A lot of kids are picky eaters, but I have only ever heard of one kid as picky as Ila. Ila will go years between trying new things and if she doesn’t eat something in her repertoire for a little while, it will drop off into the category of things that she doesn’t eat. Although I still try to give her more things with at least some nutritional value, I’ll admit that for the most part, I just let her eat whatever she wants and I don’t stress out about it. There have been days where she has only eaten potato chips and nothing else. It sounds like a horrible thing for a mother to do, but I have given up on making eating a battle. I just hope that the potato chip days are balanced out by the grapes and banana days.
In preparation for our trip to Ohio I have made my mom a list of all the foods that Ila will eat. It may seem long until you realize what’s not on the list. Here’s my list:
- “Kid chocolate milk” Carnation instant breakfast (chocolate milk powder)
- Dinosaur chicken nuggets (Yummy brand, although she has been more accommodating with different brands at other people’s houses)
- “circle crackers” (Ritz or generic brand)
- “favorite chips” (Lays Wavy Original–red bag)
- apples
- bananas
- grapes
- graham crackers (regular rectangles and Teddy Grahams)
- marshmallows
- apple-cinnamon instant oatmeal
- cinnamon toast
- poppy seed muffins
- “ball cereal” (generic is fine)
- pancakes with syrup
- popcorn (butter variety only)
- fruit snacks (only some varieties)
- raspberry yogurt
- chocolate of any kind
- suckers
- vanilla or chocolate ice cream (recently discovered that she loves root beer floats)
- McDonalds and IKEA chicken nuggets
- chocolate cupcakes
- chocolate chip cookies and Oreo cookies
Things she used to eat, but have dropped off her repertoire:
- fish crackers
- mandarin oranges
- peanut butter
- snow pea crisps
- homemade bread
- apple sauce
The only cheese she has ever eaten was when she once licked a Cheeto and she didn’t even lick all the “cheese” off it. She licked it once and that was all. She has never eaten a cheese stick or anything with cheese on it–including pizza. A month ago I was able to persuade her to try some Oreo cookie pizza, but it took a lot of convincing and bribing.
Back in October, I talked her into trying a few pretzels but she only ever ate a handful and refuses to try them again. She has eaten about 4 or 5 noodles in her entire life. Not 4 or 5 servings. It was probably two years ago when she ate the noodles and I was very excited because I thought we were going to be able to add a new food to her diet, but I could never get her to eat a 6th noodle or any other noodles after that.
It took me 30 minutes one time to talk her into licking a piece of ham. I couldn’t get her to take a bite of it and she never has eaten ham. For the last two years she has gotten curious about hard boiled eggs at Easter time, but she’s never gotten beyond touching them to her tongue.
The only proteins she will eat are dinosaur chicken nuggets, carnation instant breakfast chocolate milk, and yogurt. When she was 3, I had to warm her chicken nuggets up in batches of 3 and if they were all Pterodactyls, she wouldn’t eat them. If there was one or two Pterodactyls, she’d still eat them, but on the few occasions when they were all three Pterodactyls, she cried about them and refused to eat them. Since she’s been 4, I’ve never given her a plate that had all 4 Pterodactyls so I don’t really know if that’s still an issue. She will not eat other shapes of chicken nuggets, although she did eat Monsters inc. shaped nuggets in Texas once when we couldn’t find any dinosaurs at the store.
She is more likely to try a new dessert than any other type of new food, but she is still picky about desserts. She only likes vanilla and chocolate ice cream. She will only eat chocolate cupcakes, not any other flavor. She will not try pie, brownies, or unfamiliar candy.
She will only eat one kind of potato chips and when they changed the bag, it took me a week to convince her that they were still the same chips.
I’m sure she’d love homemade rolls, but I’ve tried on several occasions to get her to just take one bite and she won’t.
If we go to a potluck, I bring a sleeve of “circle crackers” just in case there isn’t anything she’ll eat. I also bring crackers to restaurants sometimes because she often won’t eat anything on the menu. It sounds enabling, but it’s much better than having her cry all through dinner (which is what has happened when there was nothing she’d eat).
I’ve tried Googling ways to help picky eaters, but all of the suggestions are for kids that aren’t nearly as picky as Ila. They suggest things like giving the kid something to dip food in (Ila won’t eat any dips at all) or not making eating a battle (which is what I already do). I have never found a helpful solution on the internet.
6-22-14 UPDATE: A friend shared this article with me about Selective Eating Disorder. I’m both glad to have some more information and disturbed to read about the significant impact Selective Eating Disorder has on one’s life. click
here to read the article.
Oh my gosh. This is my James. He just eats what he eats. Cheesy rice and q-cumbers for dinner every night. That’s it. I have been making him try bites of things, now that he is about to go to school, because that’s what big boys do. We still have our issues with that. But with his food allergy, it’s probably good he is a picky-pete.
Wow. Thats a lot for you to manage. Evelyn had an obsession with ham, green beans, milk (sometimes) and mac and cheese. Nothing else. Have you checked if its a sensory thing? The dietician at Primary told is to try to get her to drink the Carnation breakfast drink. Its actually surprisingly balanced and good if you’ve got a selective eater. We would put 1/4 teaspoon of it in 8 ounces of milk and she’d reject the whole thing! Somehow she knew it was there. And yes, they said that a day of eating nothing but potato chips really is balanced out with a day of grapes. They said we should judge her diet weekly and not daily because it does even out.
Brett and Ryan were both highly selective eaters. Ryan didn’t eat fruit or vegetables before he went on his mission. When he was young the only protein he ate was grilled cheese, cheese pizza, pb and honey sandwiches, and chicken nuggets. He did add in plain hamburgers as he got older. In high school he added mashed potatoes and a few other items. Now he is on his mission in Mexico he is eating a wide variety of food. He still didn’t eat much in the way of fruit until he was put on an all fruit diet by a doctor for a week. I am in the “not worth the battle group.”