I'm wondering if anyone has had trouble getting a highly gifted + baby/toddler to eat. When I related our experience to the mother of a PG maths prodigy she was relived to hear she wasn't alone in this experience and I'm interested to hear if it may be a trait of some HG+ kids.

My daughter, just over 2 yrs, is definitely not food-motivated. She is not picky and likes a wide variety of foods, including vegetables, beans, tofu, highly seasoned foods, all the things little kids are supposed to hate. But she just doesn't focus on eating all that much.

I don't know if it's an attentional issue (eating bores her?) or not. I do remember when she was 1+, it took forever to get food into her. She would eat one bean, run around the kitchen for an entire minute, come back to me, eat one more bean . . . In contrast, her friend who is exactly the same age would sit in her chair and pack it away, and still does.

These days I don't really work at getting her to eat, I just offer frequently throughout the day, and allow her to eat out of my bowl, sitting in my lap, which she finds more interesting (a behavior that I didn't intend on allowing at this age). Also relevant, we are still nursing, which she loves. I sometimes wonder how much of her calories is still coming from that.

Anyway, here's one more data point for your theory!

I would have started with just letting him eat when he wanted. I really think that it would have worked, if you had stuck with it. I think you have gone in the opposite direction by allowing your son to have books, his calculator, puzzles, etc.-- and you've even read to him! This is active distraction from eating.

Without being judgmental, and as a layperson, I suspect that this is largely or wholly a training problem (although I certainly do believe that some children tend naturally to be less robust eaters, though those same children would respond to training). Children simply do not need stimulation other than their food during the eating process, and it may distract them. (How many children in the world would skip a meal to play video games, as a simple example? Are their internal appetite mechanisms broken, or have they been trained badly, through passivity or otherwise?) I would start by making mealtimes just about eating. I would also see a doctor to check whether there is something wrong with the functioning of the appestat in all of your children, if you continue to think that they will consistently refuse to eat when there is a lack of distracting stimuli at the dinner table.

In terms of combating pickiness, I have read and believe that you may have to introduce a new food just once or many times, depending on the little one and other training factors at work. So one thing you can try is repeatedly presenting a new food and providing genuine encouragement to eat it, which of course may include you eating the new food in front of them. If you or your mate are picky eaters, you must not display those behaviors in front of the children.

In training kids to be non-picky eaters, you should search out new and wacky foods for them to try, to enlarge the horizon of what they'll consider. Be positive and consistent. Make mealtimes just mealtimes. I think it will work, but it may take some time undoing their current habits.

My wife's side of the family is full of picky eaters, and my DS4 started exhibiting some similar traits until I realized he was picking it up from her. Today he's a ravenous little omnivore. The only thing in recent memory that he refused to eat was octopus in its own ink from a can, and that only after trying it-- and after I tried it I almost hurled myself.

Eh, my kid has food issues, for sure, but I've always refused to make them my issues. She either eats or she doesn't, and she's in charge of that. She will often help me cook, eat a bunch of the ingredients raw, and then refuse to eat even a bite when the meal is done. Some days she barely eats anything. Other days she eats more than I do. She's perfectly healthy, and a normal weight, so I'm fine with that.

I consider it my job to provide a variety of healthy foods, and she does the rest.

Oh, and she really didn't eat solid food until she was one or one and a half. She just wasn't that into it, which was fine, because I nursed her until she was 2.

It's actually healthier for a child to do this... it means his/her stomach/brain is teaching them when his/her body needs food and when it doesn't... as an overweight adult, I WISH I had this ability... ha.

Both DC can eat me out of house and home one day and absolutely nothing the next. Though we do make them sit down and eat at meal times, they are not forced to eat every single thing on their plates (though we don't put tons - rather them eat and ask for seconds than waste food). The thing we do focus on though is that they are not allowed to ask for "treats" if they did not eat a substantial amount of healthy food (at mealtime) first. DD4 is notorious for taking ONE bite and then asking for dessert!!

