Food - pulling my hair out !!!

[Hideehi]

My daughter hit 18 months and point blank refuses fruit and veg now, this has been going on for nearly 3 years now.

I am at my wits end, she'll eat steak and chips with beans, chicken at a push, shreddies and bread and butter, spag bol.
Any ideas, I serve the veg on the plate every night as I hope one day she'll have a go, we all eat veg in front of her, apples, bananas etc.
Sometimes she'll have a smoothie but other times she'll refuse it (and tbh they are expensive).
Is it a long stage, what can I do ?

[Donbean]

the spag bol, easy just steam up carrots/brocilli,cauli whatever you have and blast it in the food processor then mix in the bolognaise sauce. She will never know its there.

[Hideehi]

I always think that's sort of dodging the issue though, I do throw carrots and peas in fish pies and cottage pies and rice with peas too, but I want her to taste them and eat them, does that make sense.
At the moment there's about 6 meals I can get her to eat which is blooming stupid.

[TooTickyTheAppleMuncher]

Goodness, I was wondering what sort of food would actually be sticky enough to pull your hair out!
My ds2took YEARS to accept any veg that wasn't green. Just keep offering different veg. Would she choose fruit from a shop?
Smoothies are great - make your own and you can disguise all sorts of things!

[Donbean]

i do know what you mean BUT to get it into her if you have to disguise it then disguise it for now.
You have loads of time to get her to eat it "properly" havent you.

[MrsFish]

Have you tried sweet veg like parsnips and sweet potatoe and peppers and roast them with some oil, it may be a bit different to green veg.

I know I wouldn't eat vegetables when I was a child, up until I was a teenager, I remember my mum always putting them on the plate and having a battle of wills on whether I would eat them or not.

Perhaps it is your daughters way of asserting herself, the more she can see that you are getting upset/annoyed? over her not eating, the more she won't.

Anyway, just a suggestion

[stoppinattwo]

instead of putting it on her plate , why dont you put a bowl of veg on the table and let her make the choice of what she wants. Most of the time its about making the choice and at the moments her only choice is to eat the veg or not, let the choice be which veg shall i pick. also let her help you prepare the veg.

It may work, it worked with both of mine

[spookegypt]

my dd is exactly the same except for broccoli and only broccoli (odd). she wont eat fruit either. i have started to make fruit juices into ice lollies, which she likes, so maybe try that.

def blend veg into spag bol. you can still give her veg as you do but at least she is eating something.

[curlew]

At this age, the important thing is to get the vital vitamins and minerals into them - it doesn't matter how. If it means blending them into oblivion then go for it! There's plenty of time to introduce her to the delights of gastronomy - just make sure she sees you and others eat all the good stuff. Sooner or later she'll want to join in. It'd not a battle woth fighting now. And I speak as the mother of a 5 year old who hasn't knowingly eaten a peice of fruit since he was 1!