What Foods Will Your Picky Toddlers Eat?

mix something she doesnt like in with something she loves to eat. she doesnt like peas, but loves sweet potatoes ? mix a little of the two of them together and she will probably eat it
K. h.

My son has always been a very picky eater. He is 7 years old now but he has always liked eggs. I make a lot of omelettes and put different things inside. Sometimes I just make scrambled eggs and cheese. A lot of times with little kids they prefer to make meals hands on adventure. Sometimes you can try to make pancakes with fruit faces in them for example....

My son is almost 17 months old. Also pretty picky (well, sometimes, others he could care less.) Our sure-thing foods we know he will always eat are fruit of any kind (I know you said your daughter doesn't eat these tho) - grapes, banana, berries especially. Also, cottage cheese, a frozen go-gurt (yogurt tube,) shredded cheese. He has lots of other foods he likes but the above mentioned are things he will never say no to :)

Other things he likes, possible ideas: fruit filled granola bars, saltine crackers, sqeezable applesauce puches

I'll admit that neither of my children are particularly picky, but they are getting pickier as they get older. But I discovered something accidentally this summer: try the same food that they turn away a zillion times before you give up!

We have a vegetable garden and we get vegetables with varying success. But the one thing we seem to grow with no problem is yellow squash. We had it coming out our ears! Well, my son decided he didn't want to eat it. Too bad. We had tons of it and I served it with dinner over and over again because that's what we had. Wouldn't you know that by the end of the summer he was not only eating but asking for seconds??

It's not a guarantee and I did try preparing it a few different ways, but, in the end, it was all about giving it to him countless times before he warmed up to it. And, like some other moms said, I think with him it's just a texture thing more than taste.

Just don't give up too easily on a particular food. Give her basically what she'll eat and have one new food at most at a meal. Introduce it a thousand times and, eventually, you may be able to add it to the list of things she'll eat. Good luck!

I'm actually surprised this wasn't mentioned in any of the responses, although you got some good ones.
There is a book by Jessica Seinfeld called 'Deceptively Delicious' that is all about pureeing various vegetables and sneaking them into food that your child will like. I got a copy from the library and made a couple and they're actually quite good. If you wanted to buy it outright here is a link: http://www.doitdelicious.com/cookbooks/deceptively_delicious and here is another one for her new book (I haven't looked at it) http://www.doitdelicious.com/
That first link even has a recipe that you could try out to see if it's your cup of tea.
Good luck with your little girl!!

Have you tried dried fruits? I know it has some sugar and other things on it, but you can get most of the benefits from fruit in dried fruit. It might taste better to her. Have you tried mixing fruits together? Kind of like a smoothie? Get some yogurt, strawberries and bananas and see if that helps. It will be somewhat sweet but still yummy and healthy. You can even try to put some cinnamon on bits of apples. That is a new flavor.

I know it is not as good as other meats, but what about lunch meat? The thinly sliced turkey or ham. Do you think she would like that? What about spaghetti with a little beef? You can even make that more yummy with olives and sun dried tomatoes and some garlic.

This sounds like my daughter. At a year old, she decided she was going vegetarian. She wouldn't eat a piece of meat if her life depended on it. She would eat just about any veggie I put in front of her. I also tried fruits. She would also eat yogurt and cheese so she was getting her protein. At about 2, she swore off vegetables and started eating meat again. I talked to the doctor both times and their take on it was "it's a phase, she'll out grow it". RIGHT!!!

At 5, she is still my picky eater. The only way I have been able to slowly introduce the veggies back into her "likes/tolerates" is to make her eat 5 peas, 5 kernels of corn, 5 lima beans, one piece of broccoli, etc every night at dinner. My husband is set in his ways about what he will/won't eat, so I am fighting an uphill battle there too. DD is slowly coming around, but it's still difficult. Now that she has started school, I am hoping that she will see the other kids eating other foods and want to try them.

I have no help on recipes, but know that you are not alone in this. :) It does get better. It just takes time

I have the same problem, except my LO eats fruits.
I start feed her 2-3 times per day , so now when she is hungry she eats almost everything. No juices only water, cos they contain a lot sugar and baby my think that she is not hungry.
favorite food - pears+ pees+ broccoli mix
chicken + banana+ rise (or pasta)+ coconut
yogurt

We've been there (and are still there sometimes) with our now 2 yr old son. I think it's an independence thing, not necessarily that they don't like the foods. The only way we get any food into our son without a tantrum is if we distract him with toys, his favorites seem to be baby/children's apps on my iPhone. He also will happily eat anything with cheese on it. To get him to eat the bread with a cheese sandwich I toast it so the cheese melts and make it an open-face sandwich. For fruits and veggies, he'll happily eat Gerber pureed and then sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes (not really a veggie), frozen veggies, and then cucumbers and red bell peppers (I think he likes the crunchiness).
Good luck!

