You may think that this is an exaggeration, but it isn’t.  Jonny is by far, the pickiest eater I have ever seen.

Now, those of you who have known me a while may snicker a bit because, hey, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” right?

I may be a bit picky with the veggies and peppers (I don’t really like any ingredient that goes in salads save croutons) and I can smell lettuce on a fast food burger through the bag, but my kid has hands down the most particular palate in the history of food.

I can count the foods I don’t like probably on 2 hands. I can count the foods Jonny DOES like probably on 2 hands. It is that bad.

How bad is it?

• A McDonalds Happy meal is the best meal he will eat. For a year, when I ordered one, all he wanted was the cheese and the bun. Graduating to a full cheeseburger with everything except the pickles is pretty much a miracle.
• Getting him to eat chocolate ice cream took bribery.
• He has eaten 4 dinners for the last 2 years. Mac & cheese, pizza, chips and melted cheese, or a grilled cheese sandwich.
• I’ve started rationing the mac and cheese boxes and ingredients to smaller portions before cooking and cutting up the pizza before I cook it to save the uneaten portions. Not because it is healthier to eat smaller portions, but because he won’t eat re-heated pizza or reheated mac & cheese and I’ve been having to throw the rest away. (He also no longer eats Eazy-Mac or anything reheated in the microwave).
• What did Jonny’s Thanksgiving feast look like? Turkey? potatoes? gravy? biscuits? rolls? stuffing? green bean casserole? Nope. Jonny’s Thanksgiving feast involved mostly…strawberries. That’s it. No pumpkin pie. Not a bite of Auntie’s birthday cheese cake.

When did he become so picky?

Birth. Not joking. Mama was not able to nurse him because he had a cleft in his soft palate so she pumped and we bottle-fed him breast milk. Jonny would actually reject certain “vintages” of breast milk. Not because it was too old or hot or cold, but because he didn’t particularly care for the taste or content of some of the milk. Mama actually cut dairy for a while when she nursed Jonny and it actually made a difference. Unbelievable right?

As he grew, he was in the (less than) 3rd percentile for his body weight so the doctor told us he needed to gain some weight. How do you get a picky eater to eat more? You let him eat what he likes to eat. It pretty much progressed from there.

How do you deal with it?

It is hard to figure out a “right” way to do it. I’ve tried forcing Jonny to try new foods. I made him take a bite of a ham sandwich or go sit in “time-out”.

He took a bite…

…and then projectile vomited all over me.

I’ve tried bribery with mixed results. The first time I got him to try half of a grape tomato was for the promise of 2 Reeses peanut butter cups. He ate it no problem. Great right? The next time I tried upping the ante a little and went with a whole grape tomato for one Reeses. And bless his heart, he put the whole tomato in his mouth…

…and then projectile vomited all over me.

We’ve tried almost everything. Not letting him get up unless he eats 5 more bites or (in most cases) one bite of something new which, we find, produces a negative reaction towards the new food.

Just presenting the food on his plate for him to eat when he’s ready doesn’t really work either. He just doesn’t want to eat it. Or if he does, he throws up.

And many of the foods he’s not eating are foods most other kids would consider “treats.”

I had to switch to Oreos for treats after he stopped eating the pink/white animal cookies. What kid turns down animal cookies???

For breakfast, I have to practically cram waffles down his throat so he will not be a monster for his teachers because he is starving.  (He has already been removed from the bus). I have literally had to hand feed him the food to make sure he is eating something in the morning. Healthy foods? PHAW!!

ANY food is good right now.

I’ve been packing his lunches for school and they go a little something like this:

• Lunchable
• Apple juice
• Package of Fruit Snacks
• Package of Oreos
• Granola Bar
• Wheat Thins
• Goldfish Crackers or Cheese-its

When he comes home, usually the only things NOT still in the lunch box are

• Apple Juice
• Fruit Snacks
• (Maybe his Oreos).

That’s all he will have eaten. All day.

See why breakfast is so important?

Sidenote: the last 2 days have been awesome as far as what is left in his lunch box after school so I was really optimistic that he is actually eating his lunches. But then, he told me how he likes to “share” his cookies with his friends. That got me thinking, most the foods he has in his lunch box are “treat foods” for other kids. Is he eating the other foods or simply “sharing” them with his friends?

I really don’t know how else to get him to expand his palate. Anyone else have any good ideas?

(other than this)