Picky Eating in Toddlers and Children

Why Toddlers Eat Less

In the first year a baby roughly triples their birth weight. In the second year growth slows sharply, so a toddler needs less food for their size than they did as a baby. Parents often see this as a sudden loss of appetite. At the same time toddlers become more wary of new foods, and they discover they can say no.

So it is normal for a toddler or young child to:

• eat well one day and hardly anything the next
• eat one good meal a day and pick at the others
• refuse a food they liked last week
• want the same few foods again and again
• refuse anything that looks new, mixed or "wrong"

Over a week, most children eat about what they need. Picky eating usually eases by school age.

Your Job and Your Child's Job

Child-feeding specialists use a simple rule called the division of responsibility:

In practice this means you serve a family meal that includes at least one food your child usually eats, let them serve themselves or choose from the plate, and let them stop when they say they are full — without comment, and without a replacement meal cooked to order. Children who are trusted to listen to their own hunger usually eat more over time, not less.

New Foods Take Many Tries

Children often need to see, touch, smell and taste a new food 10 to 15 times, sometimes more, before they accept it. Early refusals are part of learning, not a final answer.

• Put a small amount of the new food next to familiar foods. One piece is enough.
• Eat it yourself and enjoy it. Children copy the people they eat with, especially older children.
• Let them explore: touching, licking and spitting out are steps towards eating.
• Involve them in shopping at the market, washing vegetables, stirring, and serving.
• Do not bribe, reward or punish with food. "Eat your beans and you can have sweets" teaches that beans are a punishment and sweets are the prize.

Never Force-Feed

Gentler pressure also backfires. Coaxing, threatening, spoon-chasing around the room, or insisting on "one more bite" makes meals a battle, and children who are pressured usually eat less and dislike more foods. If your child eats nothing at a meal, calmly clear the plate. The next meal or snack is only a few hours away.

Meals, Snacks and Drinks

• A routine: three meals and two planned snacks a day, about two to three hours apart. Grazing all day, or a bottle or biscuit whenever the child is bored, kills appetite for meals.
• Eat together when you can, at a table or on a mat, with the family.
• Screens off. Children fed in front of the television or a phone eat without noticing hunger and fullness, and often refuse to eat without it.
• Short meals: 20 to 30 minutes is enough. After that, clear away without fuss.
• Healthy snacks: fruit, groundnuts for children over five (paste for younger ones), boiled egg, boiled corn (once your child chews well), moi moi, yoghurt, roasted plantain.
• Drinks: water and milk. Sweet drinks, malt drinks, zobo with sugar, juice and fizzy drinks fill a small stomach with sugar, cause tooth decay and take away appetite.
• Not too much milk. Over the age of one, a toddler who drinks a great deal of milk — more than about half a litre a day — often eats little food and can become short of iron.

How Much Is Enough?

Children's portions are much smaller than adults'. A rough guide for a toddler or young child is a portion about the size of their own fist for each part of the meal — a fist of yam, rice or swallow, a fist of beans or vegetables, and a smaller piece of fish, egg or meat. Serve small amounts and let them ask for more. A full adult plate is overwhelming and leads to waste and worry.

Checking Growth

The clearest answer to "is my child eating enough?" is the growth chart. Your child's health card has a chart for weight, and clinics plot height too, against the World Health Organization child growth standards. A child whose weight and height follow a steady curve is getting enough food, however little they seem to eat. Take the card to every clinic visit, and ask the nurse to show you your child's curve.

A child who is small but growing steadily along a lower line is often simply small, like their parents. What matters most is a child who crosses down through lines, stops gaining, or loses weight.

When It Is More Than Picky Eating

A small number of children have a feeding problem that needs help, not patience alone.

At Limi, our nutrition and feeding support checks your child's growth and makes a plan with you. When eating difficulties come with developmental concerns, sensory sensitivities or autism, our developmental team — including speech and language therapists, who treat problems with chewing and swallowing — assesses your child. If your child is not yet talking, see our speech and language guide.

Do not buy "appetite stimulant" syrups or tonics from a chemist. They do not treat the cause, some contain medicines with side effects, and a child who needs help should be examined.

Iron, Worms and Vitamin A

Iron deficiency is common in young children in Nigeria, and it can itself reduce appetite. Signs include pale skin, inner eyelids and palms, tiredness, irritability, frequent infections, and eating non-food things such as soil, chalk, sand or ice. If you notice these, see a doctor: a simple blood test can check for anaemia, and there are other causes, such as malaria and sickle cell disease, to think about. Iron-rich foods include liver, meat, fish, crayfish, eggs, beans and dark green leaves such as ugwu. Do not give iron tonics without a test and advice.

Worms such as roundworm and hookworm are common where children play outside, and can cause tummy aches, poor appetite and anaemia. The World Health Organization recommends regular deworming for children from 12 months of age in areas where worms are common, and Nigeria gives it through national programmes, often together with vitamin A, during Maternal, Newborn and Child Health weeks and at clinics. Ask at your child's clinic whether your child is due. Handwashing with soap, wearing shoes outside, and clean water help prevent worms.

A Week of Ideas

Examples for a toddler eating with the family. Take the child's food out before adding hot pepper and seasoning cubes, and keep salt low. Breastfeeding can continue alongside.

Offer water with meals. If your child rejects the main dish, they can fill up on the other parts of the meal; you do not need to cook something else.

Questions Parents Ask