How to Help a Child with ARFID Try New Foods (Without Pressure)

If you have ever tried to get your child with ARFID to try a new food, you know how stressful it can be -for everyone.

The pressure, the anxiety, the “just try one bite” moments - they just don’t work out the way that we hope they will.

I am still learning that helping a child try new foods isn’t about pushing harder (which I learned even quicker that it DOESN’T work). It’s about creating a sense of safety, building trust and going at their pace.

Meeting them at their level. This is something that I try so hard to live by with both of my boys. Some days it is easier said than done…

Why Pressure Doesn’t Work

Let’s flip the script here for a minute. Pretend you were your child and your parent was trying to push you to eat something that made you uncomfortable. It could have been the smell, the look, the texture or you had a stomachache after eating this particular food.

Most likely you are now feeling anxiety about eating —> now you don’t want to eat. Even as an adult, I don’t want to be pressured to eat foods I am not comfortable eating - why should my 5 year old or my 2 year old be any different?

I can say all this with certainty because I experienced this same feeling when I was a child. Luckily, my parents never pressured me to eat food I was not comfortable with. I had exposure to different food, but ultimately I always ate what I was comfortable with.

Mealtimes are supposed to be one of the less stressful parts of the day. Eating is as natural as breathing, as in everyone on this planet has to do it to survive. You never want to turn food into a battle. It shouldn’t be.

Food is one thing children can control - you push, they are going to push harder.

What “No Pressure” Actually Looks Like

This can look different for every family - so I will share what works in our family.

When J was in feeding therapy, one of the things I learned was there are actually over 30 steps that some children will take before they try a food. To my surprise, step one was just being able to be in the same ROOM as a new food. Once I learned that, I realized we could have things way worse.

One of the things we do to keep no pressure is to always make sure safe foods are available. We want the boys to know they will always have something to eat, no matter what. Even if they don’t want to eat what I made (which they usually don’t) - but we will never make them “sit until they eat”. Again, I don’t want to do that - so why should they?

If you are still figuring out what your child’s safe foods are, I shared real examples for our home here.

We hardly ever say “just try one bite”. Of course we are only human and sometimes we slip up, but overall we try not to say that. I can only imagine what is going through our boys’ minds when they hear “just try one bite” - from personal experience - it’s a great deal of anxiety.

I also do not like to say “if you never tried it, how do you know you don’t like it?” - while this is true - it is also true no one owes anyone else an explanation as to why they don’t like something - including my children. You don’t like it? Then you don’t have to eat it. Will we introduce it to them again at some point? Of course.

There is absolutely no forcing food in our home. Forcing to eat something you are not comfortable with or still eating if you are full. There is no “finish your plate” standard. If you are full after 5 bites - then you are full. I want my boys to be able to listen to their body when it is telling them something.

We recently started telling our 5 year old - “listen to your belly and if you are full, then you do not have to keep eating”. This is something he is starting to understand.

What CAN Help

Another thing I have learned thus far in our ARFID journey, is to always offer a new food with a safe food. The goal is to offer a small amount of new food (one tater tot, one chicken nugget, one small piece of pizza). It can be very overwhelming to a child to have a whole plate full of a food they are not comfortable with.

You can offer this on their plate with their safe foods, or you can separate it onto a “learning plate”. (A learning plate/bowl is a designated space for a new food to be introduced while keeping separate from current safe foods). I always use language like (it’s okay if you don’t want to eat it or if they happen to try a new food - “its okay if you didn’t like it, you won’t like every food you try).

Any kind of interaction counts - looking, touching, smelling, licking - it all counts. We praise every interaction. I have even gotten funny looks when I have said, “J touched those tater tots and it was so exciting to see”

If you aren’t in the ARFID world, the you just don’t understand how big it is for your child to TOUCH a new food. Or even LOOK at a new food.

If they try a new food, we keep the praise short - on the other hand, if they choose not to try a new food, we don’t make a big deal about it. Just tell them it’s okay, and move on.

Resetting Expectations

Something else I quickly learned is, progress is slow. And progress is progress no matter how small.

Feeding Therapy is not a “magic fix”…no matter how much you hope after one or two therapy sessions, your child will just not miraculously start eating everything under the sun. It often takes a long time and sometimes it can take years and years for children to make progress with food. Honestly, the sooner you realize that - the better. I wish I had known that when we started feeding therapy.

“Trying” doesn’t always mean eating….”trying” can be licking a new food, or even putting it to their mouth. You want consistency over perfection.

Start small. Pick one day a week to introduce a new food - if your child interacts with it - great! But if not, I am here to let you know that it is totally okay and you can always try again later.

You are not doing anything wrong if it feels hard. Trust me - it is HARD. There are many days I wonder what I did wrong, when in reality - it’s nothing I did - it’s just the way some children (or adults even) are wired.

This isn’t about getting them to eat everything - it’s about helping them feel safe enough to try, when THEY are ready.