My 3 Year Old Won't Eat

I have a daughter who is now 41 and she has eaten like this since she was born. She still eats what I consider not enough to keep a bird alive. She works at a hospital everyday and does anything she wants to do and is healthy. She is thin but has no real health problems. I think everything will work out fine for you.

We had the same problem with my 2 oldest children and all they wanted to do was drink milk and run around all day. The first thing to do is to cut back on the amount of liquids he is getting and don't let him walk around or have a cup anywhere but sitting at the table. that way he will start to associate eating and drinking at the table. Plus, when you cut back on the milk he won't be full and might eat a little more. The dr. told us that a child won't starve themselves, so if he isn't eating he isn't hungry. We used to do the same thing but as soon as we cut back on the milk they started eating like horses. Try not to stress or get frustrated with him too because they can sense that and it will only make matters worse. Hope this helps and good luck believe I understand completely how frustrating it can be I have 5!! LoL :)

Feed him what you are having for lunch and dinner. Make sure he is getting several vegetables and fruits. I would not cook special for him. It is true; he will eat when he is hungry. And tastebuds of children change constantly, give him a tablespoon of everything, even if he didn't like it last time, he might like it this time. Tell him he has to try everything. Make sure he gets a good glass of milk at each meal. And then, don't worry. Don't let him have sweets or unhealthy between meal snacks. He will not starve himself.

He may be filling up on milk. I would suggest giving him his food first at every meal then his milk!

My daughter was the same way and the problem was she was drinking to much milk. We now have her eat first before we give her any liquids. So my suggestion would be give him food first than his liquids. I was told by the doctor that they will eat when they are hungry and not to worry as long as the are drinking but it did really help to feed them first than give them the liquids. Good Luck and let me know what you have done and if you get any other suggestions I would like to hear it as well. Like trying to get them to eat something other than chicken. LOL I can not get my kids to eat hamburgers or pork or even telling them it is chicken. LOL

Might try getting a copy of FEED ME I'M YOURS by Lansky. This will take you thru kids eating issues at all ages and how to help them.

In addition, you MUST look at your own eating habits. Kids pick up on MORE than you realize. Numerous times, I've encountered kids w/ eating issues and turned around and found that the parents are doing pretty much the same thing.....not trying things, "YUCK" to fruits, vegetables, new foods, picky eaters, etc.

You HAVE to make food FUN AND help them understand why they need good nutrition. Three is the PERFECT age to start! I ALWAYS taught nutrition (EVERY day) to my 3 & 4 year olds, DESPITE some resistance from old habits. Once we made it FUN, talked about WHY our bodies needed certain foods, where they grew (geography) HOW it grew (science), talked about textures, smells, etc. THEY LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOVED it! Some of those kids are now 13 & 14 and they LOVE the food network, want to be chefs, have NO weight issues, etc. and still practice many of the habits I taught them in preschool.

If you don't know, maybe you need to learn too so that it can be an educational experience and quality time for both of you. Use the grocery store as a learning too, sizes, colors, shapes, numbers, etc. TRY NEW FOOD ALL THE TIME....whether that be weekly, monthly, or whatever. TRUST ME....it's WORTH the time & effort!

I know it must seem like there's no way he's eating enough, but children that age really don't always need to eat as much as we think. No 3 year old ever had an eating disorder, so the best thing to do is relax and don't make an issue of it. If it turns into a power struggle that could cause some major food issues later in life. Don't reward him for eating alot. Just let him do what he's going to do. And keep letting him help prepare and meals and everything else you were doing. My three year old was the same way for months and now she's eating me out of house and home. His growth has probably slowed a little and he's not as hungry. I bet in the next 6 months or so he'll hit another spurt and you won't be able to keep him full. And if he's always been a picky eater, that's ok too. Offer a variety of healthy foods and he'll eat what he needs. I also use a lot of recipes in The Sneaky Chef and have created some of my own to sneak nutrients into my kids' food. It's really quite amazing! And if he really likes milk adding a little Blackstrap Molasses will give him extra iron. Good luck!

To get some nutrients and vitamins in him, have you tried making fruit smoothies? Believe it or not, you can put fresh spinach or other vegetables in it and they won't taste it as long as you use bananas, blueberries or other fruit with a strong flavor. You can add yogurt, and ground flax seed for fiber.

hi, my little guy(4) goes through stages like that. some times he will eat very little for weeks at a time, then he eats everything on his plate and asks for more. i was always told he will eat when hes hungry, and he does.

Both my girls (2 and 5) are picky too. I swear they're either going to turn into a chicken nugget or a pop-tart!!

The only thing we found was to keep offering favorites. With our girls, the favorites were: Chicken nuggets (which eventually became the favorite), pop-tarts, yogurt, PB&J, Oatmeal (made on the dry side so they could pick it up pretty easily), mac & cheese, chef boy-ar-dee stuff (cheesy-burger macaroni, beefaroni, ravioli's), spaghettio's, spaghetti, waffles (or pancakes or french toast sticks).

