You’re not alone: Getting your children to eat should clearly be considered an Olympic sport.
“You don’t know how hard it is to deal with a child who just won’t eat,” my friend Sean has said to me repeatedly. We have kids the same age, toddlers who are different in gender and spirit and are each a product of parents who have their own relationships to food.
“Waiting too long to introduce textured foods can be an issue,” explained board-certified pediatrician Molly O’Shea. “The window of opportunity is between 6 and 12 months.” Case in point: my own daughters. Although I excitedly started giving them solids at 4 months, respectively, they reacted completely differently to their change in diet. Giordana, my first, was basically eating like an adult by the time she was 9 months old, whereas Alessia, who is just about that age now, seems to still prefer purees to baked potatoes, grilled salmon and burgers.
“Babies handle texture really well when given real food to gnaw away at,” O’Shea said. “Hands are great and important for learning to eat. Continuing purees beyond 6 to 12 months of age without introducing table foods can make it harder for children to accept a variety of textures.” “Parents often get worried when they see their child not eating much and will either offer alternatives when the prepared meal isn’t eaten or start offering food that is guaranteed to be a hit. This is how a picky eater is born.”“As the parent, your job is to decide what food you are going to offer your child,” Kirschner said. “Your child’s job is to decide what they are going to eat among the offerings that the parent provides and whether or not they are going to eat at all.
“It really depends on how much and why they are drinking it,” Kirschner said. “For example, if a child is an extremely selective/picky eater and milk is their main source of nutrient and energy intake and they are refusing to eat much more, this could be a problem that needs to be addressed. The child could be receiving enough calories but they may be missing key nutrients necessary for growth and function.