Chiming in a little late here - my son stopped drinking milk from a bottle well before he was 2. It was nigh on impossible to get him to drink milk from a cup. Drinking yogurts worked as an alternative.
At six, he can be a bit picky sometimes, though not as much as some examples mentioned here. What does get to me is that he changes his mind about what he likes and dislikes much too often. Just when you think food X is a firm favourite, he announces that he doesn’t like it anymore.
What would be wrong with just buying a baby bottle and letting him drink milk from that? He would get the nutritional value, feel happy about how he’s drinking it and will eventually be embarrassed out of it by the other kids in the playground.
Just a thought.
Reheated canned cooked beets, you mean? Those slices of slimy rubbery clotted-blood-colored YUCK-tasting horror?
Now, if you take a fresh beet and julienne it, for a salad or to add to julienned carrots and diced onions in a sautee on which to braise chicken, say, then you’re talking good eating. Which I discovered as a relatively adventurous adult, thus overcoming the anti-beet prejudice instilled by the beets inflicted upon me in my youth.
Try some fresh roasted beets with sour cream on top.
That’s why my 2.5-yr-old twins are still using bottles. They’ll drink water (lots of it) from cups, but not milk. Lots of kids in other cultures nurse until they’re 4 or 5; maybe they need the soothing effect of suckling. I figure, why fight about it? They’ll get there when they’re ready.
Tell me about it. I’m gearing up for an argument with the pediatrician tomorrow morning because WhyBaby’s 19 months (15 months adjusted) and still on a bottle 2 or 3 times a day. She wanted her off at 12 months old! 12 months!!! WTF?
Oh, well. It won’t really be much of an argument. It’ll be a bit of a lecture on her part, and some conciliatory nodding and smiling on my part, then we’ll come home and enjoy a bottle, ‘cause she’s still a frickin’ baby and babies need to suck, darnit!
Little Nemo, I don’t think your theory is wrong, I just think it won’t be very effective in practice. One of those parent/nonparent things. Kids (people, really) learn best from natural consequences. The natural consequence of not eating is you go hungry or you do work to make yourself food or you pay your mom or dad for a special meal. Taking away TV or video games or computer time doesn’t really connect well with food intake. It just basically teaches the kid that you’re a big old meany. It makes *you *the problem, not their behavior.
I totally agree some parents need to be more proactive in giving their kids better food choices. A huge variety of flavors, textures and even temperatures need to be tried to find a diet that can be tolerated and support their health. Parents need to set the example by eating well themselves. (WhyKid handed me a frog’s leg at the Chinese Buffet Friday night. I nearly horked, but I tried it - 3 bites, as is our rule, and it wasn’t half bad! The baby loved hers, by the way.)
There’s a big area between laissez-faire feeding and being a control freak. Neither extreme is useful in the long run.
Weird. Hell, in a lot of cultures kids breastfeed until three or four years old. It seems like a bottle at 19 months is unlikely to cause any harm to the child.
This sounds eminently reasonable. Parents who simply decide to take the easy approach and feed their children nothing but oatmeal really should have their faces ripped off. But parents who give their children permanent complexes surrounding food as a way of asserting their power need body parts violently removed as well. Judging from stories I’ve heard, the latter sounds like an incredibly common thing. I’m yet another childless person who feels free to go around judging parents (:)) and that’s just totally incomprehensible to me.
Maybe you’d understand it better if you’d given in and eaten those damned beets your mom tried to feed you. 
Actually, I don’t remember my mother ever cooking beets. My father, on the other hand, grew them in his garden (still does, actually, though I haven’t seen him eat them in years. I suspect most of them end up rotting in the ground, because he’s not dumb enough to eat them either when it comes down to it.) So you can’t even blame it on canned beets or anything like that. The things are just goddamn nasty. Uck. All slimey and inappropriately sweet.
Besides, rather than take away priviledges, you’re better off bribing the kid to try and get him to try his veggies. Bribing works-that’s how my mother finally got my sister potty-trained.
My parents were lucky, I was somewhat picky, but I always loved veggies-at three years old, I always asked my dad to make me salads for dinner. (Tomatos, lettuce, red bell pepper, croutons and American cheese with creamy Italian). I also adored canned spinach, peas, corn, and raw carrots. I used to like broccoli, but not so much anymore, I’m afraid.
