Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Food Ideas/Suggestions

Matthew has become quite picky with his eating habits lately. He really would live on chicken nuggets if we let him. I am trying to see if anyone out there has any ideas for new foods to try. He really will not eat any type of meats other than chicken nuggets and will sometimes eat turkey meatballs. He will eat mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and sometimes pasta and while he used to like his vegetables, has become quite picky with those as well. He will sometimes also eat cheese quesadillas or grilled cheese. Thankfully he still loves fruit and yogurt so that is a good thing!! He used to love pancakes, waffles and the toddler rice cereal in the mornings and now mostly turns his nose up at those as well. Let me know if anyone has any suggestions for our picky little boy!

5 comments:

  1. We found that we were overwhelming Daniel at mealtime with too many choices because he did almost the exact same thing. I finally put a plate in front of him with 1 chicken nugget, a spoonful of mashed potatos, and about 4 green beans. He gave me the funniest look, but he ate it and then asked for more. I think because we were trying to be sure he had enough food we gave him too much to handle.

    As far as foods you can actually get down him, we discovered in the meat department that regular ham was a big hit and so was a corned beef brisket done in the crockpot. He still prefers those to a hamburger and chicken anyday. Those are really the only meats he "likes", although he'll eat a hamburger on occasion.

    Also - have you tried the Gerber Graduate cups? They have everything in the cup (meat & veges) and I would serve it to Daniel right in the cup - he was so fascinated - he chowed it all down.

    Sorry for the novel, but hope it helps!!

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  2. Simone still won't eat a lot of meats. She loves pork cooked with an apple glaze, but refuses to touch beef. Have you tried fish and shrimp? Both of my girls love seafood. Also, at the beginning of every week, I make a big pot of homemade mac-n-cheese, which they adore. You can add in broccoli or chicken to get veggie and protein in. Finally, once they started expressing an opinion, I found that giving them fun finger foods (especially things you can dip) made them much more excited about eating. Finally (again), they love eggs (especially with cheese) for breakfast. And they moved from baby cereal to real cereal pretty early. Finally (last time!), they like anything I make a happy face or a flower with. I use blueberries and other round-ish objects to make my masterpieces, and voila, they're gone.... Good luck! Lori

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  3. Tracy,

    Oleg LOVES any kind of seafood, particularly salmon and shrimp. He also loves hard boiled eggs, but isn't crazy about scrambled or prepared any other way. Oleg is the same way about pancakes/waffles. Used to eat them and will not touch them anymore. He eats a ton of salad, too, but just the lettuce, so I make sure we always use darker leafy greens.

    Meredith

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  4. While I'm not an expert at this since we haven't been home long, I have struggled with a picky / control eater from day one. I have had some great suggestions from others that seemed to help. Gross gross gross to me but he loves it... liverwurst / liver pate... I make ommlettes with cream cheese and liver pate and he eats them right up (me - not so much!) like another poster, he also LOVES boiled eggs, fish and hotdogs. One big suggestion that made sense (I noticed it there) is that often the foods are way over salted and that tastes normal to them... so... I salt everything more than I am comfortable with and I think it helps - oh yeah - and dill on everything :) Good luck! Post what works!

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  5. Well our two are quite different. John loves potatoes, noodles, pasta of any kind. Not so much on the sauce though. Some days John will eat 2 out of the 3 things on his plate and Kristina will eat 2 out of the 3 things but they won't be the same 2 things. Kristina for the most part will eat anything meat wise. Loves sausage. She salts everything - too much for my taste though. John eats hots dogs, some chicken (no nuggets), hamburger and occaisionaly sausage. Their tastes have changed since they got home too. Something they ate when they got home, they will not eat today. We are lucky because they are a little older and we can "Try" reasoning with them. "Try your food or no dessert". It actually has worked quite well. Sorry if that doesn't really help you.

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