help feeding my toddler

altreu

O used to be the best eater! He ate tons of veggies and loved it. Lately though, he barely allows anything in other than meat, eggs, sometimes cheese, crackers and fruit. It's like veggies are out of the question. Sometimes I can hide them in an omelette. The best I can do these days is avocado and beans. 

So, have any of you gone through this? Are there any recipes you like or tricks you can share? I am stumped!  

Mrs.K&C

I think O is at the age when I seriously asked people how long Sabrina could possibly live on just cheese. It was a phase, longer lived than I'd like but I just kept offering her normal food and crossing my fingers she'd eat something than just cheese. Some days she did, some days she didn't!

kittylove

Some things that have worked for us. Blend them up and add to pasta sauce (if your child will eat pasta), hide in grilled cheese, give them right after nap when he is hungry and more willing to eat what is right infront of him. It is really hit or miss for us and when he was 1.5 to 2 it was miss about 90% of the time. The good news is that most kids are like this and they all survive.

NorcalLinds

If the boys are super hungry, and i'm still working on dinner, i give them veggies first, they will eat them when they are starving, and i'm finishing up the rest of dinner. 

MommySteph2009

I try to make fruit or veggie muffins, like Zucchini bread & carrot muffins.

I try to have him drink a veggie/fruit juice combo, it has a day's servings in it.  I water down the juice.

DS recently likes carrot sticks with ranch, I cut them up into little matchstick stized pieces. 

SweetieP

NorcalLinds:

If the boys are super hungry, and i'm still working on dinner, i give them veggies first, they will eat them when they are starving, and i'm finishing up the rest of dinner. 

I do exactly this.

 

altreu

I was afraid that it was a phase...

I guess I will try to hide veggies in more things. Can't hurt. And I like the idea of giving him the veggies when I know he's hungriest.

Thanks ladies!  

Celyn

Welcome to a new developmental milestone!  This is nature's way of keeping curious toddlers from eating poisonous berries and leaves.  It's very normal for their palate for flavors to shrink to just a few "safe" foods and shirk the rest.  As a mom of a baby whose favorite infant food was kale, who then become a toddler who would eat nothing green, and who is a now a child who loves all those things again, I'm happy to say it's just a stage.

When you hide veggies in other foods, I suggest making sure you don't add so much to change the flavor significantly at first.  Mine caught on instantly that way Instead, add more slowly over time.

 

leverby

The sure fire vegetable that DD will eat these days is green beans from a can.  I do sneak in veggies now and then in pasta sauce or omelettes, but that's really for my own piece of mind so that I feel like she's eating a balanced diet and I don't think it really teaches her to recognize and like veggies. So, every day, I offer her some kind of plain vegetable and wait, and wait, and wait, for the day that she comes back around and eats them again. I also try to show her by example by eating them and making a big deal how yummy it is -- that sometimes excites her to take one teensy bite.