Has anyone successfully improved picky eating?

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haha, well i blame my appetite on coming from a double whammy aspie family and having cousins that are definitely on the spectrum. From like 5 (we're talking mid 80s, parents weren't so worried), we'd be off down the fields that faced my cousins house, jumping the brook, playing games, exploring. Lol, i can't remember us talking much, we'd fight occasionally but ive got a suspicion that we did a lot in complete silence. We just did it for fun. That endlessly built up my appetite. Even the cousin that turned out to be low functioning when we grew up ( i can't say i ever noticed, he's just another person), didn't have appetite problems.

Both of my bots are extraordinarily picky eaters; Eldest has a PB&J sandwich for breakfast, lunch, and dinner most days. We went through about a week where he wanted nothing but ham and cheese; now he doesn't want to touch it.

Youngest is just as bad, with an even more limited selection. But! He'll eat just about any sandwich, as long as it's MINE. I can make him a pastrami sandwich and he won't go near it, but make one for myself? He'll insist on alternating bites with me.

"Bite, please! Bite, please!"

Drives his mother crazy, that.

Drives me nuts when youngest does this to me... I make the boys something to eat, clean up the kitchen, fix myself something and when I finally sit down to eat, he wants to eat mine! I guess it bothers me becasue by that time I'm really hungry and feeling a little cranky. Just made me realize that I should focus a little more on myself and then it might not bother me so much!

I used to be quite a picky eater. My parents kept insisting that I try everything. Eventually, I gave in and started trying stuff and even found some of them to be quite nice. Ever since I turned 11 or something, I've been becoming a more and more normal eater.

Lol, this is a very normal childhood phase. It's my NT daughter who did it big time. If you flow with it, it can definitely help broaden their paletes.

This morning we got a veggie box delivery for the first time in quite a while, and that reminded of another thing that has helped my kids. Anything that comes out of the box is pronounced good and worth trying; it's the magic of the box. It comes to our doorstep, that is the first thing. And it's all stuff that comes from relatively local farms, organic, etc., so it really does usually have more flavor, and they've sent us lots of things we had never thought to try. I don't think the box would be magic if we got one every week, but our schedule is closer to once a month, so it always seems like a surprise treat.

I think maybe ages 8 or 9 and so are up are good ages for something like that, just as they start slowly to be willing to expand again.

Both my kids started expanding their tastes rapidly right around age 11, too. I really think it's normal childhood phases.

Both my kids do this too...any time they see me eating something they come running. They don't always eat it once I give them some, though.

I do think that by constantly forcing me to at least try the food, they made me a less picky eater. I know several very picky eaters in my life, and they lack the "always try something first" mentality.

It can vary by person, perhaps. But I got forced to try; still picky. And I have all sorts of eating issues, to boot; for a variety of reasons, I lost the natural, instinctive relationship people are supposed to have with food.

My kids are heavily encouraged, but never forced ... They are doing really well now with a "try it" attitude, AND they have a healthy relationship with food. Very natural, instinctive, eaters.

Our newest strategy is the creation of book mark sized earnings charts. If she eats 5 new foods the book mark works as a coupon for a cookie from the health food store.

For her this is a pretty big deal since she's gluten intolerant and the health food store has a wide selection of gluten free cookies. Choosing from a selection of store bought treats is a huge incentive.

If anyone knows of any good books, please PM me.

Not for me. My hunger sense is really wonky - I don't actually feel hungry per say, instead I feel dizzy and have a stomachache. And I get extremely irritable, which cranks my sensory sensitivities up to maximum, and therefore makes me even more picky. (Part of this is blood sugar issues.)

I often need to eat a bit of something unhealthy but very yummy just to get my head to clear enough so I can have a proper meal. Things like marshmellows or handfuls of icing sugar (I have an extreme sweet tooth, put enough sugar on almost anything and I'll like it.)

In terms of picky eating and age, my pickiness has been pretty much stable over time, but the foods I like and dislike have changed. As a baby, it was very hard for my mother to convince me to drink any kind of milk other than breast milk, but I would eat olives and lemons and beets. Throughout middle childhood, I had a very strong dislike of anything sour (and didn't believe Mom when she said I used to eat lemons!) and hated dark chocolate - but I would eat chicken tenders. Now dark chocolate and sour candies are among my favorites, but I hate chicken tenders, along with bread, cooked vegetables (raw are fine), and especially mushrooms. (Most foods if you pick off the offending bit I'll eat the rest, but if even one mushroom is present the entire dish is ruined for me.)

I've never been down to a countable number of different foods, though. Instead what bothers me is how unpredictable my tastes are. Once, I got my parents to name as many foods as they liked and I put them into categories of 'like', 'hate' and 'OK', and at the end tried to see if I could spot some common features to predict what I'd like and dislike. There were tendencies, but every rule had several exceptions. Which is really annoying because it means when someone else, planning to prepare food for me, asks what I can eat, I can't just give the person a general rule. I have to hear every meal and individually OK or veto it.

