Managing Holiday Meals (...and Unsupportive Relatives) When You Have A Picky Eater
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The holiday season is a time for family togetherness, delicious food, and making memories. However, for parents of picky eaters, navigating holiday meals can feel like a minefield—especially when different family dynamics come into play.
Whether it's a family gathering at Grandma's house or a dinner with friends and family, feeding a family with diverse tastes, preferences, and dietary restrictions can be overwhelming. Add the inevitable unsolicited advice from well-meaning relatives, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for stress.
If you’re a parent trying to help a child feel comfortable during a big family meal or dealing with a child’s limited appetite, you’re not alone. I have a few tips and tricks for how to handle holiday meals and unwanted advice with grace, ensuring that both your picky eater and your family feel supported and satisfied. Let’s jump in!
Plan Ahead
The family meal is a central part of many holiday traditions, but it can also highlight the varying tastes and preferences of those at the table. There are a few things that can help in the days leading up to the holiday to prepare your child for the meal. As a pediatric registered dietitian specializing in picky eating, here are some of my recommendations:
Set the Expectations: Talk to your child about what to expect at the holiday meal (as much as you are able) and what your expectations are. For example, you may let them know that they need to sit at the table with everyone for xx amount of time but do not have to eat what is served.
Prepare Food: If you are hosting or plan to bring a dish, you can involve your child in some of the holiday food prep, making the process fun and low-stress. Try using holiday-themed food cutters*, food picks*, and festive plates to make food exposures feel less scary.
Bring a “safe food” option everyone can enjoy: If your picky eater has specific safe foods you know they can and will eat, offer to bring enough for everyone to serve alongside the holiday spread. You might even bring or make an option or two together with your child that you know they will eat. A child might not want to eat the complex side dishes or mains, but they will be excited to share their favorite dish!
Serve hearty meals and snacks before the family meal: It is also helpful to serve a hearty meal at breakfast and/or lunch you know your child will eat before the holiday. This can help prevent food-related meltdowns or tantrums.
And remember - family gatherings don’t have to revolve around what’s on the plate—it’s the family togetherness and creating memories that matter most.
Handling Unsolicited Advice with Tact
When you have relatives, friends, or other folks around you who disagree with how you've decided to feed your child, the good news is that you have choices for how to respond. Whether it’s from a well-meaning family member who suggests, "Maybe they’d eat more if you just put some butter on it," or the classic "they’ll eat when they get hungry enough, just starve them out," unsolicited opinions can be overwhelming, especially during a holiday family gathering.
It's so easy to get triggered by this - I did often as a first-time mom. I was also a new dietitian and thought I knew everything (ha!), so when anyone tried to feed my child differently than how I had decided she should be fed, I became incensed.
One of the most important things to remember is that you are the expert when it comes to your child. While it’s tempting to engage in lengthy discussions or justify your choices, sometimes it’s best to politely ignore the comment and move on. Other times, you might quickly thank the person for the suggestion and change the subject, which allows them to feel acknowledged so they don’t continue offering unsolicited advice. Sometimes it’s a good idea to intervene further if it's becoming too triggering for you or your child.
Here are a few tips for how to deal with unsolicited advice:
Set a Boundary - In the days leading up to the holiday, talk to extended family members without your child present about their feeding challenges and how you prefer to manage them. Set clear expectations and thank them for respecting your process.
Validate - It’s okay to remind the person that the advice they offered may have helped with their child, but you are handling the situation differently with yours.
Communicate - If the person is a persistent advice giver, try to find a time away from the table and your child to communicate that it makes you feel disrespected when they undermine your parenting decision on the subject.
** If you feel particularly uncomfortable with an opinion or unwanted advice, redirect the conversation to a more neutral topic, like the holiday’s fun traditions or something everyone enjoys discussing.
Don’t Let Picky Eating Become the Center of Attention
It’s easy to focus all your energy on helping a child through their food-related challenges, especially in front of a large group. But remember that the holiday meal is a celebration of family, friends, and togetherness—not just the food on the table. If you let your picky eater’s eating habits dominate the holiday gathering, it can create unnecessary tension.
Serve your child a variety of foods presented, but do not pressure, bribe, coax, force, shame, or reward your child into eating or taking a certain number of bites of foods on their plate. This can quickly create stress and a negative experience for both you and your child. It is important for them to listen to their bodies and decide for themselves whether and how much to eat.
Encourage and remind family members to focus on the joy of being together, not on what your child will or won’t eat. If relatives comment on your picky eater, keep the mood light and positive without making your child feel singled out. The goal is to foster a sense of family life and inclusivity, not to highlight challenges.
Here are a few more of my TOP TIPS:
Take a few deep breaths before speaking if you are starting to feel stressed or overly triggered
Try to have empathy, patience, and understanding, as many family members are well-meaning but have little understanding about child feeding and nutrition
Try not to let outside opinions about your child’s eating make you feel ashamed, upset, or judged
Remember that there is no perfect way to feed a child and a million ways to do it really, really well - YOU are the expert when it comes to your kid!
Try to Have Patience and Flexibility
One of the hardest things to do during family meals with a picky eater is to be patient. Picky eating isn’t a reflection of poor parenting or a lack of effort— a range of different issues can drive it. Keep in mind that this phase will likely pass, and the important thing is to keep trying to offer new foods in a low-pressure, supportive way.
If your young child doesn’t eat much at the family meal, that’s okay. There will always be another meal around the corner. The holidays are about connection, not perfection!
If you are concerned about your child’s eating for any reason, start by talking to your pediatrician or healthcare provider. Getting a referral to a feeding therapist or registered dietitian who is knowledgeable about your child’s feeding difficulties can make a world of difference.
Final Thoughts…
At the end of the day, how you and/or your partner choose to feed your child is UP TO YOU. Trust your intuition, trust your child’s innate ability to eat when hungry and stop when full, and respectfully tune out the rest as best you can.
Whether you’re feeding a family of picky eaters or navigating complex family dynamics, the holiday season is about creating memories, not about what’s on the plate. Keep things simple, plan ahead as best you can, stay flexible, and, most importantly, focus on the joy of spending time with the people who matter most.
If you are looking for extra help, here is a FREE picky eating download with 6 tried and true tips to help you manage selective eating in your kids. These tips are great for garden variety picky eaters. More extreme picky eating may need extra support before these tips will be helpful, but if you're in the cue and waiting to see a feeding therapist, check them out and see if some of the strategies help move the needle in the meantime.
If you are looking for more personalized guidance regarding your child’s nutrient requirements and dietary preferences, I am accepting new patients in my virtual practice and would love to meet with you.
And if you prefer to learn via video, you can always enroll in my pediatrician-endorsed online course, Solve Picky Eating, which includes 12 self-paced short video lessons, downloadable guides, and checklists to support you along your journey of navigating picky eating.
You've got this! Sending love!