How do you get around fussy eaters? Tell us to win £100-worth of picture books! Ends midday 8 February

I have found two ways that seem to work with veggies, one is giving my 3 year old his own veggie patch so he can grow potatoes, beans & carrots. he loves this and is keen to try the ones he has grown. The other is in pasta. My son is a mad pasta fan so instead of a tomato sauce we make a veggie sauce with beans, carrots, whatever we have really and use with stock, then add the pasta quickly at the end like a chunky soup. he loves it.

Bribery I am afraid! Eat up a spoonful of broccoli & then you can have a treat. Something sweet if you finish your plate.

Start early and give as wide variety of flavours and textures as is appropriate from the beginning. Persevere with retrying different things over time and try not to get too stressed about it - I find my 3 are much more likely to go along with trying something new, or giving something another try when I'm (at least pretending to be) more relaxed about it and present in a way that you'd like their opinion on it rather than they feel pressured to just have to eat it. Where you can, ask if there's something that would improve it for them/what they find not quite right about it and when retrying foods, if poss give examples of things you or someone they know didn't used to like, but tried again one day and now really like, or ways you like certain foods cooked, even though they're not your favourites... Keep going - it is a joy worth pursuing to have (relatively) non-fussy kids who can eat at anyone's invitation with minimal stress or deliberation!

Just accept that most children go through phases and cycles of fussy eating and that as long as they are eating a balanced diet it doesn't have to be particularly varied!

Keep presenting different foods alongside those you know they like with no pressure.

Also, most children will be much less fussy if they are properly hungry so give them plenty of fresh air and exercise before meals.

Sitting down together to eat worked for a while but not any more. DS3 is getting worse. My advice - hide the veg! I blend the spag Bol so he can't identify the veg. I also make a Mac and cheese with butternut squash blended into the cheese sauce.

Eating with them and talking about our days, also good for finding out important stuff about school

Keep it relaxed

Get them helping in the kitchen, even if it does take twice as long and produce twice the mess!

My older two were never mega-fussy but my youngest is - she detests vegetables! I think perseverance is key as she is now willing to give things a teeny taste that she would previously refuse. We've also explained to the kids the importance of trying new things saying that they will never know if it is their 'new favourite food' if they never try it.

Sometimes making it fun by using little sticks, or child-friendly chopsticks (joined together fun plastic ones) can get them trying out little pieces of new food.

And of course a spot of 'making faces' or pictures with the food always goes down well.

Its such a very difficult task to get kids
To eat vegetables. I have tried all the tricks and noone of them
Worked. I guess in the end its no point forcing them to eat vegetables but I have not given up
And have started to introduce them more
Often.

I have a very fussy eater and the only way it's worked for us is not to dwell on it and just to keep reintroducing. Now he is older we have allowed him not to eat one item (mushrooms in his case) however he must eat everything else we give him! Also, shows like I can cook help, as he wants to eat what they've Cooked so that helped when he was younger to get him to try new foods.

My 3yo is so annoying. It's the inconsistency which annoys me most. One month she'll eat something. Next month won't touch it. We've had progress recently using reward chart and also reading to her while she's eating. Because it's not just what we can get her to eat that's a struggle but getting her to stay at the table to eat. We had got into a bad rut of letting her watch a tablet but now we read to her instead. We'll read if she's eating and touch wood that's working.

Her fussiness can be like "mmmm lasagne but not the white bit" even though she loved it last time. Both daughters refuse mash potato so one week I topped a cottage pie with sweet potato. I personally didn't like it but 3yo loved it and called it pretend carrot. Since then I've topped it with carrot and swede mash. She still calls it pretend carrot and eats it. Still won't touch a real carrot though lol.
We all have our own little systems and tweaks to get our kids to eat. Just try different things and see what works

My son was always very fussy until instarted letting him choose some things in the food shopping them allowing him to help prepare and serve them. It also helps if the food looks fun on the plate!

also I think with food its a way in life of people venting.some odd reason we all take it out on food!make sure there sitn something your little one is communicating via the refusal of the food or odd behaviour.has something happened previously or is something going on. when they are happy it soo much easier.
for instance ours was knocking the plate off over and over.
it turned out she didn't want to eat because dad hurt her feeling and she didn't no why.
so young they don't understand life,so communicating troubles comes in so many forms we wouldn't think of.
this is far deeper than it usually is though so often they are just being fussy haha

My daughter uses me when the kids dont eat something ! If grandad eats it they will try it ,So good old grandad has to eat his greens ,sprouts etc .As long as it works i do it !

