Customer Reviews

Coping with a Picky Eater : A Guide for the Perplexed Parent

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I found a couple of good ideas (i.e. not discussing eating during the meal and placing food on the plate and giving your child the option of eating it or not), but for the most part I found the suggestions by the author to be a bit extreme. I should have known it wasn't the book for me when he suggested using the Ferber method to get your child to sleep and not nursing on demand past the first few months.

I don't think locking your 2 year old in his/her room will make for a better eating style. In fact, I think down the road it will cause problems when your child is a teen and decides to lock YOU out of their room.

If you are someone who thinks using the Ferber method on your child is a good idea, you will probably find this book helpful, but for the parents with a more AP approach will find this book extremely distasteful.

I found one chapter "Not to Worry" to be of help to me. There I found a reassuring word about all of the typical reasons why parents worry about their children not eating. That said, I found the first three chapters to run on about nothing relating to the title of the book. Perhaps parents of older toddlers and preschoolers would find this book helpful. But as the mother of a "typical" 18-month old, I was completely appalled by the instruction to use a "restraint such as a harness tethered to the back of the high chair" and "a firm mechanical restraint will give the child few choices to do the wrong thing" terrible advice and, frankly, I was a little concerned that the author had been advising patients for many years as a pediatrician. It was then that I decided the best place for this book was in the trash!

This book has really helped us get clear about a way to cope with our picky 2 1/2 year old son. No, he's still not eating carrots, but our meals are pleasant and calm now (many fewer screaming fits), and he HAS tried a few new foods for the first time in a long time. And perhaps even more important, we, his parents, now feel clearer and less torn about how to respond to his whims. So we aren't doing so much jumping up and down during meals trying desperately to bring out something he'll eat. Wilkoff has the best ideas I've seen about how to impose reasonable rules about eating without becoming heavy-handed; and at the same time, about how to allow the child his needed freedom without just letting him control the whole feeding process.

I tried this book and I have to say it was not very helpful to me. My daughter has always been picky and i tried everything to get her to try new things. The suggestions were not for me and I felt like we were going nowhere. Truthfully, it was a DVD that really helped her! I found it here on Amazon - the company is called tinyguides and the kids on the DVD are actually eating and enjoying all sorts of foods. When I got it for her, she loved it so much and was even willing to try some new things. Anyway, just thought it could help some other moms who were still trying to find books to help THEM (the moms). Maybe the best thing is to get a tool that is geared to the KIDS themselves!

We found this book to be tremendously helpful. I was at the point of cooking completely separate meals for my partner and me, and for our boys. Using Dr. Wilcoff's ideas of serving at least one food the kids like, insisting on tiny tastes of new food before they get seconds of the other foods, has made mealtimes far calmer. Our older boy has discovered a taste for salad and for brocolli! Our younger son actually tried his grandfather's salmon pie and liked it! But even when they don't like the new food, life is easier because they can ignore the teaspoonful I put on their plates without my fretting that we are wasting a whole serving of food. Our boys are challenging, with a variety of special needs, and this has worked well for them.

My first child is a VERY picky eater. Even parents of other picky eaters are dismayed when they see how little he eats. We bought this book based on recommendations with a hope that it might make a difference. The only good advice in this book is not to worry if your child is a picky eater. We followed the other recommendations to "Not talk about what they are (or are not) eating", "Don't use dessert as a reward", etc, for about a year and a half, from about 18 months to over three years old. In that entire time our son tried ZERO new foods (and actually stopped eating some he ate at 18 months), never ate any veggies, and often went to bed hungry (because we wouldn't offer him an alternative). We always had to bring food with us, because he wouldn't eat anything served in a restaurant. Then we decided to try a different approach: you must try everything on your plate to get down from the table, you must eat everything on your plate to get dessert. If we are having food that is way out of the question (Indian food, for example), we make a separate meal for him. It was very tough to make this transition - there were a lot of dinner time fights the first week or so. But then within a couple of weeks he had added three new things he would eat for dinner, and would clean his plate when he was hungry enough to want dessert (often he still decides he doesn't want to eat...which is OK and we don't press the issue...as long as he takes one bite of everything). He is still considered very picky by everyone...but at least we can take him out to dinner and find at least a couple of things on the menu he will eat. At at least he will try new food, and will occasionally find one he likes!

I found one chapter "Not to Worry" to be of help to me. There I found a reassuring word about all of the typical reasons why parents worry about their children not eating. That said, I found the first three chapters to run on about nothing relating to the title of the book. Perhaps parents of older toddlers and preschoolers would find this book helpful. But as the mother of a "typical" 18-month old, I was completely appalled by the instruction to use a "restraint such as a harness tethered to the back of the high chair" and "a firm mechanical restraint will give the child few choices to do the wrong thing" terrible advice and, frankly, I was a little concerned that the author had been advising patients for many years as a pediatrician. It was then that I decided the best place for this book was in the trash!

I am a mom of 4 and nana to 2 and I run a daycare. The information in this book is incredible. I learned alot and I have been feeding kids for over 20 years. Even if your kid is not a picky eater yet because they are still young this is a book every mom or grandma could use. I cook for 6 kids, 3 meals a day and it's always a pleasant experience because of what I've learned. Great buy!

I bought this book to prevent my child from becoming a picky eater. I use the general philosophy of the author with my home daycare and have recommended this method to other parents and providers with great success. I had one boy who at almost 3 yrs old came to my daycare literally throwing up at the sight of carrots. His mom read this book after I told her to and both of us implemented the plan. In two weeks time he was eating all food put in front of him and asking for seconds - even on carrots!

This book has a lot of good qualities-- well organized, clearly written, discusses medical causes of poor eating, says not to verbally pressure to eat, and not to use bribes to eat. That's why I was all the more shocked and appalled when I realized what the author's basic recommendation is -- use hunger to force children to eat. The child gets a large portion of a favored food and small portions of other foods. The portion of the favored food should NOT be large enough to satisfy the child's hunger. They get seconds only if they eat everything on their plate. So, if the child won't eat foods that they don't want to eat, they leave the table hungry!