Toddler will not eat healthy foods

[Zephie]

My 18 mo son will absolutely not eat healthy foods. Fruits, veggies, unless it's apples it's a no go. I'm ripping my hair out. With veggies I've presented them to him a million different ways, sauteed, steamed, with and without herbs and spices, and it all ends up on the floor and with my son screaming like I gave him pure toxic waste. Meanwhile fruits aren't faring much better with him shoving a piece in his mouth, holding it there for a second before spitting it out and going to the next one to repeat the process. He'll eat apples and dehydrated fruit mix from a bag, but those are expensive and apples can't be the only healthy thing he'll eat! I'm at a loss. How do I fix my picky eater?

[seabeyond]

1. could be a texture child. my youngest couldnt not do the texture. we pretty much

stayed with apples.

veggies i would cut up fine. like bell peppers, ect... squash, carrots and put them in the spaghetti sauce and taco meat. he never knew. i did that with so many of our dinners. i presented oj every morning and he would take a couple sips. what other choice did he had.

he is still a junk food kid. and way back when, it was one junk food a day. t he reality.

so if he would ask for something after dinner, i would say.... junk. you had... today. and he knew, one junk food a day.

to this day, at 15.

he still has a tough time digesting and texture. it s who he is. but, we have found things he does do. and he has worked on self.

18 mo, pick your battles.

they never eat as much as we think they should. but they do follow what their body is saying.

[Lilyhoney]

2. I have the same problem here.

My son will eat apples and bananas other than that he likes dairy and pasta and meats. He is almost 3 years old and in the 85th percentile for his weight and height and age.

As mentioned above, it could be a sensory issue, which my son has. Textures really gross him out. He never ate jar baby food. Sometimes he sees the food being prepared and is turned off.

He will pick onions and the like out of spaghetti sauce. So now I use the food processor to hide nutrition in the stuff he will eat.

I am looking for a blender so I can make smoothies to get him to eat some fresh fruit. I give him lots of 100 percent fruit juice which he likes. Looking forward to juice and fruit popsicles.

I have no help to offer you. I just want to let you know somebody else knows how you might feel. I just keep trying. I was a picky eater until I was in my early 20's.

Know that at the end of the day you are a good parent and did all that could be done and that tomorrow is a new day.

Lilyhoney

[pnwmom]

3. What else is he eating? Is his doctor concerned about his diet? Dr. Sears

has some ideas about this.

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/feeding-infants-toddlers/feeding-picky-eater-17-tips

[Lilyhoney]

6. Thanks for the link.

I have read this before and found it to be helpful.

I have recently started indulging in Pintrest. I have found a lot of great food ideas. Another place I found food ideas is a site called Funky Lunch.

Lilyhoney

[pnwmom]

8. Dr. Brazelton, a highly respected pediatrician and author, says "Forget vegetables."

One of my friends decided to take his advice with her daughter, who went through a couple years of eating mostly cheese, pasta, meats and chicken.

She's in her twenties now and is a vegetarian.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/dr-brazeltons-advice-on-childhood-nutrition/

They turn pale. Open their eyes wide. Feel faint. I offer them a seat, and repeat, “Forget about vegetables.”

As they gasp for breath, I continue, “When a young child struggles with you over food, you won’t win. The more you struggle, the more he’ll hate whatever you’re trying to shovel into him. Back off. Apologize. Let him know that you know that only he can swallow the stuff you prepare for him.”

As they begin to recover, they stammer, “Really? No vegetables? No green vegetables? No yellow vegetables?”

“Really,” I say. “You can cover them with a multivitamin during this temporary period — usually between 2 and 3 years old – when any battle over food will backfire into even worse nutrition. They’ll make it through this with enough milk, meat, eggs, grains and fruit.” (See our book “Feeding Your Child: The Brazelton Way,” published in 2005 by Da Capo Press, for specific nutritional requirements and strategies for feeding picky eaters. Specific nutritional requirements vary with a child’s age, size and activity.)

[wildeyed]

4. Have you tried smoothies?

You can hide plenty of healthy fruits and veg in those while maintaining a consistent texture and taste. There are also cookbooks out there that have recipes where you hide healthy foods in traditional kid foods.

My sister's son was/is very picky. I think he has legitimate sensory issues, but that was exacerbated by the fact that she got so emotional about it and also did not stick to a regular eating schedule. She was forever offering snacks between meals and was willing to cook him a whole second dinner if he didn't like the first. So there was big emotional payoff for being picky. Generally, if you offer a good variety of healthy foods and don't cave to feeding junk all the time, they eventually get hungry and eat what you offer. Also, lots of outdoor play and exercise seems to cut my kids pickiness way down. On those days they come to the table really hungry and just eat what is there.

