Advice from a Picky Eater

Can you stand one more post about food?

I've decided to take Carrot Cake Pancakes out of heavy rotation- after eating them twice, Pumpkin has decided that she doesn't like them and no amount of bribing her with bits of butter (yes, you read the right) will convince her to eat them now. Hubby and I like them, so we'll probably still have them occasionally, but not once every week or two like we have been doing. I'll give it a rest for awhile, and try again later.

However, tonight, I had a bit of a win- Pumpkin ate pasta from the same dish that Hubby and I ate, and I didn't have to wash the pasta off first (yes, you read that right, too). I have a simple pasta dish that I've been making in different variations for years. It has:

• 1/3 package of my favorite shape of pasta (currently "Paris wheels", a.k.a. Ferris wheels, a.k.a wagon wheels- Pumpkin's name for them is derived from a Dora episode with a Ferris wheel)
• ~1/2 cup cheese (usually feta, but in the new, more child friendly incarnation, the Italian mix of preshredded cheese- after much experimentation, I think my favorite brand of this is Sargento)
• ~1/2 cup of diced tomatoes (I use grape tomatoes, because they require less chopping)
• ~1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
• Fresh basil, if available
• ~1/2 tbs of olive oil
• garlic salt and pepper to taste

You cook up the pasta and then dump all the other ingredients onto it in a bowl and mix it up.

Last time I made it, I reserved some pine nuts and convinced (OK, bribed) Pumpkin to try them. She liked them. I suspected she would- she likes a lot of different nuts. So this time, I made the pasta with the same cheese she usually sprinkles over her plain pasta (the preshredded stuff), and convinced her to try some of our pasta. I didn't give her any of the tomatoes, and I had to pick off any trace of basil... but she ate it. And asked for more. I'm very excited to have discovered another recipe that I can make that we will all eat with minimal modifications. (Next time, I'll leave the basil on the side, and Hubby and I can add that at the table.)

All of this has got me thinking about picky eating, and how toddlers/preschoolers eat, and how to maximize your chances of having low stress about food without just giving up and feeding your kid nothing but junk.

I've written before about my thoughts on my own picky eating. Based on my own experience, I think picky eating comes from several different things:

Taste- some foods just don't taste good to some people. I've mentioned super-tasters before, and described how green vegetables taste bitter to me. I don't think this is the only way in which people's taste preferences differ, though. Taste is controlled by proteins (the receptors on our taste buds), and proteins are produced by genes, which will usually vary within a population.

I don't think there is much you can do about foods your child doesn't like the taste of, except wait it out. There are foods that I used to hate the taste of that I can now stand to eat, even if I wouldn't consider them favorites. I put this down to the fact that your taste buds deteriorate with age. (I don't care what that article says- I think the deterioration starts earlier. How else to explain that I now like blue cheese?)

You can try masking the taste of vegetables. I find that orange juice or bacon mask the bitterness I taste in green beans. Cheese makes just about any vegetable palatable, and a good stir fry sauce can really help, too. I know that a lot of kids will eat just about anything dipped in ketchup or ranch dressing. However, we haven't really had any luck with this approach.

Texture -I don't like beans, not because of the taste, but because of the texture. It literally makes me gag. I can't explain why, but I know a lot of people who have issues with the texture of some food or another.

I don't think there is anything you can do about a texture aversion.

Neophobia- This is the fear of eating something new, which, as I alluded to in my earlier picky eater post, is not necessarily a bad thing. I will admit that I take this to a bit of an extreme, although I've gotten better at trying new things as I get older.

I think most kids have a bit of neophobia in them, too, and some kids (like, say, my Pumpkin) have A LOT of it.

The standard advice on dealing with this is to just keep offering the food. That has occasionally worked for us, but we have had better luck with a more complex approach. I try to grow Pumpkin's tastes slowly, moving from things she likes to similar foods. She liked tortellini, so I slowly introduced ravioli. She liked crackers, so we introduced dried fruit that crunch like crackers. She liked the dried strawberries, and we were (miraculously) able to use that to convince her to try actual strawberries, which she liked. (This same approach has not worked on apples- she eats dried apples and applesauce, but not actual apples, no matter how they are presented.)

I also use a bit of bribery to get Pumpkin to try new things, but I use this carefully. I think this approach can really backfire and lead to a contest of wills. So I tend to only bribe her to try things I think she will almost certainly like and that aren't too "scary"- for instance, I told her she could have a juice box with dinner if she tried one of the "grown up" pastas tonight. She liked it, and ate about 8 more with no further bribery.

Presentation issues- when I mention that Pumpkin is a fairly pick eater, a lot of people tell me that I should mix vegetables  into things she likes, like mac and cheese. This may work for some kids, but it absolutely would not have worked on me as a kid. In fact, there could be two foods that I liked, but wouldn't eat if they were mixed together. I have gotten a lot better about this as I've gotten older, but I still tend to prefer things "plain"- no sauce on my hamburger, please.

