Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating: A Step-by-Step Guide for Overcoming Selective Eating, Food Aversion, and Feeding Disorders Paperback – May 1, 2015

[...]Parents of children with feeding difficulties need to take advantage of this book, Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating by Katja Rowell, MD (family doctor and feeding specialist) and Jenny McGlothlin, MS, SLP (speech language pathologist specializing in pediatric feeding disorders). I’m a reader and reading is a preferred learning method for me personally. Repetition in learning feeding therapy strategies is always beneficial for parents. I’ve not seen a book so appropriately written, specifically for parents, to address feeding difficulties for children before. This book would be a great addition to participating in feeding therapy with your child. Really, I feel like this is a great summary of what I teach parents during a 3-4 month period of weekly feeding therapy.Often, I remind parents of recommendations I’ve given in the past and they have forgotten. This book would be great to read before, during or after a child has received feeding therapy. It would really solidify the information given and parents could refer back to it easily.If your child hasn’t started feeding therapy, I suggest reading this book one chapter at a time. Remember that I said it’s a good summary of what I teach parents over 3-4 months at a time? It is a large amount of information and could possibly be overwhelming all at once. Read a chapter, then take a week or two to really think and start applying the suggestions at home. Then go on through chapter by chapter like this until you’ve finished the book.The philosophy of feeding therapy presented in this book addresses the importance of decreasing anxiety around food first, then to encourage and facilitate building skills in a trusting and safe mealtime environment. It mirrors my own feeding therapy philosophy. Towards the end of the book, the authors also discuss finding a feeding therapist and program that is a good fit for your child and family.The book is written with a compassionate and realistic understanding of what children and parents go through when a child isn’t eating well. The authors structure the book around Jenny McGlothin’s STEPS+ feeding therapy approach.STEP 1: Decrease Anxiety, Stress and Power Struggles.STEP 2: Establish a Structured RoutineSTEP 3: Have Family MealsSTEP 4: Know What to Serve and How to Serve ItSTEP 5: Build SkillsBuy this book! Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating even has digital downloads to help implement book suggestions through the publisher, New Harbinger Publications.I provide feeding therapy services in children’s homes in Davis, Morgan and Weber counties in Utah. If I am not in your area, Feeding Matters has compiled an extensive list of international feeding professionals. I’d love to help your family!

I cannot recommend this book enough to other parents and clinicians alike. I am a pediatric nurse practitioner, and my daughter was suffering from sensory aversions and feeding aversion. She had a very limited intake, and had to be on a specialized formula regimen. With the help of this book and occupational therapy, she is now eating a much more varied diet and seems to look forward to mealtime! I have recommended this book to other parents with similar results.

Book content is great. But bought used in “very good” used condition but truly overrated condition. Bent pages, worn cover. Looks quite used. Disappointed with condition rating.

I read Ellyn Satter's works four years ago when my daughter, who ate everything as an infant, started slowly eliminating foods she would accept and eat around age two. I tried to implement Satter's recommendations as well as the recommendations of a pediatric dietitian but over the following four years my daughter didn't seem to expand her eating selections and the family frustration surrounding meal time only grew. I worried about my daughter's nutrition and I definitely did not look forward to family meals. Finally, a friend in the same field as Jenny recommended this book, knowing my frustration with my daughter's picky eating. It has been a real game changer for our family.After reading the book, my first objective was to simply set up expectations with my daughter as well as the feeding routine and to make it a habit that is welcomed and not resisted. It really started working after the first few days. She was pleased with every meal I served and she started to enjoy the relaxed ambience of the dining table. I increased sweet snacks in the afternoon to things that were previously considered only special treats and I started to appreciate sweet snacks as a chance for her to try new textures and flavors, which I had not considered before.Our first real success came at the dinner table. My daughter tried a chicken tender that did not look like anything she had eaten before. Her response was, "These are delicious chicken fingers!" I couldn't believe she had served herself and tried one. I truly believe that eliminating all encouragement and pressure to try or eat gave her the control she wants and she is more likely to try new things now.Jenny and Katja's book is a MUST READ for any parent with a picky eater. While Satter's renowned research serves as the basis for the recommendations in the book, Jenny and Katja incorporate the necessary insights on child temperament and parent expectations to serve up a perfect recipe for real life success at the table.

This book has given us so much reassurance and many ideas that are easy to try. Not done with the book, but already making progress.