Mom's of picky eating toddlers

If it's her only option, and she's hungry enough, she'll eat. Promise.

My oldest was the most picky eater and God forgive me, I let her be. It took years but she's much more diverse now (at 20).

Just have the battle now, she'll thank you for it later.

I have 2 picky eaters who wouldn't touch a vegetable if you paid them. With my 5-year old, I can reason with her a bit more and get her to actually try a few things. She might say no thank you but at least she is trying.

There is no reasoning with my 3-year old son. I am riding out his pickiness right now. The only thing I have going for me is that both of my kids love fruit so they get that a lot.

One suggestion I have for her is to put the food into ice cube trays or muffin tins. My kids love it. Your DD might be able to sneak some new or different foods in that way. I nearly always include a very small treat in one of the spaces (like a gummy bear or a few m&m's or something tiny). Yes, they eat it first but it makes them look forward to getting the food and it certainly doesn't spoil their appetite for the rest of the meal.

My other suggestion is using fun cookie cutters to cut shapes into the food. My kids like that too.

ETA: My son would rather starve than eat something he doesn't want. We are lucky if we can get one solid meal out of him a day as it is. So sometimes the battling just doesn't work.

Stop serving those and remove them from the menu. If they are not available the child will learn to eat what she is given unless there is some sensory issue at play.

She may also have to get creative. Seems the little one likes cheese so maybe broccoli or cauliflower with cheese sauce on it to start. My kids also liked dipping things in ketchup sometimes or hummus for fresh veggies. We also let them use kids chopsticks for picking up and eating food sometimes which made it fun. I also made theme food so fish like salmon would be served with spinach and we said the fish liked the seaweed. Or broccoli was little trees. My kids also liked eating "food on sticks" so fruit on skewers or toothpicks to pick them up rather than just a fork. Those little tiny cocktail forks are fun to use as well.

My kids were good eaters ( the rule was eat it or go to bed so they ate, lol) but in lunches I would put cucumber slices that I would cut into shapes using mini cookie cutters. I would make sandwiches and cut them as well to make it more fun. Lots of ideas in Pinterest as well.

First off it's your dd own doing. She offered her those food. If you what a child to eat healthy food then that is all your offer.
You do not give them junk food. if my kids get any of the food you listed They are think it something big and special. M did not get pizza and stuff until just a few months ago. Sweet are for birthday and holidays only.

Also, I admit it has been a while, but I remember reading you need to offer a new food to a child at least 5 times/meals in quick succession to be successful at introducing it. I think the idea is more with infant/toddlers but it is something to think about.

What about disguising some of the healthier options by hiding it? Making smoothies that have veggies and fruit. Look at thesneakychef.com for ideas

Someone mentioned it above but DS loves those tiny forks. My mom has them and he is always excited to use them.

Would taking your DGD shopping and letting her pick some new foods to try help? DS loves being my "helper" - maybe if she got to pick some healthier options herself, she would want to eat them.

I've had two picky eaters and one who ate anything we put in front of him.

Some kids will eventually eat if they get hungry enough....some kids would rather go hungry than eat something they don't like. I had one of each - and my 'would rather go hungry' was very small for her age for a long time.

I generally tried to serve at least one item/meal that the child would eat - it wouldn't be in unlimited quantities (unless it was a vegetable - you can have all the carrots you want). We tried different snacks to find healthier options that they would eat - mini pumpkin muffins were a hit with one of mine (I made them with pumpkin, raisins and oatmeal - they weren't 100% health food but they added nutrients they didn't eat elsewhere), cheese cubes (we tried lots of different cheeses - one likes swiss, one likes sharp cheddar or colby), yoghurt....that way when they were hungry between meals, they were filling up on fruits, veggies, protein not empty calories.

We limited milk (to the reccommended servings/day for their age) and otherwise only offered water....because it's easy to fill up on juice or milk.

Branch out - try new things...take the child to the store and see if there's a fruit or vegetable that appeals to them. Try fruits in different forms - a whole apple vs apple slices vs applesauce; fresh fruit or canned fruit or frozen fruit....Same thing with veggies - lots of children prefer raw vegetables to cooked.

