Picky Eaters...how do you get 'em to eat

Last night as I was going to pick up my daughter from choir, I came upon a friend at the bus stop with her son so I pulled over to see where she was going. She wasn't really happy with her hubby so she was just taking a lil breather, not really sure where she wanted to go. So I offered to bring her and her son to my house to hang with me. I will not go into the details of why she was upset with he hubby, it's too sensitive.

Anyways, we had some talks and I offered as much guide and comfort as I could. I felt honored that she wasn't too shy to share what was on her mind. So one topic led to another and she brought up her son's lack of appetite. She has two children and the son she had with her was her oldest, who's three and she also has a nine month old that she left with the dad at home. Well, she said her nine month old weighed 20 lbs while her 3 year old only weighed 27. And just last week, he lost 3 lbs. (He was 30 lbs. before and after last week, he went down to 27.) She was really worried about him because every attempt they made to feed him, he just was not interested in eating. She asked if I know any trick on how to get him to like to eat...I mean they even bribed him with fast/junk food but he wouldn't eat em.

I feel bad you know. She thought since I have seven kids, I was bound to have at least one picky eater that I may have figured out some trick to get 'em to eat. Well, I do have a itty bitty trick I picked up from a friend way back when I was just a newly mom. My oldest son at one point in his life was a very picky eater. He was not as heavy as his sisters so I tried this trick on him and it turned out to be the best thing. From then, whenever my friends would ask what to do about with their picky eater, I would tell them to try this trick and the result was incredible. It is not a genius bang theory of the universe discovery or anything, it was very simple.

When I told my friend that I have a trick she could try, she looked so hopeful and was really excited and anxious to go home to try it out.

"So what is this trick?", she asked.
"Well, it's really simple, you know", I said, "it might work on your son or it might not."
"Anything is better than nothing. I am out of ideas", she said.
"I don't really have a name for it but here goes."

What I did was I put put whatever food I make, and I try to make sure there at least three different food group on the plate, in separate portion. Then I sat my son down at the table and kind of make a game out of it. I asked my son how old he was and of course I tell my son my age too {I always made up my age for fun}. Then I told my son that whatever age he was, that would be the amount of bites he would have to eat from his plate, from each of the different food group on his plate. So if he was 3 years old, he would have to take 3 bites out of his starch, 3 from the protein and 3 from his veggie group. Of course I would do the same thing with my made up age. I tried to make him think that that is not a big deal. I mean that is all he has to eat before he can leave the table.

At first I would get the cynical look but after making it clear to my son that was the only way he would be leaving the table, he would reluctantly try with the first bite. I didn't care how big or small the bite was as long as he was taking it. My goal was to get some nutrients into his small body. The first day took a little longer than I would have wanted but after a couple of days, it got easier and faster. After a while, I would give the option of either eating everthing on the plate or do the number of bites that is equivalent to their age. The real fun part about it is that the more the number of their age is, the more number of bites they had to take and sometimes the portions I put on the plate were actually equivalent to the number of bites they take. I remember one time my son discovered that once he actually eat the required number of bites, his plate was almost empty.

You can imagine my real joy in seeing my picky son stop pushing his food around on his plate and gobbled down everything he saw and actually licked the plate clean. My seven year old now does that sometimes with his food but since I am trying to get my kids to like food from all over the place, I use that trick on him, too.

So far the friends who've tried this with their kids are really happy about the result. I am happy about the result too and I can't wait to talk to my friend from last night and see how she's doing and if she is successful with method on her son.

Oh and yeah, my picky eater of a son is now a teenager and seems like I could never feed him enough, he is constantly hungry and eating everything in sight...what a pig!! LOL.

Hope this post helps whoever happen to be stumble upon it and whoever is lurking around in the dark.

Aight, I'm going over to Crash's to play truth or dare. Later!