It’s time for another installment of Finn’s recent eats and the rodeo that is feeding a toddler. Buckle up because it’s a wild ride at two years and two months.
Spoiler alert: Finn’s new favorite thing to say is, “I don’t like it.” Never mind that he hasn’t tried it. And doesn’t matter if he used to happily eat it. It can even be a previous favorite food. He just looooooves to say, “No, don’t like it.”
Given all the things I’ve read online and heard in my chats with other moms, this is perfectly normal so I don’t push the issue. I feel like if I were to do so that it would only exacerbate the situation. As of now, I try my very hardest not to react and continue to offer a variety of foods (even if I know there’s no chance he’ll eat it). I also try to model eating all sorts of different foods myself and talking to him about them. Not saying that it’s easy but trusting that it’s a phase.
In the meantime, thank god my child loves scrambled eggs. You’ll be seeing a lot of those! It’s the protein that I can get him to eat most frequently. Also worth nothing is that you’ll mostly see breakfast and dinner here. Finn is not into lunch. He’s always so ready for his nap and not interested in eating. I just try to do substantial snacks or snack plates before and after his nap, and an early dinner.
BREAKFAST
Finn likes bagels with cream cheese a lot so this is a pretty typical breakfast for us. This is a Dave’s Killer Bread Boomin’ Berry bagel with butter and cream cheese. Cottage cheese scrambled eggs and fruit on the side.
Cottage cheese scrambled eggs, FAGE Total 5% plain with peanut butter and honey mixed in and toasted homemade sourdough with butter.
Banana muffin served warm with butter (Finn calls this “cake”) along with eggs, strawberries, raspberries and peaches.
Dave’s Killer Bread 21 Grain Thin-Sliced toasted with butter and cream cheese, eggs and kiwi. I joked on Instagram that Finn didn’t eat the kiwi but at least we talked about how it was green. For the record, he didn’t eat ANY of the fruit you see above.
Half of a cinnamon roll and scrambled eggs. He only ate the eggs. I was shocked that he left the cinnamon roll.
LUNCH/SNACK
Often looks something like this. A bar with cheese and fruit or cheese and crackers with fruit. This is a Perfect Bar Kids. (He didn’t touch the applesauce here.)
DINNER
If I had to pick Finn’s staple foods, they would be eggs and rice. This is buttered rice and steak but he only ate the rice.
Look at this beautiful burger plate! Tater tots, grass fed local ground beef burger, toasted and buttered bun, sliced peppers and pimento cheese. I thought surely he’d eat the burger as he loves dipping things in ketchup and generally likes ground meat but nope. He only ate the tots. He ate what you see here + half of my plate!
Shrimp, black beans, corn and rice. Guess what he ate? Yep, just rice.
Annie’s Organic macaroni and cheese, breaded cod from Trader Joe’s, watermelon and strawberries. He ate the cod and the mac and cheese on this night. I was thrilled.
Leftover burger with mac and cheese and applesauce. Barely touched any of this.
Grilled cheese, scrambled eggs and gnocchi with Italian sausage and some other things. I tried serving only the gnocchi (he used to love it) and he had a massive meltdown. He was so tired, hungry and asking for eggs and toast. I very much try not to go back and make a different meal when he doesn’t like what I’m serving but I couldn’t help it on this night.
One dinner Finn can get on board with is pizza. This was the night that my dad made homemade pizza and he gobbled it up. He really likes to use his fork so we ended up cutting the pizza into bite-sized pieces for him to eat with a fork rather than strips to pick up.
Story. While we were in Florida, my dad designed our menu for the week around foods that he thought would be Finn-friendly. Things like spaghetti and meatballs (Finn used to love meatballs), a shrimp dish (he was a shrimp fanatic for a long time), pizza, etc and this was the only dinner that Finn would eat. Every night he would look at what my dad made and emphatically state that he didn’t like it without even picking up his fork. It made me a little sad but luckily my dad remembers the toddler days and didn’t take it personally.
DESSERT
My boy has a sweet tooth like his mama. He loves to ask for cookies, marshmallows, chocolate and ice cream. Of course, he only gets these things on occasion but what better time to eat a chocolate fudge bar than at the beach! I got these greek yogurt chocolate bars and they were really good and I liked that there weren’t a lot of crazy ingredients in them.
