Picky Eating Toddlers /School Age /Extremely Picky Eaters: Tips & Recipes
Mealtimes can be a battle time when you have picky eaters at home.
The tips you will read below will help you with your:
- picky eating toddler
- school-age kid
- severely picky eater
- child with sensory issues
And if you feel all that is not practical enough, wait to read some recipes that a group of talented food bloggers has been preparing to get their picky eaters to try new foods and veggies.
This ☝️Food Journal has been a game-changer for us.
17 Useful Picky Eating Tips for Toddlers, School-Age Kids, and Sensory Issues
General Tips for Good Eating Routines
- Stick to a routine: serve meals at similar times every day
- Don’t allow munching between meals
- Set a good example by eating a variety of healthy foods
- Avoid fizzy drinks that will fill your kids’ tummies
- Avoid distractions during meal times: no watching t.v, playing with phones /tablets, or any other distractions
Tips for Picky Eating Toddlers
- Let your child help in the kitchen
- Take your child shopping for food and decide together on new ingredients
- Offer new foods 10 to 15 times before you decide if your child enjoys that new food. It may take that many times to be able to get used to a new flavor (Our food workbook for kids includes a very useful worksheet to track those 15 trials).
- Make food fun. Display food in a visually appealing way
- Mix food they love with some new foods you would like them to try
School-Age Picky Eaters
- Use a food journal, to encourage them to try new foods. It is more effective than trying to force them to eat.
Read about food journals for school-age kids ?
Tips for Severely Picky Eaters
The following tips are recommendations for severely picky eaters who get overwhelmed by new foods and often have texture/sensory issues.
Kate from the High Chair Chronicles, writes specifically about raising a severely picky eater little boy. She has plenty of very useful tips for toddlers, and she shares these three tips for severely picky eaters that you can read below:
- Offer the food in a fun, new environment instead of at the table. This way there is less pressure and expectations around trying the food (she used this method when getting her son to eat his first vegetables)
- Place a piece of the new food in your child’s mouth with your hand and press the food down gently onto their teeth and tongue. This way they feel a little bit of pressure from the food and feel something familiar in their mouth instead of immediately being overwhelmed by an unfamiliar texture or flavor. If you’re feeding with a fork or a spoon, let the fork/spoon linger for a second extra so your child feels something familiar in their mouth in addition to the new “scary” food (read more about this sensory feeding trick)
- Ready! Set! Go!
This is a distraction method. On the count of 3 (or Ready! Set! Go!) everybody eats. You need to make it look super exciting. and I act like it’s the most exciting thing in the world! This works often because the child is distracted by the excitement and will actually have the food in his mouth long enough to chew it, give it a fair chance, and realize that it’s not so bad! Without a distraction, your child may immediately spit it out because of the unfamiliar texture or flavor.
Picky Eating and Sensory Issues
Kids with sensory processing issues may find mealtimes very challenging. Certain textures or smells may cause a child to reject specific foods or preparations.
Nicole from Raising an Extraordinary Person shares these useful tips:
- Sensory play with food
Incorporate the food into part of sensory play so they can explore the food in a non-threatening, play environment first where there are no expectations of eating anything - Palette priming technique
Discreetly adding it to the food they like such as adding puree carrot to tomato sauce. Palette priming is a technique used in feeding therapy where they slowly add more and more of something to a food. Your child’s palate adapts and doesn’t notice because it happens very slowly. - Ice chip trick
If sensory issues cause problems with certain textures or flavors it helps some kids to eat ice chips before a meal, slightly numbing their taste buds so the flavor isn’t so intense.
Read more of her tips for managing oral motor challenges ?
12 Recipes for Picky Eating Toddlers, School-Age Kids & Babies
I am delighted to share with you some fantastic recipes for picky eating kids that a group of brilliant food bloggers has selected for you.
Recipes for Picky Eating Kids (Babies, Toddlers & School-Age)
Get your picky eating kid to try vegetables and new foods with these delicious recipes!
A group of talented food bloggers shares their recipes and their best tricks to get kids to try new foods.
Baby Breakfast Ideas - Baby Food Recipes Stage 2
If you start putting flecks of green spinach in their eggs at a young age, they grow up thinking it's normal! Green eggs, plus other adventurous breakfast ideas for babies
Hidden Vegetable Beef Burgers
Kids love burgers, so why not skip the drive-thru and get them to help make their own, with some shredded veggies in them?
Broccoli Bites
Mix together foods they love with others you would like them to try. Make foods that are appealing and mix together so they can't separate them. This broccoli bites recipe is a good example.
Flatbread Pizza - Kid Friendly Recipe
Choose really easy recipes that they can prepare themselves .This five minute flatbread pizza is a great example.
Savory Vegetable Breakfast Muffins
Get them involved in the kitchen. Exploring textures, measuring and mixing ingredients is like a little experiment to them.
Slow Cooker Hidden Vegetable Pasta Sauce
When you want to give picky eaters a veggie boost, slow cook their vegetables in a pasta sauce and then blend it all up. They will never know it is in there.
Air Fryer Tater Tots + Tutorial {Vegan, Gluten Free}
Let them help in the kitchen. Kids have so much fun shaping these tater tots into balls. They are so proud of their handiwork that they can’t help but eat afterwards.
Kid Friendly Pasta Salad
This is a very fun veggie pasta salad. Get the kids to eat their veggies by letting them choose the ingredients that they like, and give them a kid's safe plastic knife to chop up the vegetables.
Copycat Chick-fil-A Nuggets with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce (with VIDEO)
Let kids help cooking: mixing up dry ingredients, battering food, pouring in liquids. When they know they helped cook the food they are eating, I find they are more excited to try their creation.
Turkey Zucchini Sweet Potato Bites
Add one new thing alongside already loved favorites! For example, add zucchini in muffins or meatballs.
Vegan Veggie Balls In The Air Fryer
Kids love this vegan veggie balls. They came about for a good use of vegetable leftovers and are a family favourite. Kids love mixing them in the bowl, and being involved in the meal prep and cooking process really helps in getting them to eat their vegetables.
Parmesan Breaded Air Fryer Chicken Tenders
Let them make some choices, like choosing some ingredients or flavoring to add.
Turn the meal into a special occasion, like a picnic on the kitchen floor.
Food Workbook for Selective Eaters
Don’t forget to check out this amazing resource to help selective eaters try new foods!
Tips for Picky Eating: Toddlers to School Age (RECIPES Included)