Oh - and exercise and fresh air help with appetites

FWIW - it will get easier with time. My older picky eater still has a long list of foods she doesn't care for and a shorter list of foods that she can't/won't choke down but she's more willing to try new things and she's more able to eat at least a small portion of most foods she doesn't care for. And she's finally a healthy weight. My younger picky eater is still in the making progress stage but she's getting there (and truthfully I think some of her pickiness is/was copying big sister rather than an actual aversion to the food)

I think it really helps to stay relaxed about it all. Or at least try! Offer the food you want them to eat and if they don't eat it, don't worry over them until you cave in and give them something unhealthy. I also have at least one thing on the table you know they will eat. As long as its not junk.
I'm so glad I had my veggie lover first! My little boy is very fussy but I just don't offer anything else. He never starves! He likes toasties so I chop things up small and hide them in a grilled cheese. I make low/no sugar muffins full of fruit. He loves pasta so I do the same thing there.
Even if they don't eat something the first time, keep offering but not forcing. Don't make it a battle. And we always eat our meals together so he sees the rest of us eating our healthy food.
Good luck! It's so important

Barring any kind of medical issues, I admit I am kind of old school about this and have a take it or leave it approach. I was not really one to reason or cajole or bribe, I serve(d) food and those that were at the table with me either ate it or not. If you didn't want to eat it that was fine, you had to eat however many bites you were old in order to be freed from table.

I never catered to what they wanted, but I did make sure that throughout the day they had food they liked. If I knew I was going to cook a meal that either had something new or that they weren't fond of, I made sure that they liked what I was serving for lunch. That way I knew they were eating something at some point through out the day.

I just kept serving food that I liked and they ate it. Of course they have foods that they don't care for, so do I. But over all, the less of a battle food becomes, the less of a battle it is. 

My younger DS was such a poor eater as a toddler that I consulted a nutritionist. He told me something that I sort of knew, but had forgotten -- familiarity is a huge thing with toddlers. It can take up 12 (twelve!!!) times of serving a new food to a toddler before they even feel comfortable tasting it. He said that most parents give up on a new food too soon -- they serve it a few times, toddler turns up his/her nose at it each time, so they don't put it on toddler's plate anymore. He said you have to just keep trying. This advice really made a world of difference with my own kid (who is a teen now).

We have a rule in our house where DD needs to try a bite of everything on her plate. She doesn't have to eat it all, but she does have to try it. We've had some issues in the past but she's getting a little better now. I think part of it was that DH would always put a full serving of stuff on her plate, and when she would sit down and see all that (especially if it was something new) she would be overwhelmed by it. My thought is to only put a few tablespoons of each thing on her plate so it doesn't look like this massive amount of weird stuff to choke down. If she eats the little bit and likes it, she can always have more. But if she's too overwhelmed to even take one bite, the opportunity has been lost.

I will second the ketchup and cheese on stuff too, if that helps. My kid will eat ketchup on a lot of things and personally I'm like   But if it gets her to eat broccoli and other things like that? You won't hear me saying a thing! If she was really picky, I wouldn't hesitate to resorting to putting zucchini into brownies, etc. Thankfully we haven't had to go that far but I would absolutely do it.

No, but you can serve broccoli with different meals. Think about it as working on one item at a time. These 12 days I'll work on broccoli and see if after 12 days DC can start eating broccoli. Then serve it every other day in different ways. 

Keep offering the other foods over and over again. But don't battle over it. My youngest went from eating everything you could imagine as a young toddler, to what we called "the great white diet" somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5. He wanted vanilla yogurt, bananas, bread, rice, pasta, & cheese. ugh.

One of his favorite things was to have snack or lunch out of an ice cube tray or muffin tin, and that was a great way to try to tempt him with new foods. One meal I'd fill most of the tins with his preferred foods and just a few non-preferred. The next time he ate I'd do the opposite. Slowly he moved away form that phase and went back to eating most things we offered.



Another thing we did was to make something new several nights a week for dinner, even if it was just a side.   And we'd all make a big (positive, fun, woohooo!) kind of deal out of trying the new food.  Every other member of the family would try the new food.  And if anyone else didn't like it, that was fine.  So it reinforced that you can try something without committing yourself to it forever.