For this reason, I tend to tread carefully when trying to get Pumpkin to eat things like pasta dishes. I make sure that she likes all of the ingredients first, and even then, I'm not surprised if she is hesitant to try it.

Plain old stubbornness- this is probably the most frustrating reason for picky eating, and I think this is the one that leads parents to do things like insist that a child stay at the table until she tries everything on her plate. I think that this strict approach will work for some kids but be disastrous for others. If your kid is pretty stubborn, I would NOT get into a contest of wills over food. It is just not worth it, because you really can't make a kid eat. And, as someone who has gone hungry on occasion rather than eat something I didn't want to eat, I can tell you that unless you're willing to be quite draconian, the old saw about how a child won't starve herself just isn't true.

Another common approach to deal with stubbornness is to try to reason with the child. I think this can backfire, too. I think I have mentioned before about how I stopped eating pizza because my parents told me that the red sauce on pasta was the same as pizza sauce.

I think Ellyn Satter  has the absolutely right approach to dealing with stubbornness- just ignore it. Don't make a big deal out of it, and maybe your kid will relent later, when he can do so without losing face.

I've used bribery a little bit to deal with stubbornness, too, but as I mentioned above, only very carefully. I don't usually bribe with desert or candy (at least not when it comes to getting Pumpkin to try other food- I happily bribe with candy for using the potty, but that is another story altogether). I also think that peer pressure works well on stubbornness- Pumpkin will eat somethings at day care that she won't eat at home, and I suspect that is because she loses more face for not eating things at day care. I figure that eventually, she'll let us serve her those foods at home, too.

I know that my picky eating seems completely irrational to people with more adventurous tastes. I just refer back to the evolutionary advantage of being a cautious eater- you're less likely to inadvertently poison yourself! I don't get the moral judgment that seems to get attached to picky eating. Sure, it is inconvenient for me and my family, but as long as I get the nutrients I need, why is it a big deal if I've never eaten an artichoke? And as long as we're providing Pumpkin with reasonably healthy food options, and modeling good eating behavior, why is it anyone else's concern that she has yet to find a green vegetable that she likes?

Pages!

Petunia is playing happily on her own- we got some "new" toys out of storage yesterday, and she is really enjoying the stacking rings and big, soft blocks. Pumpkin is still asleep, and Hubby just went back to bed. So I thought I'd take a moment before I make my breakfast to point out the new pages I've put up. Blogger has introduced the capability to create static pages, and of course I had to play with that.

I moved my housekeeping info (including my email address) to a page. I also created a book list. Right now, it only has my favorite parenting books and some kids books that we've found useful, but eventually I want to add some other categories.

Finally, I moved my notes on baby development from Google Docs to a page. I have a hard time remembering what milestones are coming up and when the known fussy times occur. So I finally started writing things down as I read about baby development. The notes are incomplete, but I've put them up in case they are helpful for anyone else.

Petunia's sleep continues to be mediocre- nowhere near as bad as Pumpkin's at this age, but nowhere near as good as I want it to be. So I'm tired and grumpy, and tend to use all my spare moments to sleep. That is why posting has been so sparse lately. Yes, I'm blaming it on the baby.

Maybe My Next Post Should Be About How Much I Want to Win a Million Dollars

Petunia hasn't even touched her third bottle for the past couple of days. (I usually send four bottles, of which she usually drinks three.)

She has been eating solid foods for about a month, and she has recently really ramped up her intake. So maybe she will drop down to drinking less milk consistently, and I won't have anything to worry about.

Or maybe the last couple of days were just a fluke, and next week she'll be back to sucking down three or four bottles a day.

So thanks for all the great tips in the comments to the last post, but maybe I won't be needing them, after all.

Time in a Bottle

Someday, in the not too distant future, I won't spend any time getting anyone else to sleep. And I suspect that this will make me sad.

In the meantime, my evenings are punctuated by seemingly non-negotiable sleep needs and chores (oh, the never-ending chores), leaving little time for anything else. I am stealing a few minutes between Petunia's bedtime and Pumpkin's bathtime to write this post.

Given the paucity of free time in my life, I am loathe to add another non-negotiable task to my evenings. So I am trying very hard to avoid adding an evening pumping session back into my schedule.

However, I am not keeping up with what Petunia is drinking at day care, and I am watching my frozen supplies dwindle. We haven't reached a critical point yet, but it is looming on the horizon.

I have nothing against formula, but I stubbornly don't want to use it. I am blessed with an abundant milk supply- really, you almost need an over-supply to keep up with a baby by pumping- and since I went to great lengths to provide Pumpkin with nothing but breastmilk, I feel like I should do the same for Petunia. For fairness, you know. (Yes, I know this is silly.)

