Disclaimer: the following post is about our personal experience, and I’m always happy to share our story with others. However, the contents of this post are not intended to offer medical advice, diagnose health problems or suggest treatments. This post is not a substitute for medical care provided by a licensed and qualified health professional. 

All kids have silly food quirks. For some reason, Harbour will only eat the top half of a banana. I have no idea what’s wrong with the bottom half, but she won’t even consider the suggestion that we pull down the peel. And because Harbour knows that I will always try to make her eat the whole thing, she cleverly stashes half-eaten bananas around the house. Often in my underwear drawer.

River, on the other hand, will eat a banana right down to the second last bite – as long as she doesn’t encounter a speck of brown on the way there. I usually argue that the brown parts are fine to eat, but truthfully I don’t like eating brown parts either. Regardless, encouraging a child to eat the whole thing feels like the mom-thing to do, so I try. Halfheartedly.

Beyond banana bottoms, Harbour is a great eater. She’ll eat almost everything we put in front of her. One of her favourite treats are tomatoes; she’ll eat them like apples if we don’t keep them out of her reach. I’ve even caught myself bribing her with potato chips so that she’d leave the rest of my tomatoes alone. And of the two of us, I’m not sure who loves steamed Brussels sprouts more. I’ve started cooking some at night as a midnight snack just so I’ll actually get to eat a few myself.

River is completely different – she is SOOOOOO picky when it comes to food. Feeding her has always been a challenge, right from the beginning. I remember bringing her to the doctor even when she was just 10 months old because she wouldn’t eat the cereals we were offering her. Ever since then, we’ve been trying to find new ways to entice her to eat a better diet but without much luck.

Food Sensitivities?

Back when River was three, we sent her to a Waldorf kindergarten. I loved the school dearly, but it was a difficult year for everyone; River was an emotional roller coaster, full of random emotional outbursts that were exhausting to deal with. At our year-end interview, her teachers, who have far more experience with young children than I do, suggested that I take her to a doctor to find out if she has any food sensitivities. They said that in young children, food issues can present themselves through a child’s emotions and behaviours.  They also pointed to the dark circles under her eyes and her pale skin as further evidence of potential food issues.

It all seemed to make sense, so off to the doctor’s we went. My doctor told me that it was a trend to blame bad behaviour on food sensitivities and that testing was an uncomfortable process. To my regret, we didn’t pursue it further, but the idea never left my mind.

Experimenting with Diets

About half a year later on, when River was four, we decided to try modifying her diet to see if it made a difference in her behaviour. We started with dairy because whenever she drinks a lot of milk, she gets dark circles under her eyes (often referred to as “allergy eyes”). We lasted about three weeks on the dairy-free diet and while we saw some difference, it wasn’t substantial enough to cut her off of her favourite foods. And I felt guilty always eating ice cream in the bathroom so she wouldn’t find out. We brought dairy back.

Nothing got better until last August when I snapped. I felt like my beloved child was out of control and I was desperate to figure out why. I hated to see her so upset and angry all the time – I wanted my daughter to be happy!

Out of total desperation, my husband and I decided to try changing her diet again, but this time we cut out the gluten.

No gluten: no cheerios, no grilled cheese, no peanut butter toast, no noodles. No pancakes or waffles. No chicken nuggets.

My picky eater was going to starve.

We explained to her that we were going to try this crazy diet for six weeks. She agreed. It was hard at first, but we just kept buying gluten-free versions of our favourite foods. It was bloody expensive as we tried out different brands, looking for the best substitutes. At that point, I wasn’t concerned about cost – I was committed to just getting through the six weeks to see if there was any change, and we’d need the best, tastiest gluten-free versions of our treats if we were going to make it.

Three days into the experiment, I noticed that River was playing happily on her own. For hours. Five days in, I noticed that she wasn’t asking to watch TV at all. I asked her how she felt, and she said that her stomach didn’t hurt anymore. I realized that she hadn’t thrown up at all since cutting gluten — she used to throw up a few times a week. It was never a lot and I always assumed she had a weak stomach like I did when I was young — it never occurred to me that it was strange.

About a week after giving up gluten, I realized that her “allergy eyes” were gone again, just like when she gave up dairy. And they just seemed more clear, like she was more focused.

It was three weeks after giving up gluten that she started reading. Almost completely on her own. That blew my mind.

Our naturopath encouraged us to extend the gluten-free experiment to three months, and we did. And then we just kept going. Sometimes we slip up and give her gluten without noticing, only to realize it a day or two later when she seems out of control. We’re almost always able to pin it too a mistake in her diet.

Reading up on gluten-intolerance in kids has only convinced me more that gluten is not good for by daughter. Did you know that a lot of kids with gluten sensitivities are prone to cavities or marks on their teeth? After I read this I realized that River doesn’t have yellow teeth anymore – something she had for years despite brushing. And of course she’s already had ten fillings – I’m curious to see how her teeth do over the next few years with the diet change.

I also read that children with gluten sensitivities are often shorter than their peers because they aren’t able to absorb the proper amount of nutrients. That’s a bit trickier because while River is always the smallest in her class by a good head, I was quite short too at that age. Maybe she’ll start growing though.

I have a lot of regret over my poor River’s diet. When at 10 months, she didn’t want her cream of wheat or powdered barley, was  it because those foods made her tummy sore? I wish my doctor hadn’t suggested toast as an alternative. All those years that she refused to try new foods — was it because she felt crummy? Was it because she was afraid that the foods would make her feel worse? My hope is that we can slowly urge her to be more adventurous with her eating over the next year. It’s not easy – we’ve got six years of well-ingrained habit to fight.

If you have a picky eater and no amount of coaxing works for you – if you’ve read numerous books for tips and tricks but NOTHING works, and if you’re certain that your brain will explode if you read just one more time that gardening/shopping/cooking with your kids will entice your picky eater to eat, think about talking to your doctor about food sensitivities, or read the book What’s Eating My Child. Because what I thought was years of picky eating was actually my daughter trying to deal with the fact that food made her feel sick.