Ask the Expert – Getting Your Toddler to Eat Better

Ask The Expert is a weekly column on Littlestomaks.com. The idea is to have a reader-submitted question answered by a nutrition expert or a pediatrician. Feel free to submit your question in the comments section below.

This week, Registered Dietitian Cindy Williams offers practical tips to help you get your growing toddler to eat a variety of foods including fruits and vegetables.

Cindy Williams, RD New Zealand Registered Dietitian. Master of Public Health (University of Queensland, Australia) Grad. Diploma in Communication (Queensland University of Technology) Over 20 years’ experience as consultant dietitian to food industry, corporate health, sports teams and media Senior writer for New Zealand Healthy Food Guide magazine Website: www.nutritionchic.com Twitter: @nutritionchic

Question: How do I get my 3 year old to eat better? He never eats veggies and only eats a handful of items like chicken nuggets, pizza, pasta, rice, and cereal.

Answer:

Toddlers are notoriously fussy eaters. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, their growth rate has slowed so they usually don’t need to eat so much.

Second, as we fret about the nutritional inadequacy of two bites of toast for breakfast and desperately cajole them to eat a bit more, our darling child learns that with one tiny word – NO – they can make mummy and daddy act really funny. And if they keep on saying it long enough they might get really yummy stuff to eat. This is when the frazzled parents finally give in to the child’s incessant tearful demands for his favorite food and think ‘At least he’s eating something’. What can we do to win this power battle and come through it with a healthy child that eats a wide range of foods? Here are a few ideas.

1. Serve one new food at a time, along with familiar foods. Include one favorite food with each meal.
2. It can take up to 15 tries of a new food for your child to like it. Don’t give up on the first refusal. Try again in a few days.
3. Just like adults there will be some foods that your child won’t like even after 15 tries. Take a break and try again when they are a little older and their taste-buds have developed a bit more.
4. Add vegetables to the favorite foods e.g. pizza topped with cooked spinach, finely chopped red pepper or broccoli or pasta topped with thick vegetable soup as a pasta sauce.
5. Hide vegetables in favorite foods e.g. grated carrot and pumpkin in pasta sauce, mince and burgers. Fried rice with egg, corn, red pepper and carrot.
6. Try corn on the cob. Cut a cob in three to make it easy for little fingers to handle.
7. Toddlers can’t eat huge meals. Give them small snacks through the day. Try carrot sticks, baby tomatoes, cut fruit pieces, grapes and cheese cubes.
8. Try it raw. Serve raw sliced vegetables for your children to nibble while you make dinner. They may eat their whole vegetable quota before the meal.
9. Turn food into play. Give food fun names e.g. ‘moon squirters’ for baby tomatoes. Arrange food to look like a face, a house, a rocket ship or a train. My 4-year-old ate a pile of mashed potato with fish and vegetables because it was called ‘Tracey Island’ from Thunderbirds!
10. Make finger food. Toddlers prefer distinctive pieces of food that they can identify and pick up in their fingers.Eat as a family when possible. Children learn by example. If they see their parents and older siblings enjoying vegetables and other healthy food they are more likely to want to try it.
11. Involve your child in growing or picking fruit, vegetables and herbs. Taste it right there in the garden. It’s much more fun than eating at the table.
12. Point out interesting fruit and vegetables in the supermarket and let your child choose one to take home.
13. Let your child help out in the kitchen. They could drop tomatoes in the salad, shell peas, peel a banana, drop fruit into the blender or turn it on when making a fruit smoothie, pat out some pizza dough or sprinkle cheese.

REMEMBER…

You are not a restaurant

When a toddler complains that they don’t like their meal and that they want something different, empathize with them but don’t jump up and make something else.

You provide the quality, they choose the quantity

Young children are perfectly designed to eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full. They may miss a meal in protest at the ‘yukky’ food but their rumbling tummy will eventually have them eating whatever you have provided.

My niece went through this fussy stage as a toddler. One evening came the final showdown. She refused her dinner and demanded something else. Her dad told her that was fine; they would just keep it for her breakfast. Off she went to bed with no dinner and lots of tears, much to the horror of her mom. The next morning dinner was waiting. She refused it. Off they went to church. The dinner went too! Finally she gave in and the battle was won. Hopefully you won’t need to be this brutal, but it worked.

If necessary, give your child a temporary nutritional supplement

If you’re concerned that your fussy toddler isn’t getting enough nutrients, particularly iron which is critically important at this age, give him a temporary nutritional supplement. Nutrient fortified milk is great. Also give him fruit with his meals to increase iron absorption. Once you feel assured that he’s getting all his nutritional needs, you are less likely to fall into the ‘At least he’s eating something’ trap. You’ll be ready to take back the reins of power.

It’s a stage that will end

Hang in there. Keep serving up a variety of food and flavours. Take a few deep breaths, perhaps a glass of wine, and know that this stage won’t last forever.

©2009 Littlestomaks.com. All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer – Information provided in Ask The Expert column on Littlestomaks.com is intended to give you general guidance on a question related to toddler nutrition. It is not meant to be treated as medical advice. You are welcome to contact this expert for a detailed consultation on your specific situation to determine what actions, if any, you should take regarding nutrition and health of your toddlers. We do not recommend you to take any action based solely on the information presented in this column. Experts have agreed to provide their professional opinion on toddler nutrition related questions on a voluntary basis and no compensation is offered to them by Littlestomaks.com.

Related Posts

Tagged as: Dinner Together, Family, Fruits, Healthy Habits, Kids Nutrition, Play, Supplements, Toddler Growth, Toddler Multivitamins, Vegetables