My first picky eater piece of advice might be: when you’re feeling down and out about what your kid will eat, make a list of everything they like. Just like “sleeping through the night” is some bullsh*t number of hours that doesn’t constitute a full night’s sleep, so, too, your picky eater is not considered truly “Picky” if he eats at least 20 foods. So, I wondered if my notoriously selective child even counted under those guidelines. Nope, he’s fine.
Of course, I made a list! My son loves these foods from the grains and dairy food groups:
- toast and bread of most shapes and kinds
- peanut butter and jelly sandwich
- peanut butter waffle
- pancakes
- french toast
- crackers
- pretzels
- sweet potato fries (not sweet potatoes or regular fries)
- milk
- yogurt, plain or vanilla but not flavored
- cheese by itself in cubes (grocery store samples!), sticks (occasionally), shredded in handfuls
- cheese quesadilla
- cheese pizza
- bagel and cream cheese
- cereal of a few kinds: granola, hexagons, puffins, rice krispies, etc.
- hummus and pita
- bacon
- hot dogs
- juice of many kinds: orange, apple, occasionally smoothies
- raspberries
- cookies and sweets of many kinds, ice cream, whipped cream, cake, brownie, and the whole category I’m not worried about
Also, these fruits if they are absolutely perfect with no blemishes and he’s really in the mood:
- strawberries “in season”
- mango, perfectly ripe, not overly or underly so.
- banana with no brown speckles
- apple, maybe but probably “Nah”
If I add back in the foods that Sawyer has eaten with success but has since forgotten that he ever liked, I’m well over twenty foods and feeling hopeful for the future: cheeseburger at In-N-Out, broccoli, pasta with parm (pictured above), applesauce, dinosaur-shaped chicken, the spinach I sneak into his stuffed pizzas, and avocado.
I believe that my job is to de-escalate the drama he brings to the dinner table and I do that through a combination of casually offering him foods he likes mixed in with foods we’re already eating and just throwing a peanut butter waffle on the table without giving him a choice. It is a work in progress for sure!
What foods does your picky eater like to eat?
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