Has your toddler developed a very strong preference for one specific food? If so, don’t panic – it will not last forever and they will be okay. A few months ago, I had read an article about toddlers and their eating habits. After reading the article, I gave thanks that at that time Dylan was a very good eater and would eat almost anything that was served at the table. A few weeks ago, I found myself giving thanks that I had read the aforementioned article because Mr. Balanced Diet suddenly developed a very strong food preference – for oatmeal.
If Dylan were serving the meals in our home, we would eat oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. I am not sure exactly how this came to be, but like many toddler behaviors that arise out of the blue, one morning he woke up and wanted oatmeal for breakfast. Luckily, he likes his oatmeal plain and simple – old fashioned oats with milk and a little butter with no sweetener of any kind. At lunch time, he requested it again and I explained that we eat different kinds of foods throughout the day so that our bodies can be healthy and strong. That worked, and we ate our tuna melts and sliced tomatoes without incident.
At dinner time, I made pasta with meatballs and salad. Previously, that had been a meal he enjoyed but not that night. While I sat and ate it, he picked at his plate and pouted. After I had finished eating, we went and played a bit before bed time. At bed time, he refused to go to bed until I made him a bowl of oatmeal. Of course I knew that he was hungry because he had not eaten dinner, so I did serve him the oatmeal. I also knew that that could be the beginning of a period of time where his diet would be somewhat out of balance for a while.
Fortunately, the article that I had read, along with other information from other sources that I had researched during his nap time, had given me the reassurance to know that it’s okay if a toddler eats a large amount of one food for a period of time, as long as the food is nutritious. What is more important to me than enforcing the usual “you will eat what mom and dad eat” policy was making sure that Dylan ate enough food that day, even if oatmeal made up two of his meals. A few weeks later, Dylan still eats a lot of oatmeal but much of the time I can balance it out with a variety of snacks and many of our regular meals.