What to do when your toddler refuses to eat a meal
*Note: This blog post is aimed at typically-developing children with adequate growth and no known medical or developmental diagnoses impacting feeding. If you are concerned about your child’s growth, nutrition, and/or eating behaviors, please reach out to your pediatric medical provider. You may want to explore a feeding evaluation, typically conducted by a pediatric occupational therapist or speech-language pathologist.
If you have a toddler, you’ve probably been there - you just cooked them a healthy, nutritious, delicious meal and….. They refuse to eat it!
Maybe they say it’s “yucky,” they demand something else, or they simply push their plate away.
Either way, you’re not alone if this sends you into a frustrated downward spiral. Not only did you waste so much time cooking and preparing a nutritious meal, but more importantly - Won’t they go hungry if they don’t? Should you let them have a snack if they ask for it later? What if they don’t sleep tonight? Etc. etc.
These are all valid concerns and questions. As a parent, it’s normal to worry about whether your child is eating “enough,” let alone if they’re not eating anything at all.
When your child refuses a meal that you made them, don’t you just wish you could get them to eat it somehow?
But here’s the thing… It’s not your job to GET your child to eat.
I KNOW that sounds weird. But the truth is, you have jobs when it comes to eating and mealtimes, and so does your child.
Your job is to decide:
What food to offer/serve
When to offer/serve it
Where to offer/serve it
Your child’s job is to decide:
Whether or not to eat it
How much of it to eat
This is based on Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility in feeding, an evidence-based feeding practice that promotes healthy eating habits in children and families.
Research shows that how a parent structures and offers meals in their home and responds to food requests and refusals impacts the future eating behavior of their child. How cool is that?!
So when your child refuses to eat a meal, the more you pressure or bribe them to eat it, the less likely they are going to want to eat it (AND the less likely they will want to eat those foods in the future, too).
Okay, so… what should you do instead?
Here are your options for when your child refuses to eat a meal:
OPTION 1: Do nothing.
Your child may simply not be hungry! Oftentimes, dinner is a toddler’s smallest meal. They typically eat larger portions earlier in the day at breakfast and lunch, and may just not be very hungry come dinnertime. This is very common and doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong. Plus, toddlers and preschoolers typically do not wake up hungry overnight from skipping one meal.
OPTION 2: Keep their plate out and allow them to access it later on.
This is a great option if you’re not quite sure if they’re truly hungry or not. If they refuse to eat in the moment, remind them to listen to their body and that their plate will be available to them within the next 30 minutes (or whatever time frame you select) if they do feel hungry and decide to fill their tummy.
OPTION 3: Accept that they won’t eat, and offer a simple bedtime snack prior to bedtime.
This is a good option if you want to ensure that they don’t go to bed hungry (though again, oftentimes this is not an issue). If your child does tend to say they’re hungry before bed, offer a plain and boring bedtime snack, such as a piece of toast with nut butter or a banana and a glass of milk. If you decide to do this, it’s best to offer this every single night (even if they did eat enough - in your opinion - at dinner), so that they don’t learn to reject dinner in hopes of “holding out” for this snack.
OPTION 4: Get up and make them something else you know they will eat.
If you truly think your child is hungry, and you know they need to fill their tummy, this option is valid. Long-term, this can lead to more food refusals in the future. But if done occasionally, this is totally okay. For example, if your child (or your family) has had a particularly hard day, one of you is sick, or you simply feel like you’re at the end of your rope - this is a totally appropriate time to choose this option!
All of the above options are valid. Each time your child doesn’t eat, choose the option that you feel best about for your individual child in that particular moment. There is no perfect one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on your child’s temperament, your parenting values and style, the kind of day your child has had, and their previous food consumption that day in order to make the best choice in each situation.
Now, if this is starting to become a pattern, there ARE things you can do to prevent this from continuing to get worse and more frequent in the future.
First, make sure you are following a consistent meal/snack schedule that is appropriate for your child’s age. Decide on set times throughout the day that food will be available, and stick to them. When it’s not time to eat, don’t offer your child food.
Second, include favorite snack foods as a part of your child’s regular meals and snacks, so that they have regular access to them. This decreases the likelihood that they will refuse a meal in the hopes that you will give them a favorite snack food instead. For example, if you know your child loves crackers, include crackers as a part of their lunch a few days per week.
Third, at the start of each meal, remind your child that this is their chance to “fill their tummy” because you won’t be eating again until the next meal (and state when this will be).
Lastly, sit and eat together as often as possible! Children are much more likely to want to eat when they are eating with you.
Doing these things consistently can help so much with promoting healthy eating habits and behaviors every day.
Remember - feeding a toddler can feel so frustrating because it is hard! It’s normal for toddlers to become more selective with food AND there are things you can do to help prevent this from getting worse instead of better.
For more tips on toddler mealtimes, download my FREE Guide: Set Your Toddler Up For Mealtime Success!