Last thing, Finn has decided that it is NOT acceptable to sit in the high chair with the tray any longer. He’ll sit in his chair pulled up to the table but no tray. This is an improvement from the streak he went on where he’d only eat if he could “sit mommy.” (Sit in my lap.)
Fun times, my friends! 🙂
Here are Finn’s previous recent eats posts:
Our Journey Into Solids
Finn’s Recent Eats: 9 Months
Finn’s Recent Eats: One Year
Finn’s Recent Eats: 15 Months
Finn’s Recent Eats: 20 Months
Finn’s Recent Eats: 21 Months
Finn’s Recent Eats: 23 Months
QUESTIONS
How do you handle the whole “I don’t like it” toddler response, especially when they don’t even try the food?
What foods are a big hit with your toddler this summer? Give me some ideas!
Favorite easy lunches or snack plates?
“That’s fine, you don’t have to eat it.”
Repeat 10x as necessary, and really mean it – shrug your shoulders, don’t praise if he eats and don’t comment if he doesn’t. Sometimes my 3 year old will declare he hates mac & cheese when it’s served and then five minutes later happily shovel some into his mouth and say, “Mac & cheese is my favorite!”
You can listen to what they’re saying without actually believing them. Sometimes they just want to be heard, or they want to try out a new idea and gauge your reaction. Be empathetic but don’t believe them for a second 🙂
I second this!! You cannot be invested AT ALL in what they eat. Haha
I also look at the whole day/week of eats vs. one meal. Definitely if my son eats a bigger lunch he doesn’t want dinner. And vice versa. I try to remember to trust his hunger.
I definitely get frustrated though, too!
Agreed, lol! My 2.5-year-old is an unpredictable eater. I try to offer a lot of different options and respect his choices. Sometimes this means his dinner looks like milk and the chocolate bunny cookies because that’s all that he decided to eat. I always try to get him to eat at the table with me, but I don’t currently make it a rule. Things that he will currently eat include baby carrots, thinly sliced apple, couscous, rice, buttered pasta, pepperoni sticks, mini cheese croissants, peanut butter on rice cakes, and cashews. He will eat berries if they go straight from the bush into his mouth.
I really appreciate your honesty with this post. My son is five and I’ve always struggled to get him to eat. For years, he lived on cereal bars and plain Cheerios. He’s always loved milk so I gave him as much as he wanted just to fill his belly. But I see these beautiful plates moms make for their kids and think “Greyson would never eat that!!”
Around three and a half he understood enough that I could bargain with him. You want milk, I need 2 bites of grilled cheese. He will eat fruit snacks by the pound so that was another thing to bargain with. No fruit snacks till you take 2 bites of Mac and cheese. I always bargain with things I know he will eat and a lot of times those 2 bites stimulate his appetite enough that he will eat more.
I’ve pretty much given up on “meals” for him and just accept that he’s a snacker (prefers lots of small meals to 3 big ones) and he eats when he’s hungry. He’s “perfectly average” in the 51% for weight!!
I have three boys, one the exact same age as Finn and one of my tricks is smoothies! Have you tried that for getting in fruits and veggies? Thanks for sharing! We all feel the pain!
It sounds like you are doing great! I have a just-shy-of-one-year-old Finn and am approaching feeding in a similar way. Trying to offer something I know he will eat at every meal (usually fruit) and continuing to offer new things or things he isn’t the biggest fan of. It’s so hard to be neutral around what/how much he chooses to eat, but that is my goal. The Ellyn Satter approach really resonates with me.
The Daniel Tiger episode about trying new foods helped my 3 year old. Finn may be a little young for it now. I agree with Jess, shrugging shoulders and not making a big deal about it has lead to him scarfing it down a few minutes later, at times.
I also appreciate the honesty of this post. I have a picky 2yo, too, and I sometimes feel like I’m the only one struggling with meal times. Our son won’t even eat things that most kids love like fruit and cheese! We have had some success recently. Like he ate the picadillo I made last week (cuban ground beef-based dish with olives and slices/tomato paste) and he loves the lentil enchiladas I make. I gave him rice and beans w/ the lentils made with white rice which he gobbled up. Then I made an Indian dish last night w/ basmati rice and just gave him the rice w/ black beans and leftover enchiladas as I know the Indian dish wouldn’t go over well. He tried the rice and beans and spit it out – I presume because it was basmati and not regular white rice. So nuts.