I the mom of 3 either current or formerly picky eaters. Here's what I do:

My 6 year old son (HFA) used to have extreme tactile sensitivity but didn't have the motor skills needed to use a fork, so I put everything I could on a skewer stick. Surprisingly, he's the only one of our kids who actually liked everything we gave him (still does!)...he just couldn't touch it

My 9 year old son and 6 year old step-daughter (both NT) are a different story. DS will grow up to be a food critic, I'm sure. I'm a professional chef and apparently have raised a monster. He will pick apart the food, take tiny bites, and critique the recipe!
DD on the other hand barely eats and says she doesn't like anything.

Anyway...the rule in our house is that you must at least take a bite of your food and if you don't eat it then you are choosing to go hungry until the next meal. No snacks in between!

I reward them when they demonstrate good eating habits by allowing them to choose a healthy meal for the family one night a week.

DD is the only one we still have frequent problems with, though. At least half the time she chooses to go without dinner and then cries for dessert or snacks later

I never force my eleven year old Aspergerian son to try anything. I refuse to stress him out over food. He is given the opportunity to try whatever he wants and when he chooses to try something he always smells it first to determine whether he wants to try or not. If it passes the smell test (he is EXTREMELY scent sensitive) then he will take a tiny, tiny bite. If it passes the tiny, tiny bite test he will eat a bigger bite. He doesn't often add to his limited list of what he will eat although once in a while he will eat something that I had no idea he eats - just about four months ago I discovered he will eat a taco shell with taco flavored meat in it. He does have a sweet tooth so we have to watch that he doesn't fill up on snacks and chips and such. He likes to cook and has a wonderful method of cooking bacon - fork in one hand, spatula in the other to smash the grease out of the bacon, LOL! It's adorable to watch. But, as I said I will not stress him out about food. He will either have a wide range of food or he won't. He eats and he's healthy so I'm not concerned about him. Also I give vitamins every morning to help supplement what he won't eat - for instance he refuses to drink milk and won't eat any vegetables or fruit so I have to sneak those in somehow and vitamins help round him out.

I used to do the same thing with mom's ice tea. She would make me ice tea and I would not drink it, but hers was sooo much more resfreshing. I dont know why,

Your approach is, IMHO, correct.

I have and had sensitivities to food (taste, smell and textures) and grew up in the 1960s. Mealtime in schools and at home were a nightmare as everyone called me picky and accused me of deliberately refusing to try things. My parents never showed any sensitivity to me and tried to force me to eat things. I would have long hours of sitting at the table not eating the thing I was supposed to eat. I do not eat almost anything with condiments. I cannot stand the smell of boiled cabbage. Vinegar is repulsive to me. Sour, bitter and spicy tastes are things I mostly avoid (done a little better with mild spicy over time). I didn't eat a lot of steak but when I did -- it had to be well done. Oddly enough I now want it more toward the rare side. I do not like tomatoes and only could eat pizza or spaghetti if there is plenty of cheese. There are still numerous foods I won't go near. I also had the aversion to having different foods to touch each other.

Some of the sensitivities have dulled over the years. I broadened my taste often by having something accompanied with something else I liked such as cheese over it. It also helped to have people with positive attitudes encourage rather than belittle.

I did not understand my issues until I dealt with my son in the late 1990s when I discovered the sensitivities. I really wish I had know about this before and that my parents had been more like you. I am trying to be that way to my son. He has a limited diet even though he likes a lot more tastes that I do. He can eat a lemon slice. He likes mustard and ketchup. He eats tomatoes. But he still limits what he eats and things he used to eat, he doesn't eat anymore. I try to respect it and never make it a fight. I do ask him to be more open minded and a couple of times I've gotten him to add something significant to his diet such as teryaki chicken with rice and vegetables.

I live with an autistic kid every other week. He is extremely picky about food, and "extreme" is not an exaggeration. Recently he's been eating more variety though.

Here is what seems to work:

* Rewarding for trying one item of X food. Example: Eat a mini-oreo and get to play an X-box game for a few hours.

* Another type of reward: Buy an especially coveted toy and explicitly tell the child, "You get to play with this when you eat X". Then it goes up in a high closet. Do not bring out the toy until X food is eaten. We did this and he didn't make it through the first try, but a few weeks later he volunteered and was a real trooper, eating food he obviously did not like. Yes, he got his toy.

* Similar foods - gluten free version of graham crackers or rice crispies, chocolate versions of vanilla cookies. Or just different brands of the same thing.

* Bland foods with pleasing texture - like Veggie Straws, which are crunchy without being too strong in flavor.