It is so stressful when your baby is picky and won’t eat! If you have a picky baby eater, these two tips are a must-try to get baby eating all foods!
Is your baby a picky eater? Are there foods she doesn’t like? Is there a food she used to like but suddenly doesn’t? Do not just let your baby decide she hates it and move on. Do not give up on the food. If you want to avoid a picky preteen, you need to overcome the picky baby. I have a couple of tried and true ideas for you to try out.
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MIX FOODS WITH CEREAL
When McKenna first tried peaches, she hated them. This was nothing new for me. Brayden hated them. Kaitlyn hated them. With both Brayden and Kaitlyn, I basically just didn’t feed peaches to them very often. Not so with McKenna!
I think my motivation was that I had lots of free peaches from my husband’s grandparents. I didn’t want to let them go to waste! So I put the effort into getting her to like it.
I started by mixing the peaches with some oatmeal. I did only one tablespoon of peaches mixed with 2-3 T of cereal. At first, she wasn’t so sure about it. Over time, she came to like the mixture.
After 3-4 weeks of doing this, I tried giving her peaches plain. She liked them! She just needed time to get used to the taste. I still mix her peaches with her oatmeal each morning, but I do 2-4 T mixed with 3-4 T of oatmeal. I also do this for my own convenience rather than needing to get her to like peaches.
Read: Feeding The Littles: Tips for Nurturing Good Eaters
FEED THE DISLIKED FOOD EVERY DAY
Huh? My kid hates it and you want me to feed it to her every day? Yes. Yes I do.
When McKenna first tried squash, she loved it. This surprised me since I, myself, do not find squash all that appealing. After about a month of loving it, she suddenly decided she hated it. She would clamp her mouth shut after a few bites.
Again, I had free squash to use. I didn’t want the bags of baby ice cube squash to go to waste. I knew I would be hesitant to feed it to her if she didn’t like it because I didn’t want her to go hungry. I feed orange veggies at dinner and didn’t want her to be hungry in the night because she didn’t eat her squash.
I normally rotate each night. One night is squash. The next is sweet potatoes. The next carrots. But I decided I needed to mix it up. I decided to feed her 2 T each night. I would then follow up with either sweet potatoes or carrots (alternating).
For the first few nights, she gagged and made the disgusted face. She would barely eat 2 T. By the end of the first week, she would eat the 2 T without complaint. I then increased the amount to 4 T. She is currently eating 4 T each night without complaint. I think she is ready to go back onto her normal rotation.
CONCLUSION
These are the two things that have worked really well with McKenna. As I review this post ten years later, I recognize that McKenna has never been a picky eater since her early baby days. The efftorts we put in during those baby months paid off!
