My 11 month old used to eat pureed veggies fine, but he was very constipated so I switched over to mostly just eating fruit to loosen his stools (I tried juices but he HATES juice, weird, I know). Now that his constipation problems have cleared up for the most part, I want to add more variety to his diet. He refuses to eat pureed food anymore (He'll spit it in my face and laugh) and won't eat veggies as finger food either. If I leave some steamed vegetables on his tray, he'll just cry until I pick him up-he'd rather not eat anything than eat his veggies. What do you moms do? How do you sneak your veggies in? Do you have any great recipes or meal ideas??
my 3 yr old is really pickey too. But I make zucchini bread, carrot cake without the frosting kinda make it like banana bread or zucchini bread. he loves eating those. he also loves eating peas kinda frozen. i just run them under some warm water and then let him just eat them out of a small bowl. maybe even try the v8 splashes! hope that helps!
smoothies ? fruit and veggie ones. may work. carrots in pancakes I have heard of.
my guy is 11 months too. He will eat some veggies as table foods, but alot he won't. And my 4 year old is pretty picky about which veggies he will eat. I just keep offering them in different ways. I also puree the veggies and "sneak" them into other things. Try "The sneaky Chef" cookbook. It puts pureed carrots and sweet potatoes into mac and cheese for example. I am a firm believer that I still need to offer the pure form of the food too. But If I really want him to eat it for the vitamins, I need to be more creative.
I had forgotten about breads, though. I am going to do carrot bread or zucchini bread this week!
My sister used to sneak veggies in wherever she could. In pancakes she would puree the veggie of choice into the batter. Those are little tricks you can do. However, I myself have a picky eating 3-1/2 year old boy. If it doesn't look right he won't eat it. Because of this, as soon as he had his teeth in I gave him "crunchies" which are really chewable Juice Plus tablets that my friends gave to me to try on him. I ate them to see why he liked them- they're sweet. The cheaper way is to go on Ebay and get them. Another thing that we did is he would drink milk and we added some formula to it- not much but one scoop per eight ounces and he loved it. That way he got his vitamins. I say, anything you do to sneak them in, do it.
Most kids at that age prefer the finger food ( I can't blame them.) How about sweet potatoes ( a sweeter taste may help. Or, maybe preparing the foods differently, like sauteing zucchini instead of steaming it or making zucchini bread. Stir fry is good, because you can make it with chicken, beef or just veggies and have a variety of them. At that age, we pretty much fed the kids whatever we ate (just cut up really well). They'll eat it if they're hungry. Kids are smart, once they figure out they can get out of eating something they don't like by crying, they'll keep doing it was long as it works. I know it's hard because you don't want to make it a battle, but keep working at it. We had to use reverse psychology on our kids. We said " please don't eat it, no, please !", in an animated voice and they shoved it in their mouth and laughed. Be creative !
I used to make cakes and breads (healthy ways) and put veggies in them that way. I always offer them even if they hate it and eventually, all my kids would eat veggies. My kids are all healthy eaters now... good luck!
I really recommend the books The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious.
I was just thinking about posting this same question! My son is 14 months and we are going through he same thing! Basically since his first birthday, he won't let me use a spoon to feed him anything. He wants to do it himself. But then he'll put the veggies in his mouth, chew them for a second and then spit them out or throw them on the floor. Argh! I have gotten him to eat some peas by putting them on the tray with blueberries, which he loves (we call peas "greenberries"), but that's about all he'll eat, and then only a few. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of responses you get. For now, I'm going to just keep offering. Good luck! :)
My 15-month old was a good eater from the get-go, but she is touch & go on how she eats her veggies, too. She loves recipes like shepherd's pie & pot pie where the veggies (I use mixed frozen veggies) are mixed in with meat - usually ground beef or chicken - and potatoes, biscuit or crust, depending on the recipe. Check out allrecipes.com for some great recipes that use frozen or canned veggies - whatever you prefer. Good luck!
I've found it's all about presentation! Make eating time a game. Dress up the veggies...put a dollup of cottage cheese on it. One of my kids loved it if I asked her to show "the trees" (or the birds or the chair or anything that might be in her line of sight!) how she takes big girl bites. She loved to "show off" for her innanimate objects! ;) I had another one that loved to be teased with his food. Another one of my kids loved to try to feed me so we would take turns...it got a little messy but it worked! ;)
If you still want some recipe ideas, you can try pureed carrots in bread recipes, creamed corn in pancakes (a favorite of my kids!), pureed cauliflower in mac and cheese (another big time favorite!). If you want more details, pose a question in my forum or in my contact form at www.mytimecalendars.com and I can give you more details!
Good luck!
-J.
www.mytimecalendars.com
"play with time to have time for play!"
Zucchini muffins, spinach in fruit smoothies, veggies run through the food processor in soups... be creative!
I saw a great book about sneaking veggies and other healthy foods into meals. Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. She has some great ideas in there!
In the meantime, don't panic! This is totally normal. :)
