Tips for picky Eater toddler

Why toddlers are picky. Being a picky eater is part of what it means to be a toddler. We have since learned that there are developmental reasons why kids between one and three years of age peck and poke at their food.

After a year of rapid growth (the average one-year-old has tripled her birth weight), toddlers gain weight more slowly. So, of course, they need less food. All this is not to say that parents shouldn't encourage their toddlers to eat well and develop healthy food habits. Based on our hands-on experience with eight children, we've developed 17 tactics to tempt little taste buds and minimize mealtime hassles.


1. Offer a nibble tray.

Use an ice-cube tray, a muffin tin, or a compartmentalized dish, and put bite-size portions of colorful and nutritious foods in each section.

Give the foods fun names, such as avocado boats (a quarter of an avocado sectioned lengthwise), banana or cooked carrot wheels, broccoli trees, cheese blocks, little O's (O-shaped cereal), canoe eggs (hard-boiled eggs cut lengthwise in wedges), moons (peeled apple slices, thinly spread with peanut butter), or shells and worms (different shapes of pasta).



2. Dip it.

Young children think that immersing foods in a tasty dip is pure fun (and delightfully messy). Some possibilities to dip into: cottage cheese or tofu dip, cream cheese, fruit juice-sweetened preserves, peanut butter, thinly spread, pureed fruits or vegetables, yogurt, plain or sweetened with juice concentrate, Those dips serve equally well as spreads on apple or pear slices, bell-pepper strips, rice cakes, bagels, toast, or other nutritious platforms.

3. Spread it.

Toddlers like spreading, or more accurately, smearing. Show them how to use a table knife to spread cheese, peanut butter, and fruit concentrate onto crackers, toast, or rice cakes.

4. Top it.

Toddlers are into toppings. Putting nutritious, familiar favorites on top of new and less-desirable foods is a way to broaden the finicky toddler's menu. Favorite toppings are yogurt, cream cheese, melted cheese, guacamole, tomato sauce, applesauce, and peanut butter.

5. Drink it.

Milk and fruit – along with supplements such as juice, egg powder, wheat germ, yogurt, honey, and peanut butter – can be the basis of very healthy meals. One note of caution: Avoid any drinks with raw eggs or you'll risk salmonella poisoning.

6. Cut it up.

How much a child will eat often depends on how you cut it. Cut sandwiches, pancakes, waffles, and pizza into various shapes using cookie cutters.

7. Package it.

why not use your child's own toy plates for dishing out a snack? Our kids enjoy the unexpected and fanciful when it comes to serving dishes .

You can also try the scaled-down approach. Either serve pint-size portions or, when they're available, buy munchkin-size foodstuffs, such as mini bagels, mini quiches and tiny muffins.

8. Become a veggie vendor.

Using a small cookie cutter, cut the vegetables into interesting shapes. Steam your greens. They are much more flavorful and usually sweeter than when raw. Make veggie art . Create colorful faces with olive- slice eyes, tomato ears, mushroom noses, bell-pepper mustaches, and any other playful features you can think of. Zucchini pancakes make a terrific face to which you can add pea eyes, a carrot nose, and cheese hair.

9. Share it.

If your child is going through a picky-eater stage, invite over a friend who is the same age or slightly older whom you know "likes to eat." Your child will catch on. Group feeding lets the other kids set the example.

10. Respect tiny tummies.

Keep food servings small. Wondering how much to offer? Here's a rule of thumb – or, rather, of hand. A young child's stomach is approximately the size of his fist.

As much as you possibly can, let your child – and his appetite – set the pace for meals. But if you want your child to eat dinner at the same time you do, try to time his snack-meals so that they are at least two hours before dinner.

11. Make it accessible.

Give your toddler own shelf space. Reserve a low shelf in the refrigerator for a variety of your toddler's favorite (nutritious) foods and drinks. Whenever she wants a snack, open the door for her and let her choose one. This tactic also enables children to eat when they are hungry, an important step in acquiring a healthy attitude about food.

12. Use sit-still strategies.

One reason why toddlers don't like to sit still at the family table is that their feet dangle. Try sitting on a stool while eating. You naturally begin to squirm and want to get up and move around. Children are likely to sit and eat longer at a child-size table and chair where their feet touch the ground.

13. Turn meals upside down.

This is not to say that you should become a short-order cook, filling lots of special requests, but why not let your toddler set the menu sometimes? Other family members will probably enjoy the novelty of waffles and hash browns for dinner.

14. Let them cook.

Children are more likely to eat their own creations, so, when appropriate, let your child help prepare the food. Give your assistant such jobs as washing lettuce, scrubbing potatoes, or stirring batter. Put pancake batter in a squeeze bottle and let your child supervise as you squeeze the batter onto the hot griddle in fun shapes, such as hearts, numbers, letters, or even spell the child's name.

15. Make every calorie count.

Offer your child foods that pack lots of nutrition into small doses. This is particularly important for toddlers who are often as active as rabbits, but who seem to eat like mice.

Nutrient-dense foods that most children are willing to eat include: Avocados , Pasta, Broccoli, Peanut butter, Brown rice and other grains, Potatoes, Cheese, Poultry, Eggs, Squash, Fish, Sweet potatoes, Kidney beans, Tofu, Yogurt

16. Count on inconsistency.

For young children, what and how much they are willing to eat may vary daily. As a parent in our practice said, "The only thing consistent about toddler feeding is inconsistency." Try to simply roll with these mood swings, and don't take them personally.

17. Relax.

Sometime between her second and third birthday, you can expect your child to become set in her ideas on just about everything – including the way food is prepared.

It's not easy to reason with an opinionated two-year-old. Better to learn to make the sandwich the child's way. Don't interpret this as being stubborn. Toddlers have a mindset about the order of things in their world. Any alternative is unacceptable. This is a passing stage.


Encourage the child to sit and nibble frequently throughout the day, especially late in the morning and in the mid-to-late afternoon, when the fuel from the previous meal begins to wear off. Shorten the spacing between feedings and you are less likely to have spacey children.

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