What to feed my picky toddler

when my son eats cheese puffs for breakfast and I wonder if this is an epic mom fail

When my son sat on the floor of our pantry stuffing cheese puffs (these lil’ crunchies are his jam) into his mouth at 7 a.m. (yes, FINE, call it BREAKFAST), I had a real moment.

How did we get here? Here being this place in toddler land where dinner last night consisted of an appetizer of two scoops of Greek yogurt that he insisted on doing himself with little-to-no spoon handling skills so 99.9% ended up all over himself, followed up with the main course of two dry crackers that he spit-cried his way through and ended up essentially licking the salt.

A real mic drop moment of parenting, right there. GOODNIGHT, KID.

Emily Oster

tackled a similar question from a parent asking what to do about her picky 20-month-old who would barely eat anything. She was living off of milk and a few bites of bread, pasta, and snacks (SAME, same). What should she do? Would her daughter grow into a picky adult?

“One approach may be to focus on the things you have more control over — for example, mealtimes. You can’t make your child eat, but you can offer foods and all sit at meals together. Rather than framing the meal as a win if your daughter touched a vegetable, you can frame it as a win if you all are just there together sitting. Look for the wins, and try to let the worries go a little.” -

Emily Oster

, ParentData

Meghan Splawn

and Stacie Billis, hosts of the podcast Didn’t I Just Feed You?, spoke with

Laura Tremaine

on her 10 Things to Tell You podcast (listen here!) about what they called “the long game” of picky eating. Meghan and Stacie have received THOUSANDS of messages about picky eating from parents who are completely occupied (read: obsessed) with how to “fix” the problem of keeping our picky eaters alive. Here’s what they both shared about “the long game”:

“It works out… We’re trying to get kids to have a healthy relationship with food and their bodies. That is more important than anything. There’s only so much you can fight it! You’re making yourself tired and creating battles with your kids about food.

Kids are human. They are allowed to not like things. They are hardwired to crave consistency. A blueberry is going to be wildly different—of the hundreds in the package, one might be squishy, one might be sour… They want goldfish because all of them are exactly the same, which is hardwired in them as humans.”

I don’t know about you, but I need these reminders constantly about the long game in raising a good human. It’s easy to fall into the lie that you’re a good mom if you feed your kids organic smoothies with kale. Am I still a good mom if my son won’t eat broccoli anymore? YES.

Am I still a good mom if my son will devour a well-balanced meal only when he’s at his grandparents’ house and not in the care of his haggard mother? Jury’s still out. Just kidding… YES.

Honestly, images like this one below (source here) aren’t helping my mom guilt. I spy with my little eye… my son’s “breakfast”! This article encourages you not to feed your picky toddler what they want. But honestly, is that really worth the battle?

Our kids are fighting for independence. They’re tired and exploring and growing. They don’t know the truth: you saw an Instagram mom prepare the perfect dinner, so you felt guilty and broke your back trying to replicate it and now you’re exhausted as you watch your toddler shake his head and throw it on the floor, surely babbling in cuss words.

Yesterday I saw a mom in the baby snack aisle who I really wanted to hug. She was me, and maybe you too. She paced up and down, studying the baby snack options as if the right one would chassé off the shelf and solve all of her motherhood existential crises. She stayed in that aisle A LONG TIME. She crouched, she went up on her tiptoes, she furrowed her brows. Did she pick the cheese curls? I pray that she found them, those little saviors (especially the ranch that just hits rights). May she be blessed with many peaceful breakfast, lunch, and dinners to come.

Here’s my plan: I’m going to cook a dinner that excites me. I’m going to encourage my son to eat it, which often comes with more enthusiasm if he can have it directly off my plate.

I’m going to make my kitchen a refuge from our noisy world, a space to turn on my Norah Jones playlist, tie on my apron, maybe pour a glass of wine or a bubbly LaCroix on the rocks while I prepare dinner for our family. My next goal is to make my kitchen feel like a Nancy Meyers movie. Will I find the perfect kitchen lamp to set the mood? I want my son to see me light a candle and stir a simmering sauce with joy. I want him to remember what it feels like to dance with me in our kitchen.

Whether he eats it or not, that’s TBD.

We’ll keep trying. Because we’re good, good moms.

Any other picky kids out there? What meals are working for your kids these days?

Give these a try…

1. When my son’s not eating cheese puffs for breakfast, here’s his current favorite cereal. If he wakes up on the right side of the crib, he sings “ooOOHH!” when we pull them out of the pantry.

2. I made these gluten free chocolate zucchini muffins a lot in my pre-child days. They felt complicated to make at first, but once you have the basics in stock they’re pretty simple and very delicious. I like them cold from the fridge. We added collagen protein powder and packed them on ski trips for that post-mountain car snack. I hardly recognize my old self when I type those words, but I’m going to bring them back soon. Maybe my son will love them?

3. Ok, despite my dramatic story above about my son throwing his dinner on the floor, he actually ate a version of this risotto with peas the other night and said, “mmMMM!” several times throughout the meal. A miracle! I also made homemade meatballs using whatever I had on hand based on this recipe for Italian Wedding Soup (which I also highly recommend. I made this for my best friend who just welcomed her third baby! But it was pretty labor-intensive, so I made it on an afternoon when my son was happily at daycare.)