I've found it best to carry on cooking family meals as normal, I don't cook special meals, and I don't stop cooking with a particular ingredient just because someone doesn't like it, but I try and be a bit flexible

I do try to make meals as attractive as I can. I try and make the presentation look nice, and try not to have different foods touching each other when I serve up.

If a food is really disliked, I might present it in a different way (one child had raw carrot batons when everyone else had rounds of cooked carrots, for example), or I might serve a substitute, eg everyone else has salad, DC has chopped celery.

I put a teeny tiny bit of a disliked food on the plate, but there is no pressure. I recently had my fussy child say to me in tones of wonder "Mummy, cooked carrots are actually yummy, I like them now!"

I try and cook meals where different choices are possible, so that the DC can have a bit of control. Different choices of toppings that can be added (or not) at the table and that sort of thing.

Main thing I think is to not to make it into an issue, don't turn it into a battleground, don't put too much pressure on your child (or yourself!)

One of the best ways we've turned around our fussy eaters is to tell a short story beforehand about the 'magic' contained in the food.
For example, after previously spending half an hour swirling his spoon around now-sodden cornflakes in semi-warm milk, our story convinced our little one of the magic in the bubbles. Once enough bubbles are created by vigorously stirring the spoon in the milk, the challenge is to quickly finish each spoonful before the bubbles burst. Suffice to say, it didn't take long to finish his bowl of cereal.
And as for broccoli and spinach, the story of 'Popeye The Sailor Man' still works.

DD7 cooks dinner 1 day a week - usually Friday/Saturday. Nothing too elaborate. She suggests something, helps shop for it and then cooks it - with help from me/DH when using the oven/sharp utensils.
She then gets an idea what it's like "ugh no - don't like that" etc.

I have no truck with fussy eating. I work on the basis they won't starve to death so I cook it, present it and they eat or don't eat it. If they don't I am confident they won't starve to death before the next meal and I suspect that if they do begin to starve to death they will eat what is put in front of them.

peer pressure - they're much more likely to try something their friends are eating.
being more relaxed - either just offering and if they say no, say ok or wait for them to be interested in what I'm eating.

I found having her eating with her friends who would eat it helped, she would see them eating and occationally she would try it.
Other times I'd blend veg onto meals, or just have 1 new thing on the plate.
I'm much more relaxed about her fussiness now as her staple foods are healthy.

Sit all together and if you really like a veg and maybe they don't say how lush they are and you are having more please! Say a few people or very close family names who think the same! It works in my home as we say easy peasee!!

With my son as well as my nieces and nephews, I have eaten the food with them so they ate it. Quite often it worked. Sometimes I would give them a treat for eating.

I found that sitting them at the adult table and trying to all eat at the same time helped. Also at one stage when daughter wouldn't eat much I found she would if I gave her pieces of food of my own plate.

Mines never been such "a picky" eater but he did go through a phase of not liking certain things so what I did is I made whatever it was for myself and he would want it( always been one of those kids that likes mummy's food ) so yeah if he thought it was mine he would eat it now I don't have a problem he eats anything

We find threatening to eat her food ourselves always works! As does challenging them - 'I bet you can't eat that...'

-Be persistent- never stop offering new foods or food child has previously rejected- children are constantly changing their minds/moods.

-Try as much as possible to eat in front of child so that they see you eating a variety of food (dinner round table works for us).

-When possible (or practical) try to get child to help in preparation, they will often eat what they have made more readily.