My Almost 21 Month Old Baby Girl Will Not Eat Fruit/veggies

T.,

I have the same problem with my daughter, who also used to eat her fruits and veggies. She is three now and this has been going on for more than a year. I give her fruit drinks by Odwalla since they have the whole fruit in them and also the V8 drinks that have vegetables. The doctor thinks she will outgrow this eventually and isn't worried as long as she is healthy. She indicates this this is a common complaint of parents of kids this age. I also give her a daily vitamin and a protein drink that has calcium since she is allergic to milk.

I hope your husband being away for work is only temporary. It is always better to have him come home at the end of the day instead of the end of the week! :)

-Jen

I would recommend the book "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld. It has recipes in there for adding pureed fruits and vegetables to anything from chicken nuggets and mac and cheese to brownies and pancakes. My kids can't tell the difference with a lot of them. Then at the same time you can still try having carrot sticks with ranch or celery with peanut butter or sliced apples on her plate. You may throw the veggies away for a long time, but she'll be used to seeing them on her plate and hopefully she'll come around someday. Good Luck!

My 19 month old son is the same way!!! He LOVES pastas and meats...but will not eat fruits/veggies. I was lucky with my daughter she loves fruits and will eat a few veggies. I just wanted to let you know you are not alone! I look forward to reading your responses for my own advice :)

Good luck!

If all you want to do is get her to eat them, you could try baking fruits/veggies into cakes/breads - I have some great recipes for banana bread (my kids favorite of all time) as well as zucchini bread and carrot cake - you can also add raisins or other dried fruit to cookies (oatmeal are best) - would be happy to share if you want them - but you should also make sure she is getting proper nutrition whether she eats what you think she should or not - I recommend some excellent herbal supplements that are completely safe and natural and provide all the vitamins and minerals humans need plus support all the body's systems to keep them in balance - would be happy to share more info on those as well - feel free to contact me if you would like to know more.

First of all...if you're doing something wrong, then so are many of us mothers. My daughter does the same thing with some of the vegetables she used to love. I've begun to search the internet for recipes that use really good for her veggies along with pasta--that's her favorite. I've found that I can mix either fresh or frozen spinach in with alfredo sauce and she absolutely scarfs it over pasta (with or without chicken). It doesn't look like a regular veggie, so she eats it and its so good for her. Also, I add spaghetti sauce with extra veggies mixed into it (the red color hides the other things). Also, I just offer her the veggies all the time and in different ways. For example, she loves corn on the cob much more than regular corn. Its fun to eat. She also does well with broccoli if I cut it off all the stem and mix it in with something else. Hope these ideas help! They're worth a try and don't give up...this too shall pass.

Three things:
First, do you eat veggies? A lot of times we worry so much about what our child is eating we forget that what we eat sets the example.
Second, always put veggies on her plate, but don't pressure her to eat them. At this age kids love to see what they can control and she knows you can't control what she eats, plus she sees that it bothers you which makes it all the more fun.
Third, I would try the suggestions about "sneaking" veggies into her favorite foods. That way you won't stress too much about the untouched food on her plate.

I still have difficulty getting my 12 year old to eat veggies...
I have adapted to what head start teaches kids.... meaning you have to have one bite and if you don't like it then you are done... I have slowly increased that by making the one bite larger.. LOL Shocking to me is that I was able to get her to eat salads... now her idea of salads is spinach leaves without dressing... but still have problems getting her to eat veggies on occassion.

Someone once told me when making meatloaf that I should chop or mince up the veggies and put it in the meat before cooking. The kids would never know and would get benefit from the vitamins.

Hope you figure something out soon.

Hey T.,

Well girl, join the club. You are not doing anything wrong-this is a common lament of mothers heard round the world. Any mother who doesn't struggle with this is LUCKY!!!!! My daughter ate everything until she turned two. Now she has chosen a very limited menu, and I didn't change a thing about the way I'd been feeding her. So, try all the tricks, but if they don't work, don't feel like a failure. I talked to my pediatrician about it, and she said that you can't force a kid to eat. I tried the Sneaky Chef book, the precursor to Deceptively Delicious, and my kids weren't fooled a bit. However, that being said, it is certainly worth a try, as all kids are different. One of these books may indeed hold the secret for your daughter. Since you have so much on your plate, I hope this will put your mind at ease a bit, knowing that you are not alone.

Take Care,
A.

Hi T. -

When she refuses to eat, what do you do? If you give her something else, worried that she might go hungry, she has you wrapped around her little finger....lol. This is very common among little ones. They are just learning boundries and what they can and can't control. The #1 thing that children can control is what they put - or don't put - into their mouths. It may not be that she doesn't like them, she just likes your response when she doesn't eat them better.

Stay strong - leave the veggies and fruits out in the open.

Blessings,

M. M. Ernsberger
Holistic Healthcare Practitioner

Funny how us as parents always think it's our fault. In my opinion it's just a phase and it will pass. At this age they start to be finicky eaters. I think many parents worry too much about what they eat so they cater to them and make them something different all the time. I think this is a very bad habit and they get spoiled and will never eat what we offer. We just put things out and if they ate them they did, if not we didn't fix other things. When they got hungry enough they eventually would eat what we put out. My mom always told me they'd eat when they are hungry. But if you can disguise the fruits and vegetables in dishes that's good too. Just don't worry you are doing something wrong.