Oh, no we have tons of food issues around here. Let me preface this with saying I am the oldest of 13 children, the last being twins I practically raised until they were 1.5 yo as my DSS had severe postpartum depression and then chemo treatments when they were a bit older.
I know how to feed kids. MY kid, completely different. He was started out on only organic veggies and moved onto fruit etc. He was such a good little eater. Then one day around 15 mos. he threw his carrots. It was very odd. He never ate carrots again. Then it was all other veggies. Then it was all meat, rice, noodles etc. I was out of food. The only thing he would eat was bread and bananas! I got the advice to just not give him anything except the offending foods and he would eventually get hungry enough to eat them. I am not sure how long people expect a 2 year old to go without food but, after 2 days or so I had to give in! I started feeding him things I would never have just to find something he would eat. We ended up with certain types of chicken nuggets, cheese pizza (again only certain types), cheese/cheese sandwich, pb/pb sandwich, tortillas with cheese (only the wrapped type cheese) melted on it and a few fruits: bananas, apples, and oranges. He will NOT eat any vegetables. My DH won't eat any fruit he doesn't like the texture so maybe this is part of it. I don't know that I have ever met another kid that wouldn't eat mac and cheese or hot dogs, lol! He is nearly 5 and still eats like this. We have had many battles of us trying to get to eat a noodle or a bean.
I am thinking the food groups idea is a good one. We might have to try that.

I would consider the possibility of food intolerance such as gluten or casein intolerance. I've seen this identical combination of foods on the list of some kids who can't handle gluten or casein. It may seem paradoxical, but the intolerance causes the child to crave the exact food that they are least able to handle.

I thought I'd share our experience with a fussy/non-eater, in case it sounds familiar to anyone reading...

DS was exclusively breastfed until he was 6mos, but was a wind and reflux inflicted baby until around 4mos, which the Ped. put down to a general case of colic. I continued to nurse DS until he self-weaned at 1yr, and he happily ate any sort of food we gave him in addition to the breastmilk.

At around 15mos he became what I'd call picky - literally picking through his meal, only eating the corn, for example, from his plate of vegies or only the pasta sheets from his lasagna. At about this time, he contracted a nasty case of gastro-entiritis from day care. This resulted in approximately 6 months of lactose intolerance, which the Ped. said could happen after severe gastro. It seemed feasible given that by age 2, he could tolerate dairy products again with no apparent reaction. The fussiness with food though, got progressively worse. By this stage, his diet resembled that of BigBadWool's son. The Ped. said that it was just a stage DS was going through, and was not at all concerned as DS appeared as a bright, energetic, tall-for-age child at all the follow up appointments.

We moved, and consequently had to see a new Pediatrician. He took one look at our then 3.5yo DS (who to this day continues to track 97%ile for height, 90%ile weight) and ordered blood work. Turns out our son is, not so surprisingly, very anaemic. We were immediately told to start DS on a high dose iron supplement, but at the 3 month review, his latest blood results showed no improvement at all. The Ped. was so surprised, he gently asked if I'd actually given DS the medicine! So, we did another 3 months with a higher dose and alas, still no change. DS is now having monthly blood tests as any lower, and he'll probably need a blood transfusion. As passthepotatoes mentioned, the Ped. has also indicated the link between food allergies and malabsorption so DS is also undergoing testing for these, with celiac disease the front-running possibility.

My point here is, if you feel that it's more than just normal childhood "fussiness" please see your doctor. As I said, DS has a normal appetite (just not nutritionally sufficient), is not failing to thrive and he appears to get through an 8hr day at Preschool just fine. The only symptoms he has is he's extremely pale, he tires very easily doing physical activity, and if he gets sick with anything, he gets very sick.

As a final bit of "food for thought" for any supporters of the idea that parents somehow create their children's food issues - I have two children. DD has been raised in the same environment as DS, with the same parenting style, and she has always had precisely ZERO issues eating meat, vegies or anything else we dish up.

