This is what is called food neophobia. After eating almost everything, they refuses almost everything, especially vegetables and what is new. How to make they eat something other than ham, pasta and potatoes? How to deal with this phobia?

At first the child likes just about everything

From birth, we have an innate taste for sweet taste. But very young children are very curious. Result from dietary diversification (food phasing in parallel feeding or bottle) and up to age 2, children at almost any taste, even if they show their own preferences. It is important to use this time to help them discover a wide variety of tastes. For after, things get complicated and often the child starts to refuse many foods.

Then the meals are complicated

This is the food neophobia. This term refers to the fear of new foods, a normal phase in the development of the child. In fact, around 2-3 years, the child would also like to refuse food before he ate it and even enjoyed. This period is especially marked between the child at this age in a phase of self-assertion and systematic opposition. So do not take offense too much, but respond appropriately to this situation and usually temporary.

Some tips for weathering the food neophobia

- Stay calm. Meals should degenerate into conflict. Keep in mind that this period is temporary and the child’s tastes are changing rapidly.
- Do not turn the refusal of food in an affair of state, the risk that food causes blockage final.
- Accept the refusal and propose another substitute food. But refused the food should not be ruled out definitively. Rather, it is important to offer again and again several times. It is likely that food will be accepted after several attempts.
- Do not try to force. Offer a child a cake or candy if he ends his plate is not a solution.
- Parents and / or siblings must lead by example: to enjoy eating everything.
- Demonstrate imagination presentation on the plate, a mixture of ingredients to mask certain tastes or food coloring, tomato sauce, ketchup, vegetable gratins, etc.
- Involve children in meal preparation. By manipulating the food, the child becomes familiar with them and can more easily accept or reconsider its refusal.