Regardless, I view the little bottles of milk as liquid time, because they are not irreplaceable- I can make more (see above about the abundant supply), but to do so requires time, and of that I do not have an abundant supply.

All of this is to explain why it drives me absolutely bonkers that I can't figure out how to explain how I want the day care teachers to handle the last two bottles I send for Petunia, to maximize the amount of milk that I can reuse the next day. (I send extra because she refuses to settle into a schedule, so some days she needs it. Anything that has not yet touched her lips can be reused the next day. Anything that she has had a crack at has to be tossed if it is not used that day. Believe me, it hurts to pour milk down the drain. I usually make Hubby do it.)

I remember having a similar problem when Pumpkin was a baby, and I don't remember ever solving it. I don't think it can be solved, because the milk in the bottle represents time to the day care teachers, too- a more complicated routine would add to the time it takes to give Petunia her bottle, and with four babies to each adult, they don't really have an abundant supply of time, either. So I watch my frozen supplies dwindle and wonder if Petunia's solid food intake will increase enough to reduce her milk intake before my frozen stocks shrink to that critical point at which I decide that yes, I really do have to add the evening pumping session back to my schedule.

And will Petunia be sleeping well enough by that point to make those extra 20 minutes in my evening routine acceptable?

Back Home

Last week, we were on vacation at my parents' house in Arizona. It was a good trip- we got to see a lot of family and some friends, Pumpkin had a blast with her Mimi and Boppa, and Petunia got to see what its like to have enough grown ups around to ensure that she is constantly entertained (at home, she has to amuse herself a lot, while we deal with her far more vocal older sister). Hubby and I got a night away in a local hotel for our 5 year anniversary, too.

We drove over in our new Mazda 5, which was great. It easily held all of the gear we have to travel with these days. It was nice to be able to go out visiting relatives and what-not in one car. The "way back" seat in the Mazda 5 is not luxurious, but it was certainly comfortable enough for short trips around town.

Both girls did fairly well on the drives, too. The drive between San Diego and my parents' house (in the Phoenix area) is about 6 hours if you don't stop. On the way over, we left after dinner and stopped in Yuma for the night- Yuma is roughly half way between San Diego and Phoenix. Petunia slept the entire way, and Pumpkin fell asleep after an hour or so. They both did OK in the hotel, but Petunia started our day bright and early by waking up and refusing to go back down at 4:30 a.m. We were on the road by about 8 a.m., but had to take a couple of longish potty breaks, so didn't get to my parents' house until lunch time.

On the way back, we left after lunch, having convinced Pumpkin that the Birdie would find her if she took quiet time in the car. She slept most of the way to Yuma, and played with her magnetic doodle thingy the rest of the way. Petunia slept. We stopped for about an hour in Yuma at a really great park. Pumpkin had fun on the playground, and Petunia had a chance to sit in the shade and move around a bit. Then we drove to El Centro, which is about an hour from Yuma), for dinner. After dinner, we changed the girls into their PJs and headed home. Petunia fussed a bit but then slept the rest of the way. Pumpkin played with her magnetic doodle thingy a bit more, and then slept the rest of the way. Both transferred to their beds fairly easily.

All in all, we're feeling like we worked out the timing pretty well. Of course, we'll try to do it again sometime and it will go miserably wrong... we know this was more luck than anything else. Only luck can explain how both girls managed to sleep through the blindingly bright lights and stop and go traffic associated with the Border Patrol checkpoint we had to go through last night. (These checkpoints are an annoying side effect of our current approach to immigration and border enforcement- all traffic stops under bright stoplights and a Border Patrol officer looks into your car. We are always waved through almost immediately. I imagine that they are even more annoying if you have to stop for a chat with the agent. We went through one on the way over during daylight. I still do not have a good answer for Pumpkin's question about why we had to stop and talk to the nice man.)

I've got some trip stories to post, and more posts kicking around in my head, too- for instance, I have some more thoughts on feeding a picky eater that I want to write up. But Hubby has convinced me to take advantage of the fact that we've already disrupted Petunia's sleep environment to start the process of moving her out of our room. She's asleep in her crib, in her own room, right now. Since she's currently waking up 2-3 times a night, I should probably get to bed. I'll have to actually get out of bed and go down the hall to her when she wakes up tonight! (The cosleeper is still set up, and I suspect she'll finish the night in it- I don't want to undo all the good rest I got on vacation in one night.)

I know it is time to move Petunia to her own room. She is almost 7 months old now, and I actually suspect she'll sleep better in her own room- we seem to wake her up when we go to bed. But I can't believe my little baby is so big. Transitions are hard on me, too!