We have had issues with our DD from a very early age but from what you described I think it isn't the same. My DD has a mild case of SI and it definitely is noticeable when it comes to food. Texture was a major issue and she hated meat. We just had to be patient with her and establish some rules about dinner time. She isn't required to eat everything on her plate but she is required to at least try it. What we have noticed is a few times of trying something she will finally accept it and eat it. Even something as simple as sprinkles on a shake was met with her spitting every last one out. I couldn't even feel them when I tried her shake, but she clearly could.

Hmmm interesting, I will for sure start looking into that!

We have food issues. I don't ever/have never fought poor eating. The issue is partly sensory, partly self-consciousness, and partly altruistic. At 9mths, he suddenly spat out his minced meal and that was the end to smooth-textured meals. Till today, he won't touch mash potatoes. Then at 4yo, he turned vegetarian after we walked through a fish market. He gradually resumed eating meat several months later, but not before falling ill a lot because of his self-inflicted restricted diet.

The last one year, he has visions of growing up to be tall and thin. Well, he's currently short and thin. I've tried to tell him about the matter he requires to grow tall, but that always ruins his appetite. I HEARTILY encourage snacking at my house because of the small quantity consumed during meals, but even that is not happening. I just can't understand where he gets his energy from. I actually cook different types of meals, bake a lot, and we're all getting fat, except him. Eating, like sleeping, unfortunately, is a waste of time to him . So long as he doesn't develop major health problems that require immediate attention in terms of diet, I'll just keep trying and trying.

Nothing I wrote should be construed to discount the existence of things like food allergies. I am no expert in the field of eating disorders. I was focused on the original post, which sounds like a training problem to me. But food allergies and other physical or psychological problems could surely cause eating problems, and if you got from anything I wrote that eating problems cannot have a physical cause, I'm sorry. I certainly didn't mean to communicate that.

I guess it should also be obvious that someone can have some sort of sensory differences that could help to cause an eating disorder. (I would expect that to be quite rare, but perhaps among 2E children etc. it would be more prevalent than normal.) Even where something rare like that is present, I would not expect the environment to have zero impact. I guess that if a sensory disorder is severe, it can be quite hard to help the afflicted child eat more normally.

I also think it's obvious that someone can have a psychological or psychiatric problem that causes, partially or fully, an eating disorder.

Still, I think it should be obvious that learned behavior generally does have a great deal to do with eating habits. This may be true even where some other cause exists for an eating problem. A particular person having one fussy eater out of two, where the fussiness was caused by what sounds like a somewhat major medical issue in your case, doesn't disprove that to me. Like everything else, children are individuals and one will need to be perceptive and responsive to each one's needs.

Both of my children had/have SI/oral issues and were really late eaters. DS did not start solids until after his 1st birthday and took him until age 3 or so before he was on a normal diet. In his case- it wasn't just a case of picky eating issues- he would choke/gag on any thing that had more texture than a thick liquid. Even now at the age of 8 he still has oral issues and speech issues which he receives therapy for.

DD is just now 2 (and no clue whether she will also be "gifted" like DS) but she had the same issues only more so! She did not start on solids until 18 months and was even failure to thrive starting around 12 months. She had swallow studies done, therapy and they were even considering feeding tube for awhile! She is also still not talking -only 3-4 words, but DS was also the same with language development so I am not too concerned at this point.

Of course my children's "issues" are not the norm- but the let them eat when they eat would definitely not have worked in our case ;-). DS is a good eater now- some picky eating behaviors- but normal age appropriate ones.

When DS was 2 he connected the dots that chicken(food)=chicken(animal). That was it, can't eat meat to this day. Beef lasted only about 10 days longer, because it was steak, but once he got me to admit that steak was from a cow, that was done as well. He is 9 and continues to be horribly difficult to feed, probably some sensory things going on. Maintains reasonable height and weight though. We did have him on an elimination diet for about 6 month for a sinus issue and casein and gluten were on the list, but then his diet was so restricted we did start flirting with eating disorder stuff. I now just provide some light monitoring, "I think we're a little low on protein today". He's okay with that. Carbs and cheese are still a big part of his maintenance, but he's good with raw fruits and veg. We just do the best we can.

Thank you for all your thoughts.