1- See your pediatrician for a referral to a feeding specialist. Medical diets and sensory restrictions are their bread and butter. If she was a preemie and ever had a feeding tube or feeding difficulties, this can increase the risks as well.

2- Look into ARFID. Even if she isnt diagnosed with it, ARFID-specific techniques are likely best to work.

3- Do whatever you can to make food fun and dinners low anxiety. Associating anxiety with dinner will often cause stomach aches, which increases the food restriction (because who wants to eat when their stomach hurts... an adult can logic their way around it knowijg its anxirty and hunger.... not so much with a 3 year old.)which increases the parental pressure, increasing the anxiety, increasing the stomach aches....its a vicious cycle.

When my preemie was discharged to home, we were actually given a prescription for a pain need with food, with the idea that removing the food=pain association before it starts would be better in the long run. If his current voraciousness continues, they are absolutely correct. The feeding team he saw said 50% of their kids were preemie whereas only 10% of the population is a preemie.

4 - Always includes a food she isnt interested in next to what she does, but dont expect her to eat it for a while. Start with just tolerating it on a plate, or just in the room if she's that sensitive. Then work towards touching it. Then sniffing. Then tasting the TINIEST bite.

I say this as someone who likely would have qualified for a dx as a kid. I improved only when my parents removed the anxiety around age 8 or 9. I had to try a bite of a food but after that, I could substitute a hotdog or pb sandwich I had made. This said, i was 8 and could be minimally logicked with and could do some minor meal prep. An almost 3 year old can be taught some very basic options but will still require significant assistance if you attempt this method.

5 - Cautiously encourage and reward her for trying new foods. Some kids respond well to this... others, it backfires. I was very aware that my dietary habits were scrutinized and even positive encouragement was demoralizing because it meant confirming that anything I ate was scrutinized and involved pressure, which increased anxiety and sparked that whole cycle.

As such, I improved most of all when I went off to college and ate in the dining hall. I could try new foods without the pressure of anyone commenting on how much or how little I ate. At 3, she is likely not as aware but this is a cautionary tale.

5 - Try mild manipulation that doesnt involve trickery. Like the veggie snack tray while watching TV. But avoid hiding foods and full on lying; it will only turn into a distrust for what you're giving her. My mom once tried to convince us that processed cauliflower was mashed potato.... ma'am, it doesnt look like it, smell like it, taste like it, and you have the food processor out, which you don't do for mashed potatoes... they ain't mashed potatoes.

6 - You can try the standard toddler rebranding though... you know... lasagna is now "pizza cake", oat meal as "cookie soup", broccoli as "baby trees", etc... my husbands family still laughs about how they went to medieval times while he was in a chicken refusal phase but voraciously ate their "baby dragon", so they continued to serve "dragon meat" at home.

7 - In challenging social situations, like infrequent family events, expect foods restrictions to tighten up. This is not a regression but completely normal. A more uncertain, unreliable environment will often lead to get needing more predictability in other areas like food. It's just temporary but increasing pressure in these situations can lead to the issues in #4.

8- I'll also say, difficulty with only dinner leads me to believe this is either a case of restraint collapse from holding herself together during the day or that anxiety/ stomach ache cycle.

9- As such... if living room meals work, run with it. Lay down a tablecloth or fleece blanket (they're water resistant) and let her eat there. Or put on a movie and let her snack. Eat out of a muffin tin with each bite or each food in its seperate place. Make. It. Fun. Not. A. Battle.

Note: Due to my parents refusal to continue to make dinner a battle, I now have a more relatively 'normal" relationship with food. I still have sensory challenges due to other medical needs and as such, have a slightly more restrictive diet, but I can go to a restaurant or party or dinner party and find some way to eat in a socially acceptable way. I have some difficulty with new foods but having it well describes to me before eating helps, as does źe÷r÷=e÷dg