Welcome to YTF Community, a place to safely share in the challenges and joys of feeding our families. And make all of it easier! This is a weekly members post with timely advice and encouragement that I hope helps offer a little reassurance.
Our monthly FAQs post is tackling three different questions about what to do when kids stop eating foods they used to like…which is a scenario most of us can relate to! The questions cover what to do when food refusal suddenly means there are a lot fewer foods your child will eat, and also when it increases food waste.
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Help! My 19 month old has become picky and is not eating things like meat or eggs anymore. Just wants yogurt, fruit, and carbs. —Allison
First, there is 100% nothing wrong with yogurt, fruit and carbs. One of the most helpful things I’ve ever learned about toddlers and food is what commonly happens to their appetite after their first birthday. Typically, babies grow really rapidly, are hungry, and willing to try a wide range of foods after they start solids. (That’s clearly a generalization, but it’s usually mostly true.)
Then, after a baby turns one, their growth slows down in comparison to the previous months.
Which means that our one year olds may simply not be as hungry as they were when they were a little bit younger. (This is counterintuitive, I know.)
And due to this lower appetite, a one year old may be less likely to eat all of the foods they used to eat as babies because they can run out of space in their bellies faster.
Plus, one year olds are increasingly growing more and more aware of the world around them—and their separate place in it. And so they can start to realize that they can more forcibly or clearly voice their preferences…and we will respond.
Which means that it’s actually very, very likely that this 19 month old is not
“picky”, but is instead eating differently that they used to for a mix of understandable reasons.
Simply shifting our perspective of what we’re seeing to this more empathetic approach can allow us to not label the kids as a problem to solve. And to take these phases with a big handful of salt.
Here is what I tried to do when this sort of thing happened with one of my kids:
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