It certainly was the case with Lilbro. He doesn’t particularly enjoy food: to him, food is fuel. Bland tastes are better, but he likes his textures going on stiff (I cook pasta and rice “al dente” and I was his main cook when he grew up; Mom tends to overcook).
Being at a dorm in college did a lot to improve his menu choices; once he’d started trying that he had never tried at home (he refused to a few times when he was little and Mom gave up) and finding out he liked them, he’s started trying things elsewhere.
I’ve had the following conversation with Mom a few times - and even Lilbro has had it!
Mom: “Oh, I would prepare Suchandsuch for Sunday but your little brother doesn’t like it.”
Me: “Actually he does, he’s ordered it and eaten it at restaurants when we were out with friends. Just make sure it’s not overcooked.”
Mom: “but he’s never liked it!”
Me: “Mom, he didn’t like it when he was 12. He’s 2x now”
When we’re out, if I order something he hasn’t tried, he may ask to try it; he knows that his taste and mine are similar. But he didn’t know this until he was faced with “food not cooked by his sister and/or not passed through Mommy’s pamper-the-little-one filter” 
Our two-year old was getting pretty picky, but we’ve noticed that since we’ve had him in daycare, it has gotten a lot better. If he sees all the other kids eating their vegetables, then he will too. So maybe for those of you with picky eaters that don’t go to daycare, maybe you might try having a couple playmates come over for lunch dates or something?
This is actually a good idea. We try to have other kids over for playdates and such.
This has helped expand their tolerances to other foods since one of the kids we have over will eat anything. I eat anything too, but that doesn’t seem to phase the kids. Just cause “daddy eats it” doesn’t mean anything to them, but if they see Kayla down the street eat it they seem more likely to give it a try.
We usually tell the kids that they have to at least TRY it once. If they don’t like it they don’t have to finish it. They usually end up liking it and finishing it but at least they have a choice that starts with us and gives them some power in the matter.
“Here, daddy made this for you, try it and see if you like it. I won’t give you anymore if you don’t like it.”
We’ll usually have other food ‘ready’ in case they really despise what we’ve made.
The thing is, and I know a lot of you don’t want to hear this, I have noticed that parents that have kids that are picky eaters also tend to have kids who are exhibiting other behavior problems. This is due to bad parenting. My sister’s kids are all finicky. Mac an cheese, Pizza, Mcnuggets, and cereal. That’s it. They are also whiny, prone to fighting, disobediant, demanding, and basicly spoiled rotten. My sister is a big lib and helicopters them constantly. You can’t take them out anywhere decent. We went to a nice restaurant and they continually used inappriate speaking tones, kicked each other under the table, threw things, etc. and when their mac and cheese came they refused it becuae it had been baked in a casserole and cut into squares and wasn’t a runny pile. She sent it back for pasta and butter :rolleyes: They wouldn’t touch the celery and carrots that came as an appetizer either. When I remarked about all this, Daddy chimed in “I’m sure all kids are like that.” I have given up hope.
My friend’s girl is polite and well behaved, even helpful. She does her chores and homework with enthusiasm. She also eats what is put in front of her. Her dad doesn’t spoil her rotten. Imagine that.
Happy Wanderer: Absolutely. A parent who indulges a kid’s every dietary whim is likely not doing their job in other areas either. It’s no surprise that children that receive no discipline whatsoever in other aspects of their lives are also picky eaters.
But I think kids model their eating habits after their parents, and some part of it is simply children mimicking what they see. I have three cousins, and they were extremely picky eaters as children. I imagine they still are. Their parents were not particularly indulgent in other respects and the children were mostly pretty well-behaved; this was not the sort of family you describe. But their parents fed them a very limited, “kid-friendly” diet - it was the sort of household where the children ate chicken nuggets or spaghetti rather than “adult” foods. My aunt and uncle didn’t really eat very well either - it’s no surprise that when mom makes no bones about not liking vegetables, the kids don’t feel compelled to eat well. If you start with the assumption that a lot of normal foods are gross - that is, if you eat like a spoiled child yourself - and then compound it by encouraging your children to eat an even more limited diet, you’re not going to raise children who are adventurous about food.
