And I should note that my kids aren't terribly picky eaters. I think acs is right that some kids are just easier with food than others, and no amount of tricks, cajoling or techniques will change some of those tough cases. I always feel like parents get blamed for that: those who feed their kids nothing but McNuggets from birth deserve it, but those poor parents who are doing everything they can to teach good eating and are just stuck with kids who won't eat are unfairly blamed.
I certainly think more of this is hard-wired than I had originally thought. Before DS was on solids, I was rather confident and smug that I would not have one of those picky eaters. DH and I eat tons of healthy foods, lots of fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, hardly any processed foods and that would just be what DS ate too because there weren't other options in the house. It seemed so easy.
And what was the punishment for my smugness? A kid who gagged when he even touched a noodle with his hands. A kid who looked sceptically at anything new, a child who could discern a submicroscopic green speck a mile a way, a child who lived almost exclusively on milk products, bread, apple sauce, and bananas for the first 8 years of his life. But an energetic, happy, tall, thin, kid who never gets sick. Go figure!
