All I hear from my two-year-old is, “Mom I want waffle” or “cereal please”. He doesn’t want to try anything different. For the longest time he would only drink milk, no juice, no water. It drives me crazy when toddlers go into these fazes. It is important for your children to eat a variety of foods and try new things, but how can you get them to actually do it?
Use what your toddler likes. Boys it is normally easy to tell them that Superheros have to eat veggies to get big and strong. With girls it might be that a princess needs fruits and veggies to look pretty and rule the land. Whatever works. Use what your child likes and play it up. This never works with my two year old, he could care less. I make him a plate with a little of everything and he can’t get up to play until he tries at least one bite of each. He screams for a while, but then I noticed he will try a bite of each and sometimes more if he decides he likes it.
You can try recipes that have veggies in them that you can’t actually taste. A great cookbook to try it “Deceptively Delicious” by Jessica Seinfeld. This will show you how to hide any type of vegetable into a food that your child won’t be scared to try. I have found that my kids love to dip, they will dip anything. If I give some ranch with raw veggies they will eat them much easier. I know this sounds disgusting, but they love to dip anything in ketchup, even their veggies. I will go with whatever works, if they want ketchup then so be it, as long as they eat the vegetables.
The main way to ensure your toddler eats the right foods is to be firm. Ensure that whatever method you decide to use, that you stick to it and don’t allow your little one to get away with only eating potato chips for dinner. Even one bite of a carrot is better than nothing.
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