Try serving unfamiliar foods, or flavors young children tend to dislike at first (sour and bitter), with familiar foods toddlers naturally prefer (sweet and salty). Once a food is accepted, use what nutritionists call "food bridges" to introduce others with similar color, flavor and texture to help expand variety in what your child will eat. If your child likes pumpkin pie, for example, try mashed sweet potatoes and then mashed carrots.ġ0. Some cooking tasks are perfect for toddlers (with lots of supervision, of course): sifting, stirring, counting ingredients, picking fresh herbs from a garden or windowsill, and “painting” on cooking oil with a pastry brush, to name a few.ĩ. Read kid-friendly cookbooks together and let your child pick out new recipes to try.Ĩ. Let you child pick which fruit and vegetable to make for dinner or during visits to the grocery store or farmer's market. Put your toddler's growing interest in exercising control to good use. Cut solid foods into bite size pieces they can easily eat themselves, making sure the pieces are small enough to avoid the risk of choking.ħ. Kids this age also tend to enjoy any food involving a dip. Finger foods are also usually a hit with toddlers. Make foods look irresistible by arranging them in fun, colorful shapes kids can recognize.
Toddlers are especially open to trying foods arranged in eye-catching, creative ways. To minimize waste, offer new foods in small amounts and wait at least a week or two before reintroducing the same food.Ħ. Try adding different herbs and spices to simple meals to make them tastier. Help your child explore new flavors and textures in food. Offer a variety of healthy foods, especially vegetables and fruits, and include higher protein foods like meat and deboned fish at least 2 times per week. Scheduled meals and limiting snacks can help ensure your child is hungry when a new food is introduced.ĥ. It can take as many as 10 or more times tasting a food before a toddler’s taste buds accept it. Keep offering new foods and those your child didn't like before. Just because a child refuses a food once, don't give up. It also can lead to nightly battles at the dinner table.Ĥ. This can make the "prize" food even more exciting, and the food you want them to try an unpleasant chore. Tempting as it may be, try not to bribe your children with treats for eating other foods.
Pressuring kids to eat, or punishing them if they don't, can make them actively dislike foods they may otherwise like.ģ. It's a parent's responsibility to provide food, and the child’s decision to eat it. If they ate a big breakfast or lunch, for example, they may not be interested in eating much the rest of the day. It’s good for children to learn to listen to their bodies and use hunger as a guide. If your toddler refuses a meal, avoid fussing over it. Try to include at least one food your child likes with each meal and continue to provide a balanced meal, whether she eats it or not.Ģ. Serve one meal for the whole family and resist the urge to make another meal if your child refuses what you've served.
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This means no media distractions like TV or cell phones at mealtime. Use this time to model healthy eating. Share a meal together as a family as often as you can. In the meantime, here are some tips that can help you get through the picky eater stage.ġ. Just make healthy food choices available and know that, with time, your child's appetite and eating behaviors will level out. Try not to get frustrated by this typical toddler behavior. For weeks, they may eat 1 or 2 preferred foods – and nothing else. A toddler’s favorite food one day may hit the floor the next, or a snubbed food might suddenly become the one he or she can’t get enough of. Toddlers also are beginning to develop food preferences, a fickle process. After the rapid growth of infancy, when babies usually triple in weight, a toddler’s growth rate – and appetite – tends to slow down. Picky eating is often the norm for toddlers.
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