2 year old picky eater Help please

[Amstar]

we are heading down to WDW in August. We have alot of sit down dinners planned and my 2 yr old is very picky eater. We have no worries for breakfast or lunch foods (its just the dinners)

we will not have a car while staying there.

what are some good ideas to pack in a carry-on to bring with us? what have you brought that has helped (snacks, food etc?)

 

[cam&phoebsmom]

when you say picky eater what do you mean?

at most restaurants on-site there are very "tame" options that many would consider "typical" kids' food.

We are lucky that our kids will eat anything so that is a worry we have not had to deal with, but some of our friends have. They have never had a problem at WDW.

If you list some of the things your kiddo will eat it may be easier to help

 

[shanab99]

Some TS places will also cook something "special" for your LO that's not on the menu like mac 'n cheese or chicken nuggets. We've brought goldfish crackers and pretzels for the little ones to snack on-- they travel well. Bring a bunch of ziploc baggies too. Another thing I like to bring are those squeezable fruit/veggie combos you can get in Target (I think they're called Happy Tot). My little girl loves them, and she also likes the act of squeezing them in her mouth. That way, I can be assured she gets a serving of veg/fruit every day. Pack them in your carry-on, though as they may explode in the area under the plane. Good luck! I'm still hoping my 5-year-old picky eater will come around one day.

 

[msd1962]

We have a 9 month old that is eating everything we give her, except prunes, but do not blame her. When your kids were infants did you try lots of different foods or did you stick to 3 or 4 tried and true foods?

We are trying to see if we are messing up by offering so much variety or if we are doing the right thing. Trying not to have a mac and cheese, chicken nuggets or hotdogs only child.

As for menus go to the disney/resturant web pages and they have menus for children at most places and they look pretty good.

 

[NYEmomma]

My DD will hoover just about anything you put in front of her (except for eggs & watermelon) so I don't have a whole lot of experience with feeding a picky eater. If I did though, I'd probably ask for just a plate of plain noodles at Italian places since I don't know ANY kid that doesn't love noodles with just butter on them.

I also know that there's several places in MK at least that have Uncrustables. You could always buy one at the cart or CS place that has them and bring them into the TS restaurant with you.

 

[Megkel]

I have a picky eater, a habit she picked up from her father. The good news is she is now 5 years old and her new thing is trying new foods! We tell her she should try everything once, and if she doesn't like it she won't be asked to eat it again. She has realized she likes Ranch dressing, salad, salsa, cheese dip, pasta sauce, and a few other things. It's really funny to watch her tell her picky Dad to try new things!

As other posters have said Disney offers something for even the most picky child (or husband). We have never had a problem recieving noodles without sauce, pizza without sauce, or anything else those two could come up with. She loved the grapes with the kids meal probably more than fries. She would usually eat a corn dog, hot dog, pizza, or plain hamburger. I don't remember seeing anything too weird on the kids menu.

I would suggest grapes if you bring your own car or can get to the store. You can freeze them and eat them as you go through the park. If he doesn't like grapes really any fruit is a great choice. It will help keep him hydrated and make sure he has more than ice cream the whole trip! I also brought cereal dry in ziplock bags, gummys, mini marshmallows, and granola is also a good choice.

Good Luck with your picky eater and on your trip!

 

[PiperPizzaz]

I have a picky kid too. Yes, we tried everything. When he was a baby he ate very healthy but, suddenly stopped eating around 15 mos. He will eat chicken nuggets but, that is probably the only 'kid' food. He doesn't eat mac and cheese (or actually ANY noodles) and hot dogs are his cryptonite, lol. We do take crackers but, usually we can find something he can eat part of. He will do pizza and a lot of places have pizza.

 

[Maggie'sMom]

It's hard to say without knowing your child and their likes/dislikes. My DD is a picky eater mainly due to sensory issues. Some snacks I have packed for her on our WDW trips are: goldfish crackers, granola bars, Disney themed fruit snacks, and Cheerios. DD likes pistachio nuts so I've packed those for her before, but that's something that not every picky eater would eat.

For sit down meals, I review the menus before booking ADRs to make sure there is at least something that DD will eat. The problem is, even if it's something she will eat reliably at home, she won't always eat it out at a restaurant. She tends to eat good breakfasts. Lunches are pretty dicey. By dinner, she's usually hungry enough I can get something decently healthy like fruit and salad. One thing I do to reduce stress on both of us is to relax my expectations for her eating on vacation. If all she wants to eat at a meal is ice cream, then I let her. I would never let her do that at home, but vacation is different.

 

[nchulka]

When bringing snacks like goldfish, animal crackers, etc. buy some small Ziploc disposable containers instead of ziploc baggies. The snacks don't get crushed inside your backpack then, and each day you can just wipe them out and reuse them.

 

[ClaireW]

My DD got fussy for quite a while but that didn't mean she only wanted 'typical' kids food. We were better off picking meals for ourselves with items we knew she might share or going for buffets. All the WDW buffets offer a range and at the end of the day we were happier letting her eat as much/little as she wanted and rounding it out with snacks that we knew she liked (grapes, cheerios, etc).
BTW it's got better as she's got older, with no big fuss made, just kept on providing lots of variety and encouraging very gently, now she's often pleasantly surprised if she tries something she's convinced she won't like! Hopefully your fussy eater will turn a corner too at some point

 

[cam&phoebsmom]

We have a 9 month old that is eating everything we give her, except prunes, but do not blame her. When your kids were infants did you try lots of different foods or did you stick to 3 or 4 tried and true foods?

We are trying to see if we are messing up by offering so much variety or if we are doing the right thing. Trying not to have a mac and cheese, chicken nuggets or hotdogs only child.