With our 5 year old, we'll tell her she has to eat at least 1 bite of what we've fixed. I remember hearing one parent talking with some friends once and they were talking about trying to get their kids to eat, particularly in restaurants, and the parent saying, "Okay - what can I get that he'll eat? or what can I get him that I'll eat?" And that's sort of what we've gone on since.

Good luck!

Is he taking vitamins? I noticed everything you mention he is eatting is carbs. He likes high sugar content foods, doesn't he? You aren't mentioning what else he drinks during the day. I find it difficult to believe he isn't drinking more than just 4 glasses of milk a day. My son went thru a similiar period. He would drink two or three glasses of milk each meal and eat only the breads, potatoes, or noodles. We stoped serving them with the meals. Nothing went on the table except for veggies, protien and fruit.
You might want to go to protien drinks/shakes for him to make sure he is getting the minerals etc. he needs instead of just milk.
You can limit the milk to half a glass at a time for meals and if he doesn't eat he doesn't get anymore milk until he eats at least a bite of each thing on his plate.
He will not starve himself to death, and if you add vitamins and protien drinks between meals you know he is getting what his body needs.
The old time family doctor told me the following: Children under the age of 5 will eat what their body craves. Stop worrying about the 3 glasses of milk and the fact that this week he is only eatting veggies and next week only fruit and the next week only meats and cheeses. He knows what his body needs. After 5 you need to make it balanced but if he wants more veggies let him have more veggies, etc.
Guess it worked, he is now 5'11", weighs 175, is 27 and blames me because he is "short".

Honestly, Honestly, I promise he is okay!!!! I swear between the ages of 2-5ish I don't see how most kids survive on what they eat. As long as he is growing and stays on the "scale" he is perfectly fine. If your ped seems worried than you should be, but if your ped is fine with it, it is. I had twins at 27 weeks, boy always has eaten great, girl not so much. She was always in the 10th or less percentile until this last year and our ped always said this her norm, she stays consistent and as long as she does that, this is her bodies norm. If she ever fell below that then we would get worried and guess what, she never did. Even now at 8yo she is only in the 10-20th her twin brother is 20lbs heavier and way up there in the scale. So, I promise as long as you don't see a drop they are fine.

Kids do go through their spurts of eating and growing, but my 5 yr old son cut back on his eating and it was other issues. He was in kindergarten and had been making comments about not eating too much. Then one day he just flat out refused to eat breakfast. I took him to the doctor and because he was so light to begin with, his bmi was at a dangerously low level, where it could effect his growth. He wouldn't tell me a reason he wanted to stop eating. I was talking to another mom because I heard her son making similiar comments and she found out a couple of boys in class were making fun of heavier kids. That was enough to trigger my son to stop eating. I would quiz your son to see if there is a reason, but if he is like my son forget it! Not to mention all the 'diet' ads on tv that kids may hear!

The doctor suggested putting carnation drink mix in his milk to get some calories into him. I tried only doing that for a while, I really tried to reinforce healthy eating habits (if you can call what we eat that!) instead.

He won't let himself starve. I am a mother of three children, and I have learned to pick my battles with my kids. They are all different and they all go up and down with their eating patterns. My 6-year-old son just went through the same thing. He truly just was not hungry. Now he must be going through a growth spurt, because he eats everything he sees!!

Really, do not worry about it. If he's hungry, he's gonna eat. I guess at this point, just make sure what he does put in his mouth is healthy if you are worried about nourishment.

It will be okay.

I had an issue with my youngest when he was almost 3, where we would have rolls with dinner and he would eat that first and refuse to eat anything else, saying he was full - we put in a rule that no one gets to have a roll until they eat the rest of their food - he will now eat what we ask him to in order to get his roll. We do the same with milk - one small glass with bfast/lunch/dinner - if he wants another glass, he needs to eat what we ask, and then he gets his next glass of milk.

My youngest is also not a big meat eater - he just doesn't like it (i'm the same way, so i sympathize) - we usually give him a smaller portion of meat, but he seems to just LOVE fruit, veggies, etc, so i always cut up a tomoato, pear, green pepper, or have a salad with both lunch and dinner - those will disappear in front of him. We still make him have a small portion of everything else we have for dinner, but his body just seems to thrive on fruit & veggies, so we just make sure we offer those to him as well as the potatoes, meat & pasta. We also recently added the flinstones vitamins to both boy's diet (one a day), just to make sure they're getting everything they need.

good luck!
-T.

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Cut back on the milk a bit, I think my ped told us that 16 ounces was plenty for kids this age. My almost 5 year old doesn't get snack unless she eats a good portion of her meals (most of it, anyway) and we stick with that rule. She's unhappy sometimes and has even gone to bed hungry, but at this age, they know that they can manipulate us to get what they want. I suggest trying to tell your son that there will be no snacks unless he eats most of what you offer him, (ie, 2-3 chicken nuggets, half an apple, carrot stick,)for lunch and if he refuses, stick to your guns, yep, even when he's whining ten minuits later for food (my kid does this ALL THE TIME). He won't starve, and he'll catch on quickly.

My 3 year old is the exact same way and always has been. Our doctor just said to give him Pediasure to drink instead of milk. Be careful though because I sometimes think that is a double edged sword as he likes his "chocolate milk" better than food.

CZ