Take care,
K.

I used to make the vegetables fun. Broccoli are trees, Cauliflower are clouds.. My son likes to help cook dinner.
I would give him a cutting board, butter knife,and a can of green beans/steamed carrots. I would tell him to cut in half and put them in a bowl. When he was done, their were about 3 vegies in the bowl. He would eat them all! My son loves the fun!
Good Luck.

Hello!

I would try two things.
One is to let her help with fruit and veggie prep or pick out in the store. This should make things more interesting since she is involved.
The other and propably more important is to lay off the pressure. Put a little bit on her plate and just do not talk about it at all. Don't mention them and don't prod to try just one. Don't mention it when you throw it out after dinner. After a few days she will realize that it is not a topic for you anymore and then it will have lost its interest as a control issue for her. They want to control a lot at this age, but really can control so little in their lives that things like this is one outlet for them.
I had the same thing with drinking milk. Not until I stopped fussing about it, did our daughter start drinking milk without issue. Now she will even ask for some.

Good luck : )
D.

T.,
I understand the frustration! I dealt w/ picky eaters when my girls were about the same age as yours! I have 3 girls. A few months ago I started making my youngest eat a few bites before she could get down or have the thing for dinner that she liked whether it was the meat or pasta etc. She has to have 2 bites before she had the other thing.... I also give my kids Juice Plus+ which is fruits & veggies that have been put into capsule form. I added it to my family's diet when my two older ones were 4 & 2.... it is such an easy way to get fruits & veggies into my family... after adding it to our diets I noticed my kids started asking for fruits & veggies because what you feed your body is what it will crave.... so giving them the fruits & veggies in the gummy form that Juice Plus+ offers for kids was helping my picky eaters get the nutrients they needed plus crave more. So after 2 years they aren't as picky when it comes to fruits & veggies.... if you want to know more about Juice Plus+ you can check out my website.... I was so impressed I signed up as a rep. for them.... corajuiceplus.com
Hope this gives you some encouragement! Just stick w/ it & keep offering it to her. :) She'll grow out of it. Blessings, C.

I have the same problem with my 2 1/2 yr old...but I bought "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld and it has worked great! She gives you so many recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and anything in between! The "deceptive" part is using fruit and veggie purees to slip into various courses...and the kids can't even taste them! You should check it out, I bought mine at Target.
Good Luck!
One more thing...If you do try and sneak the good stuff in, and she's as sharp as my daughter...don't let her see what you're sneking in there...as soon as my daughter saw the green before i managed to hide it, she refused! lol

There are some good books out there on how to mix fruits and veggies into other foods. An inernet search may help. I put cooked spinach into their mac & cheese. Maybe us a blenderor food processor and blend some veggies into the pasta sauce.

Does she like pasta? I had a friend with the same problem and I mentioned what I used to do. With the the red sauce you would serve the pasta just blend some veggies and they will not notice. Make a fun game with the veggies and they will try it. Freeze the fruit and give them the frozen treats everyone likes those. I hope it works for you.

I have been using Jessica Seinfield's "Deceptively Delicious" cook book for a few weeks now. You "sneak" veggies into almost everything you cook!

It has been a huge arguement saver, because you can't get teenagers to eat their veggies either!

I am having the exact same problem with my 14 month old right now.

T.,
hi! have you tried the cookbooks where you hide the fruits and veggies in other food? you puree the veggie/fruit and mix in things such as muffins, pasta sauce, pancakes, etc. and the kiddos don't know it's in there. i have one of the cookbooks by jerry sinfields wife (can't remember the title now) but it has some really great recipes in there! good luck!

I have not read the book, "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld,but I have heard many good things about it. I think we have all struggled a time or two to get our kids to eat fruits and veggies and I recently started using some ideas from this book and it has dramatically changed what my children eat.

One of the main things I did was to start adding veggies to my pasta sauce. Since your daughter loves pasta, this would be a great start. I have put squash, carrots and zucchini in my pasta sauce and the kids have two and three helpings of it! I have to say, it really does change the flavor for the better. I just purchase a jar of spaghetti sauce and then stick it in the blender with the veggie of choice. I usually only do one vegetable, but you can do more, but she might notice:)

The other thing I have found is to change the presentation of the food. I put sliced bananas in the shape of a smiley face, slice pears and put them in the shape of a flower, slice strawberries and let them dip in tsp of organic sugar, mix matchstick carrots with raisins and a tsp of ranch dressing, canned peaches are a hit, as are mandarin oranges. The canned stuff really has no nutrition really left in it if you look on the can, but you can find some at least with vitamin C. Actually my own two children started eating their fruits whole at this age. I would just hand them a banana, apple or pear and they would go to town. I was afraid of them choking on the skins of the apples, but I buy gala apples and they have never had a problem. I hope this helps, maybe she just doesn't want it cut up anymore? Don't make eating a big deal. Just set the plate in front of her and walk away. Busy yourself in the kitchen and you might be surprised at what she eats.