I would be helpful if you listed things she does eat. Will she eat pancakes. You can add pumpkin and carrot to pancakes and make pumpkin pie pancakes and carrot cake pancakes. This will get veggies in her diet. I found out my picky 2 yr old will eat veggies if they have been cooked in soup. And he loves spit pea soup, though we have to thicker it a little with crakers) so keep trying different forms. My little one doesn't like meat either (except chicken nuggets and fish sticks) but he gets protien through scrambled eggs (which sometimes I can sneak spinach into) and lentils, he loves lentils! He also will eat shredded cheese, but won't eat cheese in any other form. I know it can be frustrating, I feel like we waste so much food trying to get him to eat.

I'm a dietitian and have done a fair amount of work with toddler nutrition. What we call "picky eating" is really "food neophobia" which is fear of new foods. Foods need to be introduced to a kid 8-12 times, and it's totally normal (and age-appropriate) for them to sniff, play with, poke at, and yes - even spit out food. It's all part of the learning process.

It actually sounds to me that what you have is less of an eating issue and more of a control issue. Everyone is bigger, stronger and smarter than an 18-month-old, and for some kids it's frustrating. One of the only things she can really control is how much food she puts in her mouth.

My advice - relax. If she eats, great. Don't make a big deal of it. But don't pressure her either if she doesn't eat. I sense that you're really anxious about this, but kids really are better than adults at self-regulating their hunger and knowing when they don't want to eat. Stand your ground and give her at most 2 options from which to choose (that gives her some sense of control), and change up the options often so she's not always picking mac and cheese, for example. But otherwise leave her alone.

Also, I highly advise against sneaking veggies and fruits in unless absolutely, positively necessary. The message it sends kids is that f/v are something to endure and aren't tasty on their own. Sets them up for a lifetime of shunning f/v.

I've pureed summer squash and then added it to cooked whole wheat pasta along with a little butter and milk. I top it with parmesan cheese and my kids really like it. Cauliflower is another good vegetable to puree and sneak into foods. They also love pumpkin and zucchini bread, I follow a recipe from allrecipes.com and use canola oil and cut back a little on the sugar. Lots of kids seem to like hummus w/ carrot sticks.

My guy is almost 2.5 and still picky, it's mostly a texture thing with him (he hated meat until a few months ago.) He LOVES turkey (but not beef) meatballs and I serve them with sauce (tomatoes, peppers and garlic) which he'll lick off so he's getting some veggies. He ate some for lunch with scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast today. I give him his toast plain or he'll sit there and try to lick the butter or jelly off it and leave the bread, but if there's nothing on it he'll eat it, and he only eats whole wheat bread. If I give him peanut butter I don't put jelly or he'd lick it off, and as it is he licks all the PB off and leaves most of the bread :-/

Dinner was chicken, potatoes and salad, he ate a few bites of chicken, no potatoes, and some salad because of the dressing. He has always loved sweet potatoes so I sometimes give him sweet potato fries or mashed baked sweet potato.

He'll also eat broccoli with dip but it's basically the only green veggie he'll eat and that's just the last couple of months, so it's to the blender to puree veggies I add to ground turkey where he can't see them for meatballs and meatloaf, chicken nuggets (I make them from scratch from chicken breasts,) Cheddar cheese I cut in sticks, whole wheat crackers, yogurt, oatmeal, Quaker Oatmeal Squares, and the fruit/veggie juice blends. If your daughter drinks these all she'll taste is fruit and she's getting a full serving of fruit and veggies each.

He loves pizza so I make him individual ones on whole wheat English muffin halves, some sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni slices. He will eat applesauce but won't eat apples, oranges (but he'll suck the juice out) bananas (has always hated them, even pureed when he was a baby,) strawberries, practically any fruit, no way.

I'm pretty blessed that he doesn't like sweets like cake or cookies other than oatmeal cookies, but he likes an occasional Dum Dum pop or sugar free sucker, and those only about once a week or so as a treat.

Don't worry that your daughter hardly eats, my daughter was the same, she literally ate like a bird and was so skinny, but her pediatrician said she could eat as little as a teaspoon or two of food a day (a couple of bites like your daughter) and be OK. The only time he told me to be concerned was if she couldn't keep up with her daily activities of running, playing, etc., which never happened. He assured me her body wouldn't let her starve and would tell her when to eat and he was right. She really didn't pick up on her eating until she was about 3.5 to 4, but once she did we had no more problems.

At 18 months I'm sure your daughter is pretty capable of feeding herself finger foods, so place them in front of her and pretend not to watch her, she more than likely will eat when you're "not watching." Give her small amounts of any food so as not to overwhelm her, some fruit/veggie juice in her sippy, and keep in mind that the experts say a baby/toddler has to try a food, each and every food, about 15 times before they like it! The key is to continue to offer her what the rest of the family is eating, not to make special meals (my guy eats what the rest of us are having but may pick at it) and not to let her fill up on just the foods she likes. Hang in there!