Toddler Won't Touch Food on His Plate, but Then Mom Has an Idea

A mom's ingenious solution to her toddler's picky eating habits has gone viral on TikTok.

Megan Thompson, from Kansas City, posted the clip and wrote that her two-year-old, John, "never" eats the food that's carefully prepared for him on a plate. But instead of fighting a losing battle, Thompson thought outside the box, or in this case, inside a candy cane.

The 31-year-old told Newsweek she had recently bought The Grinch candy sticks for the family, but even though the candy was gone, her twins still wanted to play with them.

"We decided to put them to use, filling them with edamame seemed to just be a good way to make eating vegetables more exciting and it worked," Thompson said.

Mom Megan Thompson explained how tricky this toddler stage can be. She shared that her son John can get fixated on one food, but if she buys it in bulk from Costco, he loses interest. @megangovea

Children can be fussy eaters for many reasons, including fear of new foods (also known as food neophobia).

It turns out that The Grinch (notoriously known for stealing Christmas) became Thompson's little helper, as her son happily snacked on his edamame beans in the now-viral clip. She wrote in the text overlay: "He's never been so hungry in his life."

As a mom of three, Thompson knows a thing or two about encouraging her kids to eat their food in a low-pressure way.

"The key with toddlers is advertising—you have to make every little thing a little more exciting in order to catch their attention. Plates are too boring for toddlers apparently, even when I give them food at the table on Grinch plates it's not enough!" she said.

Thompson's clip has clocked up 1.4 million views and over 1,000 comments from other social media users, many of whom were fellow parents who could relate to toddlers' quirky eating habits.

"My kid won't eat salmon but will eat pink chicken," one user wrote. "My son hated tomato soup. So I made 'ketchup' soup with grilled cheese and he ate two bowls," another laughed.

And it's not just kids who enjoy eating or drinking from something more exciting than regular tableware. "Chuckles while refilling my sparkly water bottle w/decorative bc I won't drink plain water out of anything else," wrote a third.

Thompson told Newsweek that she and her husband found the comments section hilarious and read nothing but parents sharing tips and tricks to help their kids eat.

"It's so funny because I never expected this video to get the attention it did, but it was one of those moments where I yelled my husband's name and asked for his phone to record. This toddler age is hard... so this just seemed like a creative way to get him to eat and honestly, I'll take what I can get," she said.