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Fussy and Faddy Eating in Toddlers
Most toddlers have good and bad days with feeding. Food refusal is a normal part of many toddlers’ development while others may have a more extreme reaction to new foods or touch, taste and smell. The information in this section explains how parents and carers can best feed their toddler and how to manage difficulties.
Use our Toddler Meal planning tool to ensure your 1-4 years old receives a balanced diet every day.
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Use our toddler food tracker to check that your 1-4 year olds are getting a good balance of foods and activity
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This educational programme for frontline professionals contains a range of practical resources on infant feeding.
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Toddler food refusal
Most parents will struggle at some point to get their toddlers to eat certain foods. Is toddler food refusal a sign of an eating disorder. or is it merely a phase? In the run up to Eating Disorder Awareness Week, Gill Harris provides practical advice to help parents tackle fussy eating in toddlers.
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Why Toddlers Refuse Food
Food refusal is a normal phase that most toddlers pass through. Fear of new foods in the second year may be a survival mechanism to prevent increasingly mobile toddlers from poisoning themselves through eating anything and everything. For some time toddlers may limit the variety of foods they eat.
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How to Manage Simple Faddy Eating in Toddlers
Learning to eat is like any other learning process – it takes time. As parents there are a number of things you can do to help to ensure that you and your toddler will, once again, be able to enjoy food together.
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How to Cope When Your Child Shows Extreme Food Refusal
Some toddlers have an innate, or inborn, resistance to eating a wide range of foods. They may have extreme anxiety about trying new foods (strongly neophobic) or have an extreme reaction to the different senses, touch, taste and smell (sensory-sensitive).
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How to Broaden Your Child’s Food Experience
Some toddlers haven’t had enough experience with solid textured foods in their first year. They may only eat pureed food or ‘easy’ bite and dissolve foods like Skips or Quavers. Because they have not learnt to move food around in their mouth, they are frightened by food that needs to be chewed.
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