Yes, I’ve mentioned my children are voracious eaters.  The food budget to keep them satisfied could bankrupt a small village.  While I’m lucky in the sense that they’ll eat us out of house and home, its because I’m willing to only give them the seven things they’ll eat: chicken nuggets, peanut butter sandwiches, carrots, smoothies with yogurt/spinach/bananas/blueberries, grapes, apples, cheerios and Nutella/multi-grain sandwiches.  I don’t try to venture much out of this.  Occasionally they’ll call for some pasta or chicken sausage for dinner or pancakes or waffles for breakfast, but as long as I stock up on those basics, we’re set.  It was a hard road to get to these core items.

If you haven’t found your core seven, you may want to continually rip your hair out.  I get it.  I never want to go back to that “discovery” time.  I feel confident in time they’ll branch out, but I’m done buying multiple foods so they’ll spit it out and I’ll eat it with thunder bolts in my eyes.  While you work on getting to this place in your life, take some advice from me:

Here’s advice to never follow if you have a picky eater:

5 – Five bites; “No, thank you” – Raise your hand if you have a kid that will actually swallow something they don’t like the taste of!  If my kids don’t dramatically spit it out on the floor, then use both hands to aggressively wipe their tongue of the offending food, then they will likely run to the toilet or bath room and faux gag until the point is made that another taste of that food will never cross their lips ever, EVER again.  I’d settle for a delicate spit in a napkin.  I laugh at the idea they’ll take five bites or even possibly say, “no, thank you”.  So cute someone has lost their mind enough to think a child would actually do that.

4 – Take them to the supermarket to choose their food – I would rather stick hot pokers in my ears than take my kids to the supermarket.  If I give them a choice, if it isn’t ice cream and only ice cream, then it will be a crying fit in the toy aisle while professing they never need food again and will live on toys alone.  And then I’ll find toys in the toilet after an aggressive poo session.

3 – Make the food talk.  “Hello, can I go in your tummy?” – My kids are already having a hard time with the cute chickens they feed at the farm being a part of their lunch.  They are about a cute chicken face away from being vegetarians.  Let’s not talk them away from all food.

2 – Vary the food you are offering – Sure, if you have a ton of money to waste on uneaten food.  Listen, I’m all about offering them a bite of my food with the hopes that they won’t spit it out all over the rest of the food on my plate.  It’s that “mom optimism”.  I’ve gone through this phase.  Stop buying food you don’t know they’ll eat to have them whole-heartedly reject it and cause you to eat it, with tears, because its gross, but healthy, and you spent money on it so damn it!  Someone will eat it.

1 – Make them a part of food prep – I love and hate this advice.  My kids are getting to be pro’s at making chicken nuggets.  But, get them involved in making peanut butter sandwiches and we wouldn’t have any peanut butter left.  And I’d be cleaning peanut butter off places I never imagined I’d find it.  Sure, make them clean it!  You should see how well my husband and daughter did “cleaning” all the crayon marks off her bedroom wall and door.  I think you get the drift.

My advice for picky eaters

Yes, I sound a bit sanctimonious and hanging myself out there for some criticism.  Here’s my advice for picky eaters.  Do what works for your family.  Look at nutrition by the week instead of by the day.  Quit listening to “experts” that know nothing about your kids and listen/talk with your kids.

What advice do you hate?  Is it mine?  Comment below or continue the conversation on our facebook page.