For our first edition here, let’s introduce ourselves, and our picky eater (or eaters). Then in whatever format you choose, share one tip for a success you’ve had with your picky eater, or ask for tips for dealing one challenge that you’ve been facing with your picky eater.I’ll try to include a tip both for the standard picky eater and for the picky eater with additional medical challenges in each of my posts. (For Picky Eater’s Club information click here.)
Hello there! Have a picky eater or two (or three…)? Well, join the club! I’m Michelle and I’ve got two of them, Jacqui is five, and Kyle just turned two. Jacqui, on top of being naturally picky, had a ton of early medical issues that further enhanced her picky-ness through sensory and food texture issues and the like. Kyle isn’t naturally picky, but he has severe reflux that we finally have pretty well controlled with medication. The reflux has caused him to balk at certain flavors and textures so I have some picky-ness issues with him too. Our house is just tons o’ fun!
I hear all the time from moms that they just can’t get their kiddos to eat, so I thought why not pool our experiences here and outsmart the little rascals! Here are my tips for the week, one for the standard picky eater and one for dealing with extra medical challenges:
My Eating Jar/Good Job Jar System…
Once I finally got Jacqui eating, I began looking for a way to get her to self-motivate during meals. It gets so tiring to sit there saying “take another bite… take another bite…” What I came up with is a pretty simple little system that cashes in on her fascination with piggy banks. I went to our local Dollar Tree store and picked up a duckie toothbrush holder, a wicker basket, three bags of craft gemstones and a larger jar with a stopper. Six dollars total.
The large jar is her ‘Good Job Jar’. She gets gemstones for doing things well: Keeping her room clean, making her bed, using polite words, putting her coat and shoes away when we first come home — that sort of thing. She loses stones for yelling, messing up her room, bickering with her brother, etc. When the jar is all full (takes her about three months on average) she gets a special outing of her choice. We’ve gone to a local amusement park, the beach, the aquarium. She’s currently saving to go to the zoo.
The little toothbrush holder jar is her ‘Eating Jar’. She gets a gemstone for each food item finished to a parent’s satisfaction and two gemstones for trying a new food for the first time. She gets three stones at the end of a meal if we don’t have to remind her to keep eating. No stones are ever taken out of the eating jar. When it is full she exchanges it for 30 minutes of computer time, a sheet of stickers, or some other reward we have agreed on. She typically fills up her ‘Eating Jar’ twice a week. We do have to frequently change the reward or she gets bored.
The other part of the system is a timer. If she is being particularly belligerent, a set amount of a type of food that should easily be able to be finished in five minutes is set aside on her plate. The timer is set for five minutes and if she doesn’t eat it before the timer goes off, she loses a stone out of the ‘Good Job Jar’ for not following directions. The timer is set for another five minutes and so on. It usually only takes one or two rounds of this to get her focused back on earning stones for the ‘Eating Jar’ instead of losing stones from the ‘Good Job Jar’.
This little trick along with some others I’ll share later have saved us a lot of mealtime headaches. Hope it can help someone else out as well — bottom line is never give up and keep looking for unique ways to motivate your child.
Dealing With Medical Related Eating Issues…
So let’s begin at the beginning here. You’re a new mom, with a baby in the NICU on tube feedings. Maybe they’re a preemie, maybe they’re on a ventilator. Whatever the case, not every NICU is going to tell you how important it is to maintain your baby’s sucking reflex. So I’m going to tell you… if it is in any way an option, it’s super important to maintain your baby’s sucking reflex. If you can work on breastfeeding with your baby, do it. Even if your baby is on tube feedings, come in before feedings and work on breast feeding. Be aware that there are tons of aids for complications with breastfeeding such as Supplemental Nursing Systems that you can talk to a lactation consultant at the hospital about and get help with. If your baby needs to bottle feed but has special complications with a bottle there are specialized bottles such as the Haberman Feeder with adjustable flow rates.
If your baby cannot drink anything by mouth, it’s still important to work on maintaining your baby’s sucking reflex if you can. I know that there is a lot of negative info out there about pacifiers, but this is one situation where a pacifier becomes a very good thing. Particularly if your baby is on a ventilator. When Jacqui was on a ventilator for six weeks as an infant, I kept a pacifier going with her as much as I could while she was awake. Most hospitals actually stock pacifiers and the majority of hospitals stock the Soothie brand pacifiers. There are several nice things about these pacifiers: Babies who often refuse other pacifiers will frequently accept a Soothie, the hub of the Soothie can be cut with scissors to fit around a ventilator tube, and they can be ordered attached to cute little stuffed animals (like Jacqui’s old duckie pictured above) called Wubbanubs, which can help keep the pacifier in place for your baby when you are not able to be in the NICU.
Maintaining your baby’s sucking reflex sets you up for an easier time transitioning to oral feedings later. If the sucking reflex isn’t maintained and your baby isn’t given any positive oral experiences, they are at high risk for developing an oral aversions: Low or zero tolerance for anything in or near the mouth, which can make the transition to oral feeding extremely difficult. If at all possible, encourage your baby to take a pacifier during any bolus tube feedings to help your baby associate sucking with the sensation of his or her stomach filling during a feeding. If you are able to do this, it can make the transition to breastfeeding or bottle-feeding so much easier. Even if your child doesn’t eat by mouth until much later (Jacqui wasn’t off tube feedings until age four), making sure your baby has some positive oral experiences while in the NICU will make everything from brushing teeth to learning to eat that much easier. Nurture that sucking reflex any way you can, if you have the option.