For a long time we were making something for our son and something for us but I’m trying to get away from that. He gets 3 things at every meal and one of the things is something I know he’ll eat (apple sauce, cottage cheese or yogurt). I figure between that and his milk, he is getting enough calories? And I’m really trying to not comment on what he isn’t eating. But it’s hard!
I always appreciate that you do these posts. My daughter is about 3 months younger than Finn and I like getting some ideas (and not feeling alone that many things she just isn’t interested in touching). It’s a process, but one day our kids will be more adventurous eaters!
On a separate note – have you ever frozen your pizza spaghetti squash bake? My toddler really likes it and I was thinking of making one ahead to pull out for nights when I need a super easy dinner already prepped.
Oh-my-lanta! Feeding toddlers and even younger kids is a struggle and I envy those with ‘great eaters’! (Though I will admit my second child was much easier than my first.) Now that my children are 9 and 4 we still have a lot of nights with them not liking what is on their plate = don’t like it, don’t eat but there are no snacks before bed. I went back and forth so many times on how to approach feeding my first when he wouldn’t eat. Whether I did it right or (probably) wrong we’re still here!
Oh my goodness! I so appreciate these posts. My son is only 5 months old and I am already sweating thinking about the whole food topic. You mentioned not making something else if Finn doesn’t like what you are serving. That is how I was raised and I plan on doing the same for mine. However, do you ever worry that he’s hungry? I guess if they are hungry enough, they will eat it?!
Yes! This post makes me feel normal too! My 2.5 year old…I swear sometimes she lives on air! What is great one day, she doesn’t like the next. She does always love milk though. I have stopped giving her milk in between meals. That has helped a bit. We also started a 3 meals and 2 snacks scheduled roughly every 2-3 hours. My kid skips dinner a lot! Agree with Ellyn satter approach also. Just let it go(it’s hard) and try and trust them.
My daughter had a similar palate at Finn’s age. There were so many days when all she would eat was bagels and cream cheese or mac and cheese. But now at almost 2.5 she’s getting much more interested in trying new foods. She still requests a bagel with cream cheese whenever we ask her what she wants to eat, but she frequently grabs foods – increasingly, even veggies – off our plates and decides she likes them. Just this morning she saw my husband eating carrots and demanded carrots and then ate an entire container of them. One thing I’ve learned in my relatively short time as a parent is that almost everything is a phase and will be over before you know it. And yes, I definitely agree that you should think about toddler eating by week, not by day. My pediatrician told me if they eat all the food groups in a week, it’s a win.
I relate to this post SO MUCH. We’re also deep in the weeds with toddler neophobia, and I just have to remind myself that it’s normal and it will pass like all the other phases. I trust that if I offer him a range of foods (including a few “safe” foods like bread and, for our son, berries) his body knows what it needs. When he’s ready to try new things, he will. I remember there were foods I didn’t eat until well into my teens/twenties (kiwi! asparagus!) but they were a part of my family’s meals and when I was finally ready to try them, they weren’t weird or scary because I’d seen them so many times.
If you like podcasts, the Comfort Food podcast is an excellent resource for this part of the feeding journey. It’s saved my sanity multiple times. 🙂
Thanks for sharing! I love reading these posts. Finn is such a doll!
-Kate
https://daysofkate.com/
My children are older now (7 and 9) and thankfully neither of them were picky eaters. I don’t make them something else if they don’t like what I made, but if I cook something I know that they actually do not like, I will let them sub it out for a comparable item. Neither of them like sausage, so they can choose another protein, but it has to be something that I don’t have to cook.
Fellow toddler mom here and the division of responsibility has saved me. Parents decide what and when to eat, children decide if and how much to eat. Easier said than done so I make sure there’s one thing in every plate that is *usually* a hit but you have to be comfortable with some skipped meals! Definitely second the Comfort Food podcast recommendation above, it’s a great one. Thanks for the relatable post! https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/how-to-feed/the-division-of-responsibility-in-feeding/
I have a picky 2yo who is gradually emerging from pickiness and will definitely always eat anything if it’s from a restaurant (including salad) and probably most things on my plate. I’ve found that if we have the same dinner together, they’re more likely to eat it.
