Food ideas for picky toddler?

Question

my daughter is 2 1/2. she is a VERY picky eater. she really only likes to eat....chicken nuggets, cereals, toast, pancakes, mac n cheese, hot dogs, grilled cheese, ravioli. getting her to eat fruit and veggies is always a battle. does anyone have any other meal ideas that their toddler like? its also hard to get her to try a new food. she "decides" she doesn't like it before she even tries.

Answer 1

OMG I KNOW!!! lol Jessica Seinfeld made a cookbook where you hide vegetables in food that like. An example is: if your child likes brownies, you can make them with puree spinach and carrots in it and you don't taste it. And it's low-fat. heres a link to buy her book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061251...

she was on Oprah about this book btw

Answer 2

You've got be creative. First cut down on all the fatty foods. Try to fill her cereal or pancakes with small bits of fruit,so she cant tell the difference. Maybe you can make her fish nuggets, most kids cant tell the difference until they taste them. Try to home cook the ravioli and make a spagetti sauce that has carrots and stuff in it. I guess, I'd just try to disguise new foods to look like the ones she already likes.

Answer 3

Make the new food you're giving her fun. Put it in the shape of Mickey Mouse or something, or you could even mix the fruits in with other foods like her pancakes or cereal and the vegetables with the macaroni or even grilled cheese. If this doesn't work you could always just stop giving her her favorite foods and start giving her the foods she needs to eat only. She wont eat it the first few times, but eventually she'll realize that you wont give her what she wants and she'll try the new foods. It may sound a little harsh doing that but she needs to eat healthy foods and it's not helping just continuously feeding her only the foods she likes.

Answer 4

The first thing to do is to stop battling with her.  That is a sure fire way to make her become more picky.  

You're exactly right.  She needs to decide what goes into her mouth and her body.  (Of course, she doesn't provide the food, you do, but she is learning discernment and learning to become her own person and needs an opportunity to do so.)

The best way to feed a toddler, is to put the food on a plate.  Give her lots of variety, so she can get the feeling that she is picking her food and then walk away and let her eat.  

Give her a mix of what you know she likes and add other things that are 'iffy'.  Raw cut up veggies can be appealing...a combination of 2 or 3.

They like finger food, so corn is good.  Another good thing to do this time of year is offer several kinds of fruit in different forms.  She will get most of the vitamins and minerals she needs from fruit and will tend to enjoy it more.

If she is healthy, don't worry too much.  As long as she is getting exposed to lots of different kinds of foods, she'll be all right.

At that age, they don't require as much food as they had when younger.  She's not growing as fast as she was before.

Answer 5

you could try putting chopped up strawberrys and bananas in her cereal i guess. and i used to only like chicken - no other meat. so my parents used to tell me fish was "chicken of the sea" and beans were a vegetable called harriets (and not beans) so i ate them.. i was so foolish.

she's got good food taste, i love grilled cheese.