From six to ten months, Scribble would eat anything I put on his high chair tray.  A few weeks before his first birthday, he suddenly became quite picky!  It has been a real challenge to find strategies to keep Scribble interested in his food– he is just so smart these days, and frequently sees through our attempts! We have coped with this change in a number of ways; here are some of our more successful tactics:

Offer foods one at a time, in reverse order of his preferences. We offer Scribble his sippy first, then his vegetables, then his meats, then beans or legumes, then cheese and starches.  If he sees that I am preparing a different food– no matter what it is!— he will lose interest in the food that is on his plate, so it is important for me to conceal my food prep from him.

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Offer one bite at a time. I have found that Scribble gets overstimulated by the look of too many pieces of food on his high chair tray at the same time.  If he is tired or if the meal I am serving is not his favorite, I only put one or two pieces of food on his highchair at one time.  It makes mealtime more time-intensive, but it does reduce food waste and it makes the experience more interactive and fun for Scribble.

Feed him when he is alert and well-rested.  This one is hard for me to do! We do lunch before afternoon nap and dinner before bedtime.

Feed him while I’m cooking.  I find sometimes that Scribble has more interest in eating while I am cooking than he does when we are all together. I try to take advantage of this enthusiasm by giving Scribble bites of food while I cook.  Sometimes I’ll even scoot his highchair into the cooking area of our kitchen so that he can watch and eat.  This means that Scribble can linger over his food longer, which makes mealtimes more relaxed and less harried. It also helps me to feed him in the tiered manner– as soon as I get done with one dish, then I can offer that to him.  Just enough to keep him interested.  He is usually happy to try more food once we sit down to eat together as a family.

Scribble helping me to cook

Eat what he is eating.  Scribble is more interested in eating what is on my plate than is what on his plate; this goes double if I’m eating something different from him, and triple if I’m eating something different from him that he knows is tastier than what he has. I try to respect Scribble by eating what he eats.  If I am having a treat, he’ll have it too.  This means that we don’t have as many treats in our house, because we’re all eating the same thing and have to be responsible about what we eat collectively!

Respect his appetite.  I would never let my child go hungry, but I also have to respect that his appetite may not be as robust as I would like it to be at every meal.  Scribble can always have a snack later if he gets hungry.

Don’t change what I cook.  My experience has been that Scribble will love a food one day, then reject it the next.  Aside from bell peppers, he hasn’t maintained any significant aversions to any one food.  And since he isn’t old enough to be influenced by advertising, Scribble’s idea of tasty food is not necessarily the same as mine: for example, he loves beans and is neutral to french fries and chicken fingers.  So there’s no way to really anticipate what he will eat and what he won’t on any given day.  Armed with this knowledge, I try not to change how I cook or what dishes I serve.  For me it is partially financial- my budget won’t allow me to make two dinners every night!  So I try to serve a variety of foods, cooked in a variety of different ways, every week so that Scribble has the chance to try the same foods prepared in different ways.  Of course Scribble has his favorites, but I don’t go out of my way to make those things all the time.

Spaghetti is Scribble’s all-time favorite treat

Mix things up!  Scribble usually eats food on his high chair tray, but sometimes that bores him.  If he won’t eat his greens, I blend them into a smoothie.  Sometimes we do snacktime outside in the swing or in the living room.  We share one plate if he is in the mood to try what mommy is eating, or I give him his own when he is in the mood to be independent.

Mixing it up on a recent camping trip

Experiment with flavor.  This one I struggle with.  I love introducing my child to new flavors, but I also want him to enjoy veggies and fruits unadorned.  I try to mix it up so that he has exposure to both.  We do use a lot of butter, which I think I can get away with since Scribble is a skinny mini and can use the fat in his diet.

Give him some space.  Sometimes if I leave Scribble with his food and put my attention on something else, like cleanup, he will gobble it down with no problems.  I think sometimes the refusal of food is a performance and if you don’t give it power or attention, it goes away on its own.

We are knee-deep in the toddler food battle, and always looking for more tips.  What do you do to make mealtimes less stressful?