What About You? What picky eater tips or questions do you have? I’m looking forward to hearing them!
parenting children motherhood Picky Eater’s Club getting my child to eat In The Life Of A Child medically fragile tube feeding trach ventilator G-tube blog carnival blogging community
Those are some great tips, Michelle! I may have to try Preston on some of those when he is old enough to understand it.
And would you believe that our lactation specialist encouraged us to get Preston using a pacifier to help him with his suck while we were in the hospital. He ended up loving his paci and refusing the breast! And I didn’t mention this in my post, but aside from refusing the breast at a few days old, when we did finally have to switch to formula (since my breast milk dwindled to nothing since I was feeding a pump and not a baby), he didn’t like the formula. We had to flavor it with baby food before he would eat it!
May 8th, 2008 at 5:20 am
I’ve always wanted to this good jar thing but with so many kids it is hard. We tried a communal jar, but the boys were content to sit back and let Cookie earn all the marbles.
I was very grateful that the hospital stocks pacifiers when Sweet Terror was born. The girl had to suck 24/7, I kid you not. And I had always been so against pacifiers before her.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I can’t do the carnival thing… my computer isn’t following my directions…. so— I will leave comments to share the few tricks I know… Miss Jessica only took breast milk from me only once! We used the Haberman almost her whole bottle expierence ! (forgive my lack of spell check) And explaining about the Haberman was — so exhausting…!
Umm…. My son Shane has issues with hot and cold… and so he loves to eat food that is frozen… Weird, I know but it works for us! He will eat his peas, only if they are frozen!
I figure as long as he gets it in and keeps it in– We are doing great!
I have also learned that less spices or flavors per meal — gets the kids to eat more…
So, that’s my two cents— I hope this helps…! I’ll be back to read others’ comments that might give me new improved ideas!
May 8th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I’m back! Shannon’s post inspired me to join in hope of helpful tips. I was also really encouraged by your post about your kiddoes, Michelle. You sure have your hands full! And you are very creative. I haven’t much wisdom to share with the group, but I’ll sure sympathize!
May 8th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Have I told you recently how brilliant you are? I adore this idea, although the child I want this to work for (my three year old little man) has a very hard time understanding cause and effect still. However, give me a year or so and I think we will have a winner!
May 8th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Hi Michelle,
Like you, we used pacifiers routinely in the NICU with both our girls to encourage the suck reflex.
I have yet to write my submission, but I wanted to share something with you. My good friend had preemie at 29 weeks in December. When I visited her there, I noticed that they had a REALLY cool pacifier similar to a soothie, but the manufacturer (can’t recall the name) now sells it so it can fit around vent, CPAP, and canula tubes. Cool, huh?
I love the gem ideas. I’ve got one picky eater and one great eater. Gracie’s sensory issues are vast.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Hi Everybody! I’m looking forward to reading all of your posts this evening and so glad you joined in
Shannon - Hang in there! I’m working through a lot of similar issues with Kyle, we’ll commiserate, OK?
Hi Ice Cream Lady
- I can see how the good jar thing could be tough to manage with several kiddos — it does require a bit of policing. I’m sorry, but your boys response to the communal jar gave me a giggle — clever little monkeys! (And I know what you mean about pacifiers. I was determined never to use them. Then we had Jacqui and all the rules just flew out the window!)
Stacey - So sorry your computer is giving you fits! Those are some great tips though… I’ll have to try freezing some things and see if I that novelty sparks some interest around here in some things
My kiddos are the opposite with spices — they like LOTS of flavor 
(And I’m with you — I got really tired of explaining the Haberman Feeder as well. It worked great though!)
Holly - Good to see you — we can use all the sympathy we can get around here - LOL! (And I promise I’ll sympathize back
)
Ordinary Mom - Awww you’re too kind! Feel free to chime in any time. And let me know if you get that whole ’cause and effect’ thing sorted out… we’re still working on that one…
Hey Jen! That is fabulous with the pacifiers! I can’t figure out why no one ever had done that before — it would have been so nice to have one that actually fit around Jacqui’s vent. I’m so glad that is available for NICU Moms now. Very cool! And I feel for you with Gracie. Sensory issues are sooooo tough! I’ll be watching for your post
May 9th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Thanks for the five bites suggestion you left as a comment on my post. I gave it a try and it really worked with my little comedian. He’s a little suspicous now, but at least we got one meal out of it and who knows, it might be worth it to him in the future anyway. Thank you!!
May 10th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Ugh, I missed this one! I’ll have to see if I can get something written in the next few days. Hannah is my picky eater.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:02 am
So glad it worked Holly
Hope it lasts — he sounds like a clever little guy if he’s already on to you (mine’s the same way!)
Feel free to tag one on, Deb. I’m leaving it open for now
May 12th, 2008 at 7:46 pm