IMO opinion you are doing the right thing. We decided that when my DS was little we were purposely avoiding things like hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and mac and cheese. We never made special meals for our son when he was little, we just chopped up what we were eating very small and let him go to town. As 1st time parents we were so worried that we would have a "hot dog" kid that I don't think he had a hot dog until he was around 3, LOL.

When our DD came long we had relaxed a little, but still made sure she just ate what we ate. So far so good-I have kids that will try just about anything (this summer they ate alligator at a restaurant and though it was hilarious).
We also grow a small container garden in the backyard so it is exciting for them to eat what they grew, and they both help cook sothey get used to using spices. The only downside to having nonpicky kids is that hwen we go out to eat my son ends up ordering from the adult menu b/c he does not want the kids' options. His favorite is crabmeat, but luckily living in MD we can often get a crabcake apetizer for him and not break the bank, LOL.

I know some kids have issues that really prevent them from having a large range of food choices. But many of my friends just started serving "kid food" very early and now it is a struggle for them to get out that habit.
Good luck!

 

[ktlm]

DD was very picky at age 2 and 3. You might want to consider using Garden Grocer and having some of her favorite things delivered to your room upon arrival. That is what we have done on our trips when she was those ages. We ordered her usual favorites in fresh fruits, fruit cups, raisins, cereals, snacks, juice, along with bottled water for all of us for the room and parks etc. Since she is not a morning person, other than a Tusker House breakfast on AK day, we would do breakfast in the room with her eating her usuals and DH getting resort CS for us. That way we also had things in the room that she could snack on when we got back at night if she had turned her nose up at dinner. We took little boxes of raisins into the parks with us for snacks while standing in line, or in case she refused to eat her meals.


As far as restaurants, for some reason Biergarten has always been a huge hit with her. That kid eats more there than anywhere else. Crystal Palace was another one where we found several things she liked. At 2, the buffets are also a great option because she will be free for buffets until she is 3. Other restaurants, you will have to pay for her meal (or let her eat off your plate...which there was no way I was going to order and limit MY food around what picky DD might want to eat; plus she was independent and wanted her own meal; and she was in the over 95% of height and weight at age 2, and if I ordered a meal that she turned out to love, there was not going to be enough for both of us!). We found that she ate better at lunch because in the evenings she would be a little tired.

Just a warning, if yours is a chicken nugget kid, mine had never met a chicken nugget she did not like until she got the ones from the kid's menu at WDW. She completely turned her nose up at them and we tried them in more than one place. I tasted them and I have to agree they were pretty nasty.

It would really help if you would give us an idea of what your child will eat. We had a real problem finding things DD would eat at most WDW CS, because she was not much of a "kid food" eater other than her beloved chicken nuggets. She would not eat the WDW chicken nuggets because they were nasty; hated hamburgers and hot dogs; would not eat mac and cheese; hated the disney peanut butter and jelly things that came in a bag; Disney only has Pepperoni and cheese pizza and she only ate sausage pizza at that age, etc. We had much better luck at the buffets and at TS. Tony's, Mama Melrose, Chef's de France, were big hits menu wise because they had pasta dishes. Akershus was another big hit because they had grilled chicken.

 

[mum1]

Oh this is interesting because I've been mentally planning what to give my picky-eating-kid when we're at WDW. He's two and is stuck on hotdogs and meatballs. LOL The only veggie he likes is peas/peapods. He loves fruit (grapes, apples, bananas, and strawberries) and I keep a hefty stock on all of those. He does like pizza, but takes the cheese off. He likes nuggets but isn't a huge fan. Grilled cheese is even awkward for him. And pasta?! Nope! He LOVES rice though, plain white rice.

So my plan is, bring healthy snacks and try not to be concerned over meals. We'll see how well the plan holds up...

ps- He used to eat GREAT as an infant, but somewhere around 13 months he didn't want to eat the veggies he loved anymore. As for meats, I think it's a texture thing for him. The pediatrician says processed foods are just easier for toddlers to munch on. With that said, my DH is also a picky eater so we are not always serving the best choice of meals either. I do try to encourage different greens every now and then, but if I do it every night, I feel like I'm banging my own head against a wall. I've learned to back off a little and realized that my kid will have plenty of time to figure out what he likes and doesn't like. I give those parents high fives for not introducing 'kid-foods', you are truely lucky you haven't had to resort to those foods just to get the kids to eat.

 

[Zeebs]

My kids don't get a chance to be picky at home I don't run a restuarant so they eat what we eat and I have one that eats no complaints and another that makes a chore of his meal every night but he eats it eventually because he knows he will go to bed hungry or if he doesn't attempt to eat a reasonable amount at the meal time there will be NO snacks for him or pudding etc.

That said on holiday we find it quite hard, because we have snacks as it is part of the trip, we eat at places that serve fries with everything (he loves fries) and the kids meals quite frankly suck for selection. So I kind of give up and if he only wants fries and pizza for 2 weeks then so be it, it won't kill him and he knows that when we get home he will be back to eating what he is given.

He does eat a huge amount of fruit and things like carrot sticks, red pepper (capiscums) cucumber so I know he is getting some healthy stuff in his diet. As I will have this stuff in our fridge at the townhouse and we will eat in sometimes and he will get a home cooked meal.

The baby so far at 10 months eats everything you put in front of her and it is the same as we have except salad - I let them off salad until they are older LOL.

Kirsten

 

[elilala]

Don't worry about it! We took my cousin, who is autistic and basically only eats chips, fries, tater tots, and the occasional banana, to WDW, and we were worried about the same thing that you are. But while we were there, we told our waiter/waitress about his pickiness, and they would go out to get french fries or anything from another booth or restaraunt in the parak. We were absolutely amazed at that, but it was fabulous. I'm sure they deal with your sort of situation every day, and it won't be an issue to go out of the way a little bit to make your stay more relaxed