We also make smoothies and juice (we have a juicer) together and they LOVE it (they help with the chopping using one of those handheld wavy chopper tools) and it’s a great way to eat vegetables. Sure there’s half a small green apple in the juice, but otherwise it’s all vegetables and I think it’s helping get them used to the taste.
They also love those veggie pouches for a treat. And Cheerios. We went to a U Pick spot a few times and whatever we picked was immediately consumed. I was in despair (melodramatically) a few months ago with their eating, but in quarantine I’ve been involving them more and it is slowly seeming to work. Every kid is different, often within each day!
ARGH toddler *sigh*. My 2 year old won’t eat chicken or meat on its own, it has to be a PART of something like a casserole or mixed in with rice or pasta. I constantly feel like I have to keep coming up with new things to make and not rely on “boring” meals (here’s chicken and broccoli!)
Ellyn Satter all the way. You decide when, where and what he eats, he decides what and how much. Your most powerful tool is variety and “You dont have to eat it.”
I follow Veggies and Virtue’s way of eating…
Something he loves
Something he likes
Something he is learning…
It helps so much!
Like a lot of previous commenters I don’t do food battles. Kids are younger, more well rested, more determined – i simply cannot win. “You don’t have to eat it” is my response to “I don’t like it”. I don’t bargain/plead/count bites, etc. I offer and model earn f healthy foods, get them involved in cooking (and shopping pre covid) but that’s it. What they put in their mouth is their decision. To me it’s another part of “your body your choice” which we have preached since birth.
With my older kids I encourage them to try the food before they decide they don’t like it but my daughter is Finn’s age and hard pass on trying to use logic with a 2yo. If they don’t like dinner they can get themselves something else (obviously a 2yo can’t do that but she’s not a huge evening eater anyway). Have you ever tried giving Finn just a tiny amount at a time? My kids do better with that. Like literally one ravioli, one broccoli, half a meatball on the plate. Then more as requested. Less food waste/less overwhelming/more work if they are hungry but hey, can’t win em all.
Finn is right on track developmentally – toddlers are picky, and kind of jerks sometimes, lol. It sounds like you’re doing just great with offering him a variety of foods and not making a big deal out of what he does or doesn’t eat. For what it’s worth, Emily Oster’s book Cribsheet has a great chapter on toddler eating that normalizes pickiness and low hunger using data. And the Intuitive Eating book has a good chapter on feeding kids. Both essentially recommend what you’re doing.
So my little one is 1.5 weeks younger than Finn and I feel ya on the eating. My husband is SO invested in our daughters meals. Is ecstatic when she eats well and gets so frustrated when she doesn’t. He knows that she is a toddler and changes her mind on what are her favorites and that it’s best to look at the whole week rather than per meal, but it still gets to him. I trust that she’ll be fine or that she’ll eat when he’s already finished with his food (she can be slow, which has caused me to eat very slow bc if I finish early she’ll want to sit in my lap). Our daughter loves certain fruits but she will not eat a vegetable unless it’s a French fry… we’ve had to be sneaky to get veggies in, which I don’t love, but at least she’s eating. We make apple, banana, carrot muffins with spinach (you could probably add blended spinach with any baked good), banana, strawberry, spinach and milk popsicles, mixing puréed butternut squash or purée pumpkin to lac and cheese or spaghetti (we also use Banza pasta so she gets extra protein). She just started loving eggs so I’m super excited to try and get creative there! She also loves black beans and will eat them hot or cold! Not sure if you’ve tried that either! Anyways, good luck! I’m always looking for healthy toddler meal ideas too!!
Count me another who appreciates the honesty of these posts! Seems like I’m always seeing moms who claim their kids eat everything…
I would say my daughter (very close to Finn’s age) is an ok eater. What’s helped us is to put her in a booster seat at the table, and we stopped plating her food. We serve family style and let her choose what she wants for the most part. For new things I might put one piece on her plate. And we always have one thing that she’ll definitely eat (milk, fruit, pasta/bread).
Also we try not to stress out about it. Easier said than done…
Try getting a booster seat for a regular chair. It’s totally normal for them to want to be at the table with everyone else at this age. A booster seat gives them their special seat at the table. My youngest is the exact same age as Finn and we are going through this fun phase too (cue eye roll lol). Lunch is always the hardest as she doesn’t want to eat, she wants “bed”, “sleep”, “tired mama”. Snack plates are a smart idea I’ll have to give a try!