Reluctance to try new food

When your baby reaches around fifteen to eighteen months of age you may notice that they start to be much more selective with the foods they will eat. You may see them refusing to eat foods that are new to them. This can be a very difficult time for parents. When you’re getting meltdowns over broken biscuits and a sandwich cut into the wrong shape it can feel a LOT.

It may not make you feel better (because it doesn’t change the situation), but it’s a very normal part of development for children to start rejecting new foods. This very typical toddler food refusal is called food neophobia. Literally translated: fear of new foods.

Neophobia is a reflex that humans have developed to keep us safe. It usually starts at around 15-18 months when toddlers become more inquisitive, more independent and more mobile – when they start moving away from their parents more. Of course, we now live in a contained and sterile environment, but it hasn’t always been that way. In fact, in evolutionary terms, this is still a very new thing for us.

Previously, children would be able to roam more freely as they could not so easily be kept in one place and would travel further from their parents. If they came across foods they did not recognise and had not eaten regularly before; berries on bushes, mushrooms on the ground they would have avoided them in case they were poisonous. This was a very useful reflex and kept us safe for a very long time.

Nowadays this reflex isn’t really needed, but we have not evolved to our new environment fully yet. That is why a sandwich cut differently or a different shaped pasta may cause a huge tantrum and a complete refusal to eat. Your toddler’s brain is literally screaming DANGER do not eat!

Unfortunately, you just need to be patient, keep offering foods without pressure and wait until the time your little one decides this is a safe, non-threatening food that they are willing to eat!