[mzteris]

5. Two things . ..

one - you can puree vegetables and add them to pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, hide in casseroles - whatever they might eat.

Two - if you don't give them anything else - you have no junk in the house - you only offer them what you want them to eat, then, when they get hungry enough - they'll eat it.

Sounds harsh, but if they have no other choice, they won't starve themselves. They'll eat.

I grew up being called "Picky Eunice" (a southern term). I didn't eat much of anything. I was determined my kids wouldn't be. They were all allowed to have a couple of foods they could "refuse" - after all the smell of sauerkraut or rutabagas to this day make me nauseated - but basically - eat what you're given or go hungry. Doesn't take long.

[pnwmom]

7. The OP didn't mention what the child did eat.

Lots of children happily eat meat, poultry, eggs, and cheese, but don't like vegetables. So it's not necessarily junk that the child wants.

[mzteris]

9. True.

Thanks for pointing that out. I ws assuming junk.

I have other suggestions, but my iPad is. Possessed tonight. I'll try again tomorrow.

[MichelleB]

10. Smoothies are wonderful!!

Most wont eat the "good stuff". Try mixing up a smoothie and sneaking in some sweet veggies. Like carrots. Or tomatoes. It works!!

[laundry_queen]

11. There are great ideas here

Out of my 4 kids, 3 were picky toddlers. I ended up doing the whole 'stealth' nutrition thing a lot - banana bread, zucchini bread, smoothies, spaghetti sauce with pureed veggies (though one kid wouldn't even eat spaghetti, lol), 'chicken noodle' soup (with tiny cut up veggies) and so on.

I didn't sweat it. I kept putting food in front of them, food that they saw me eat. If they saw me eat it, they were more likely to try it. I tried to sit down and eat with them at the same times. With each child, they were less picky watching their siblings eat. My youngest was the least picky having spent time in childcare with a caregiver that was a vegetarian and cooked very nutrition veggie-filled food. Watching 5 or 6 kids eat the veggies was a lot of peer pressure, LOL, and she tried things my older ones would have thrown off the table. She did backslide at home, though. Still, she's the only one in the house that LOVES olives and snacks on them.

But yeah, my strategy when I gave them veggies was that I didn't say a word, I didn't coax them, I just put it in front of them. Over and over again. I think you have to present it to a toddler something like 16 times before they'll even entertain the thought of trying it. And even then, it's a crapshoot. I just made sure my kids got the 'stealth' veggies, a multivitamin and tried to relax.

Remember too - their tastes change. I remember my older 2 DDs liking totally opposite foods - when we'd have a bbq, my younger one loved baked potatoes and my older one loved steak. Neither loved salad. I used to worry my younger one wasn't getting enough protein and that my older one wasn't getting enough carbs and that neither was getting enough veggies.

Now, as teens, my older one loves everything, and my younger one hates potatoes and will only eat some steak and tons of salad. So they do change eventually. Sometimes they come up with new things - my youngest (6 yrs) is going through a phase where nothing that I make for her school lunch is good enough. She refuses to eat anything healthy and eats only her 'treats'. It's easy to fall into the trap of coaxing and giving a lot of attention to them because you are concerned about their nutrition and some kids will use this. I was doing this with my 6 yo and her lunches, and once I realized it, I had to step back. Now I tell her, "You can make your lunch" then leave her alone. And then I inspect what she packs. Oddly enough, she has creative ideas and has been packing healthier lunches. Sometimes it's about attention and control.

Good luck!

[Gov101]

12. Best trick = modeling

My trick with a 1-3 yr old so far is to just put an array of new stuff on his plate, tell him what everything is, and DO NOT tell him to eat any of it. When he sees me eating the same stuff then he eats it. If there is something he REALLY likes or is familiar with I save that back.

Of course he'll sometimes not want to eat certain things, but if you put 3 new things on the plate he'll try at least one of them unless you've trained him to only eat crap. I encourage him to try everything even if it means that the cup of cinnamon applesauce he wont get to have until he tries one bite of everything etc.

But otherwise telling a toddler to eat something is the surest way to prevent them from trying it I've found.

[deenamathew]

13. Toddler not eat healthy foods

Even my LO also will not have any healthy foods. If i feed he spit it out. I feed him when he will be in the playing.