This post first appeared on A Very Fine Home blog
by Jordan Pederson
I know you’ve found yourself at your wit’s end multiple times after losing the battle of dinnertime. Let’s be honest, you probably lost lunch and breakfast too. I know you feel discouraged when your little one insists on eating only the same three things over and over… and over. Maybe, you aren’t even that lucky. Perhaps they are just down right refusing to eat.
You’ve tried everything. I mean everything. Burying peas in the macaroni, cutting food into cute shapes, adding smiley faces and Mickey Mouse ears to everything possible, pureeing food into a smoothie, scrolling Pinterest for hours only to spend double that time in the kitchen getting creative with snacks, desperately buying PediaSure shakes just to make sure calories and nutrients are being consumed. The list goes on and on but the plates remain full.
Unfortunately, I have no secret trick or any exceptional wisdom to offer up. I only have encouragement to keep trying. Persistence is one of the best practices in parenting alongside patience. Two virtues that do not come naturally to me but I keep practicing, plate after plate, bedtime battle after bedtime battle, meltdown after meltdown.
And one day, it will just click. Serve food up in the bed of a truck, or your equivalent of goofiness that distracts your little one long enough to take a few bites. Until then, keep practicing mama.
Sincerely,
Fellow Mama of a Picky Eater