A couple years ago I made some guacamole, and the kids wouldn’t even try it. They had never seen an avocado before. Is that normal? And by this point, the oldest was probably about fifteen. Isn’t that a little old to be completely unwilling to try a new food? When my father and I visit them, we bring our own food; we’re vegetarians, and the children are alarmed at seeing us eat things like refried beans, or hummus. I know they’re Republicans, but seriously, is guacamole really within the realm of exotic ethnic food anymore?
Excaliber- My friend, 27, had never had asparagus or an artichoke before I made them at the bbq this year. Now he can’t get enough of it. Yeah, model good behaivor. I likes me a Big Mac and fries from time to time but I make sure my Godchild understands that it is a treat that we only get occasionally. It helps if you learn some cooking skils too. Many parents don’t cook for whatever reason, maybe tuckered out after work, don’t know how, too lazy, so it’s Dominos or a bucket of chicken again. When I go to hometown buffet, where you can have darn near anything, I do notice that most of the kids are eating fries and McNuggets and duh, mac and cheese, and more ice cream that I would eat. WTF? Might as well go to Mickey D’s.
I read this thread and now I’m all hungry for beetroot. And my mom hasn’t made any in at least a decade. 
I used to wonder why some parents couldn’t/wouldn’t get their kids to eat stuff (I have a half-dozen things I won’t eat, not a half-dozen I will). This guy made me realize that some of the people I know who are majorly picky eaters would go to their graves that way rather than change. :eek:
My nearly-15-mo daughter has always being a picky eater. Things got really bad after her dad went back to work (he spends 8-13 weeks abroad), he was the one usually preparing her meals and feeding her. It then turned into a headache for me. After much experimentation I found some meals that she likes: overboiled pasta with veggies, cheese and avocado (pugh), home-made pizza (with fresh veggies and cheese), pancakes (sweetened with mashed bananas), fish, whatever I eat minus the salt (and that includes spicy paprika and chili peppers some times).
Now the big problem is milk. After they gave her a bottle at the hospital it took me a good six months of expressing milk and feeding it to her in a bottle before she finally made the connection boobies = milk. I then proceeded to get rid of every bottle at home. She now takes the boobies many times a day, but mostly for comfort and refuses to have any milk coming from anywhere. To her milk=boobies, water=sippy cup. She would not take anything but water from her sippy cup, no juice, no milk; and I don’t want to get a bottle. I am left with putting dairies in every meal, however weird the combination (like putting milk in her fish).
Should I be ‘pushing’ more forcefully for her to drink milk?
BTW, not asking for medical opinion, her doctor thinks my approach is OK, just wondering if other parents beat this.
Oh Mighty-Girl, I have to laugh when I see “has always been” and 15-mo-old! You are in for soooooo many changes, challenges and new chapters yet! But I know I felt that, and spoke about my children in the same way; their presence in my life was is so large, it feels eternal.
I think you can just relax. Your daughter’s getting a variety of foods. Lots of people say babies don’t need milk beyond breast; lots of kids can’t tolerate any dairy at all; lots of toddlers still drink a high percentage of their diet at that age (mine were taking formula at that point). Lots of kids eat a more restricted diet. Everybody’s fine. Except for that kid in the link who absolutely would not eat a fruit or vegetable, ever, nor take any supplements - that’ll kill a person.
Your daughter may become much more picky in the next few months. And not for any particular reason - just because she can! That’s what 2-yr-olds do. Pediatricians generally recommend that you look at their intake over the course of a week to see if it’s balanced, rather than worrying about each day. Toddlers are notorious for “food jags”, where they’ll only eat one thing for 4 days in a row.
Oh, and then there are points where they just about stop eating entirely! Mine have those days now - a few peanut butter crackers, a banana, and a lot of milk & that’s it!
The best guide is their overall health and energy.
Which is why it’s pretty clear that Happy Wanderer’s relatives are into waaay too many simple carbs. Those kids need some peanut butter or cottage cheese to balance the nuggets and pizza. Little bit of apple wouldn’t hurt.