Tips for When Kids Won’t Eat Dinner

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Have you ever spent hours planning, grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning, all leading up to your kids won’t eat dinner? Or feeling like they won’t eat anything you cook? Don’t you worry– we’ve all been there. But what do we do?

Many times this leads parents to me asking the question – what am I doing wrong? 

My answer: 

Nothing! Child refusal of meals is completely normal. Although we wish we could control every aspect of our children’s meal times and intakes, more often than not their eating is unpredictable and random.

So, as parents– a better question may be, what can we do to promote children’s acceptance of meals we have prepared?

Kids won’t eat dinner? Here’s some tips

• Serve smaller portions. Smaller portions can be more attractive to children when new foods are present. 
• Include safe foods. Children can be more accepting of meals if they see a food they know they will like on their plate. 
• Involve children in the cooking and/or meal planning. If children feel included in the planning process they can be more excited to later eat the meal. 
• Try family-style. This gives children feelings of autonomy, and allows them to add adventurous items, in portions they want. Be sure to use child size serving spoons.
• Model behaviors. Encourage intuitive eating by modeling this for your children– it’s okay to not finish everything on your plate. 
• Avoid bribery, shaming, or punishment in the food environment. This can impact a child’s relationship with food greatly and can be counterproductive to increase acceptance of meals. 
• Promote mealtime routines. This helps set expectations for meal times and create a positive eating environment. 
• Minimize mealtime distractions. Try to keep the child’s primary focus on the food in front of them. 
• Maintain schedule consistency. Avoiding snack times close to meal times can increase children’s intake at dinner time. If they need a snack, set out some fruit or vegetables!
• Make it fun. Food is fun! Cutting new foods into fun shapes and using many different colors are examples of a creative way to excite your child about the food on their plate. 
• Have a backup plan. We can’t win them all! Have a backup plan that is nutritious and requires little preparation such as applesauce, banana, or yogurt. I often keep these at the table (or at least one of them) so that they can add it to their meal and stay at the table longer.
• Put it on your plate. Sometimes children are more willing to try new foods if they think it is ‘yours’ but also this models that even if you don’t like a food, you’re willing to be exposed to it on your plate. 
• Talk to them about food. By opening up dialogue about the food on their plate, children may be more open to trying the foods. Use neutral language and highlight your different senses!
• Expose children to foods. Exposure can occur in preparation steps, or discussion, allowing them to become more familiar with new foods before they appear on their plate. It’s not all about tasting the food, it can also be about smelling, looking at, playing with, or licking the food.
• Seating Matters. The way kids are seated at the table matters, did you know that dangling feet can be an issue? add a stool or elastic band around the legs of your chairs for your children to rest their feet.

Things to Remember:

This is not a comprehensive plan to get your child to eat every meal you prepare. Different strategies will work in different households– and for different children for that matter. 

Although this can be SO frustrating at times, I like to remind parents, and myself, to focus on the bigger picture. 

We cannot be perfect and honestly, perfection is not the best goal to work towards. However, we do want to do our best to help our children always maintain a healthy relationship with food, and learn how to understand and trust their personal internal hunger cues.

We also want meal times to remain fun, and without conflict. I’ve encountered a handful of battles myself. Toddler experiences at the dinner table can have a big impact in their lives. 

One of my dietetic interns shared a story with me of why she avoided carrots until young adult life. 

When she was very young, she was required to stay put at the dinner table until she either ate 10 carrots or took a shot of carrot juice following dinner. While good intentioned, this led to a very long avoidance of carrots and carrot containing products, and prolonged other picky eating habits. 

So, stay calm and patient! Focus on controlling only the aspects of meal time you can. There are many reasons why children might not be interested in the meal you have prepared. 

Why Do My Children Not Want to Eat My Food? 

Children sometimes won’t eat if they are feeling tired, distracted, unable to recognize familiar foods on their plate, or a variety of other reasons. Sometimes children simply just are not hungry. 

During dinner time, I have watched my toddlers move around the items on his plate, without wanting to actually put anything in their mouths. Then after I have cleaned up dinner, and put away all leftover food, he comes to me asking for a snack. What can I do here? 

This is when it becomes extra important to take a deep breath. It can feel so frustrating when a child does not want to eat your food. 

It can also be very concerning for parents who can’t help but start to worry that their child is getting adequate nutrients and calories. Implementing some of these tips can help increase your child’s acceptance for meals. 

You can save their dinner plate and bring it right back out telling them that this is the snack. I do encourage you to make sure they have enough of something on the plate that you know they like. We always add a food like toast, yogurt, or fruit if they’ve passed on dinner but are ready for snack time immediately after.

As with all nutrition, there is a ton of nuance to consider. Please feel free to leave a comment with your questions or concerns!

Why should I try to expose my child to more foods? 

Again, children’s eating habits can at times be random and unpredictable. Remember to be patient. 

Exposing children to new foods again and again, can lead to greater acceptability when they recognize the food on their plate. 

Exposures can include: talking about this food, pointing this food out in the grocery store, or having your child wash this food during preparation. A great way to do this is to have your child help you in the kitchen, creating the perfect combination of chaos and fun. 

The more familiar the food feels to the child the better. Research shows it can take up to 15-20+ exposures for a child to accept a food, so don’t take it personally– it may take a while. 

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, children have final say in whether they eat, and how much they eat. As parents, we do not need to be perfect, we do our best to support our child’s autonomy and foster a positive relationship with food. You choose when, where, and what to serve but it’s their job to decide what and how much they eat.

Food is fuel, pleasure, fun, exciting and sometimes scary – and your meal times are their safe space to explore new foods, and express their feelings towards food. 

So, include them in the planning and preparation when possible, and be flexible with their unpredictable requests and cravings. You can always try again tomorrow.

If there are any other topics you would like to hear more about please let me know. Also make sure to join my mailing list where you can find free resources for family meal times, meal planning, picky eating and more.

Let me know in the comments which tips help you the most!