Why is my toddler so weird about broken food?

[AllyRae]

Seriously, are all toddlers this weird?  My 23 month old will.not.touch any food that is "broken".  Broken cracker straight from the box?  Big meltdown until you put it back and give her a "fixed" one.  Her banana breaks when she's trying to eat it?  She chucks the whole banana on the floor and starts crying (and, you can't cut the banana up either.  It *must* be whole, with the peel still attached, but open, and it can not break during the course of her running around holding it or it is forever tainted.).  And then, there is the whole list of foods she won't even eat because I have to cut them for her (like carrots.  If she can't have them "big, like big kid carrots", she will not eat them at all.

Ugh.  Keep in mind, this child is my neurotypical one (although, sometimes I have to wonder.  If she gets one drop of water on her clothes, she strips down naked because she hates when "shirt wet shirt wet!" )  She's absolutely developmentally on target for everything, unlike her brother with autism where he really did have delays in several areas.  There is absolutely nothing that screams autism to me, and I've worked with autistic children and adults for several years, so I can tell you that she's not autistic at all (and my other children's psychologist agrees with this)  But this whole quirky 'can't eat anything broken' stage is driving me bonkers.  Is this just a weird toddler thing?

[alittlesandy]

My son is 22-months-old, and I think a lot of it has to do with being in control of their environment. From what I've learned, that's what happens when they turn two (or a little earlier) and begin asserting their independence.

My son does similar things. He wants me to put his food on his little table for him to pick up, rather than handing it to him. He doesn't like his foods to touch each other (My mom tells me I was like this). He hates it when he gets food on his fingers (but doesn't care about dirt and mud, lol).

He will eat broken food, but if I'm eating something and he wants it, it has to "look" the same, which means it can't be broken, cut into pieces, or missing any elements (like pancakes without syrup, lol).

[EmmaJane]

My 18-month old will take one little bite of, say, an apple slice, but no more... unless you cut off the little round scoop of her tooth marks and leave a straight-line edge. Then she'll take one more bite... it drives me INSANE.

[Summersquash]

My DD is like this too sometimes.  It drives me particularly bonkers with small things like cereal and oyster crackers.  She will pick through her little serving and pick out all the whole ones and then ask for more, leaving the broken up ones in the bowl.

She does like cut-up food though and in fact, still requests "little tiny pieces" of things like apples.

[Llyra]

It's definitely a toddler thing. My kids were all like that. My three year olds still are, to some extent. And it's not just broken foods-- it's also food with spots on them. I bought some eggs the other day, and a few of them were speckled-- on the shell, you know? Perfectly fine, right? Lots of brown eggs are speckled. NOT. I served them hardboiled, and peeled them at the table. DD2 got one look at the speckles, and refused to eat the eggs-- even though what's inside is exactly the same as non-speckled eggs. I've seen her sort through a bag of jellybeans, at my mom's, and pull out the few that were slightly irregularly shaped, and refuse to eat ANY of them-- even the ones that were regular. Like the whole bag had been contaminated by one crooked jelly bean. What kind of kid turns down candy?

I wouldn't worry that it's not neurotypical-- in my experience, a lot of perfectly normal toddlers have a bad "case" of OCD. They outgrow it just fine with time and patience, even if we go ahead and humor them on their little picky-pickies. My six year old was like this, until she was nearly four, and she got through it fine!

[nelson]

Just had to say my DS absolutely does this!  The other day I gave him a piece of bread and suddenly I hear, "It has a hole in it, no, no, no, I can't eat it, it's broken!!!"  He also does the banana thing.  The banana needs to be peeled just enough so that he can hold the peel with the banana in it, not too far because if the banana breaks in half, forget it, and once he eats it to the peel and it needs to be peeled some more he says, "It's not working Mama, fix it!"  I actually attempted to "tape" together a piece of pita bread last night because DH tore it in half for him...it didn't end well.

[Contrariety]

My DS was exactly like that at that age, and was for 6mos- a year.  He's four now and way more relaxed about those things... and has all new neurosis instead! :p

[brennan]

Yeah this is dd too.  Except she says "BACK!  PUT IT BACK!!!" (as in put it back together).  Like today we bought some croissants and they were huge, dd was not going to eat the whole thing and I broke it in half.  BIG mistake.  You'd think I would know since she's been doing this for months.  Drives me batty.  I hope she out grows it soon.

Oh and she also does the water on the shirt thing, she spilled a drop of milk on her shirt yesterday and freaked out until I helped her out of it.   I'm over it, she has no signs of anything wrong with her so I assume she's just picky right now.

[EviesMom]

Yup. Toddler thing. My 3 yo did that at about 2. Along with the "Wet!!!!!" scream. Now he just insists on getting a "nappid" and "I wipe it off on my OWWWWWWNNNN!" for wet stuff. So, a little better I guess?

For looking ahead, he no longer gets mad about the broken bananas, etc. but shortly after the "whole" stage came the "eat one bite of a cracker/banana/whatever you can get your little teeth on, then look at the bite marks taken out of it, declare that you need a "new, whoooooole, BIG one" and repeat with every cracker/banana/whatever until you are stopped. Then throw temper tantrum." Fun times! He's grown out of that one now too thank heavens. He eats pretty normally. 

I figure this is the start of learning about reversible and irreversible change. Think of it as really early science lessons, maybe?

[MusicianDad]

Toddlers are strange and interesting little creatures, aren't they? This is why they are so darn cute, otherwise we'd all just lose it with our kids and they'd never make it past toddlerhood.

[4Marmalade]

All 4 of mine LOVED bananas (like 3 a day) at a certain stage of toddlerhood and all four LOVED to meltdown when they broke time and time again.  I had a love/hate relationship with bananas for a while there .  Once in a while I could get away with getting really excited and telling them "look, now you have two pieces, wow....you're soooo lucky".  They caught on to that pretty quickly.

[AllyRae]

Originally Posted by MusicianDad 

Toddlers are strange and interesting little creatures, aren't they? This is why they are so darn cute, otherwise we'd all just lose it with our kids and they'd never make it past toddlerhood.

I'm pretty sure I say that on a daily basis. :lol:  It *is* a darn good thing toddlers are cute, because they can be stinkers, for sure!

 

[tourist.]

My son does this as well.  So far it hasn't been to difficult to manage, but sometimes I'll give him something whole (like toast) and try to break it in half and he freaks out.  The other day I made us each a pop tart (which he doesn't like anyway, but I wanted one ) and I cut his into pieces in hopes that he'd actually eat some...instead he insisted "want the big one!" one the verge of a freak out.  So we traded and then he just proceeded to squish the big one. 

It seems that as long as he is presented the food already cut, and if my food looks like his, then he doesn't even notice if it's broken. 

[nkintzel]

Yup. DS does this ALL. THE. TIME. Don't break the graham crackers. Don't cut ANYTHING. Bananas, oh holy moly. They had BETTER not break. Same with the wet shirt, wet pants, wet socks. It is totally annoying. He's super OCD about all that stuff, but I'm learning that is normal.

[KempsMama]

DS1 did this all the time until about 6 months ago? Maybe?  He'll be 3 in March.  Drove me crazy!!!