him something else, it has helped to just have a couple of stand bys always ready in the pantry: rice with refried beans or a peanut butter sandwich.

I have also used the photo cards I made to try to show him pictures of what we are eating and to give him the vocabulary for what we are eating. I need more pictures! I definitely did not have enough food items made beforehand. But I think the picture cards are good because it often shows food in its orginal form so he is learning to connect canned pineapple with the whole fruit as well as seeing words next to items, reinforcing that words go with pictures.

One food thing that I was hopeful would work was using baby food to introduce new foods. Kenson doesn't always like to chew his food and will spit things out that require too much chewing. I was hoping that pureed foods would go over well with him and let him taste new things without having too much texture. That idea did not work. He loves pureed fruits but pureed entres or vegetables have been a total bust. He also is getting to the point where he wants to eat what we're eating and the baby food thing just doesn't hold water when Mom and Dad are eating something else.