I have a 3.5 year old girl in my care who is the most extreme case of picky eating I have ever seen or heard of. She has been with me full time for just over two months, and I expected at least some improvement by now. She literally eats NOTHING for me most days. If she ever eats, it's one or two bites of snack, and ONLY if it's a junky snack like Cheez-its. I pride myself on the quality of food I serve in my program. I follow the food program and go above and beyond with fresh organic produce, non-GMO, a very nice, wide variety of different foods, etc. All of the other kids eat great for me and say I make the best food ever!

Mom says previous provider would yell at her and make her eat and she's just traumatized. That got me right in the gut, and so I made extra efforts not to push her to eat anything, I wanted her to feel safe and happy here. I assured Mom that seeing the other kids eating, and not making a big deal out of food would have her doing better in no time. I continue to update mom with the lack of progress. She says her daughter will eat only pizza, grilled chz, chic nuggets, PB&J, Mac n chz for them at home. She also claims she likes apples and bananas but says she does give her baby food squeeze pouches to get her fruits and veggies. I told her that my training and experience has shown me that not giving those familiar fall-back options as a back-up if she doesn't eat the healthy stuff is very important. I gently explained that she won't starve if she's not given the power to choose what she’s served at mealtimes, that she should be eating mostly everything her parents eat by this age. I laughingly reminded her that no mom wants to be a short-order cook, and that some kids just give us more of a challenge.

The foods her mom said she will eat, I consider junk food and are special treats here at daycare. I serve "real" homemade mac and cheese only, never the boxed stuff with powdered cheese. She won't eat it. I serve cheese pizza occasionally on a Friday and she won't eat it. I serve chicken nuggets rarely, but the best she's done with those is eating 1.5 nuggets once for me. She will not eat my grilled cheese or PB&J (PB&J only offered once when peanut allergy kid was absent). She has never touched an apple slice or banana for me, and I serve those a lot. I feel that a child her age is too old to be eating baby food, and I do not do special-order cooking here. I have brought up again the importance of offering her a variety of healthy foods at home, it seems to just go in mom's ear and out the other. I took it a step further and told her exactly what to try at home: have her eat two bites of something like grapes or corn before she's given any of the foods she supposedly eats for them. Make it clear that unless she eats two bites of X food first, the meal is over and they can try again later. If she refuses, stand firm, let her get hungry enough to eat the good stuff. "Ok, good idea, we'll try it" was all I got after that, which was 2 weeks ago and it's clear they aren't following through.

I even tried giving all the kids fruit snacks today at snack, something I've never served at daycare, to see if she’d eat THAT. Everyone (including her) was excited! Other kids wolfed them down, she took one look at them and said she didn't like that particular kind. I'm so tired of throwing food away. I always serve her smaller portions of what everyone else is eating, with no pressure. I just gather her untouched plate at the end of the mealtime and dump it, which is starting to wear on me! The other kids actually try to convince her to try things, she just sits there at the table and stares blankly during all meal and snack times. She only ate one bite of a cupcake at a recent birthday celebration we had. Mom says she eats and eats once she gets home, but sounds like it's just the junk still. She sent a baby food squeeze pouch in her backpack last week, but I have a strict policy against outside food or beverages so I had to remind them that's not allowed.

How is this kid ever going to get over the picky eating if they keep refusing to set limits/expectations for her? What can I do? She doesn’t appear to be malnourished - if she did, I would have more of a reason to be alarmed about nutritional neglect. Is there anything I can do, or just accept that she won’t eat anything for the 40 hours she’s here each week? What would you do?

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