Here's What to Do If Your Toddler Won't Eat

Finally, your precious toddler is giving up the bottle for food. He or she is enjoying the new colors and textures. But one day, your toddler refuses to eat a single piece of food. Mother panics. What is wrong with her darling toddler?

Probably nothing. As a mother of two, a grandmother of three and an author of a book for moms, I can tell you cycles of refusing food is natural. True, it is a cycle geared to give a mother heart failure or at least a serious case of frustration, but a normal human cycle nonetheless.

So what is this all about? Why does the toddler refuse to eat at times or eat one food to the exclusion of all others, and what can mother do about it?

As a mother, we worry about our children. This is natural and good. When something out of the ordinary happens, we worry. We worry most if this is our first child and everything is new, strange and more than a little scary.

If your toddler has been eating OK, do the usual mother check. Does your toddler have a fever, seem listless, in pain or flushed? If your toddler is over all contented and healthy, chances are, he/she is going through a new phase of growth. Your toddler may be more interested in the feel of food than the process of eating it. May be more thrilled with smearing and throwing than ingesting.

Forcing a child at this stage to eat, only ends in frustration and a war of wills that, too often, mother loses. Every loss for mother makes the next battle even more difficult.

If your toddler seems healthy, yet refuses to eat, don't stress and don't panic. At this point, too many mothers begin to think that any food is better than no food. They are so afraid their precious toddler will starve, many take out the ice cream or offer food with little nutritional value and tempt their toddler with junk food. The worst time to feed a toddler junk food is when they don't want to eat.

Since their food intact is already reduced, what toddlers do eat needs to be highly nutritional-not junk food. The earlier you start feeding junk food, the earlier your child will gain a taste for and prefer that which harms and does not build strong minds or bodies.

Instead, offer nutritious foods, preferably finger foods your toddler can handle on his/her own. Praise your toddler when he/she does eat, but don't try to force feed. Allow your toddler time to feel, smell, enjoy getting to "know" his/her food. Even throwing it is exciting at this juncture. And, often, your toddler is ingesting more food than you realize.

Know that our children periodically go through growth cycles where they'll eat everything in sight and cycles where food simply does not appeal. Once you as a mother realize these cycles are perfectly normal, you can relax and "go with the flow."

When your child is hungry offer appealing nutritious foods. When your child goes on a hunger strike, have nutritious food available. Know that whichever phase your child, from toddler-hood on, is in, this too shall pass.

Your toddler won't eat? Stay cool. Make sure your toddler is not ill. Allow your toddler the time to enjoy the food, even if he/she doesn't consume it, and provide nutritious foods for the times your toddler will eat. Most of all know, this is but a cycle, it is normal, and will soon pass.