Child not eating veg

[autienotnayghty]

There's been a few discipline/parenting posts lately, I wanted to ask peoples opinion on something.

A child under six refusing vegetables. Do you-

A - make them eat it/punish not eating
B- bribe
C- stop giving veg
D - put it on plate and encouraging eating

Not talking about children with food allergies, phobias or sensory issues. Just general childrens eating.

D.
Give them a very small amount of each, every meal. Don't fuss. Most important is that they see you eating vegetables.

D

D. But I wouldnt even really encourage, I would just serve and not comment either way. I wouldn’t want to make a battle out of food.
All of my children easily get their 5 a day. They get two portions of veg with lunch and at least two with dinner. Fruit any time. They don’t all like the same vegetables but I always make sure that there is at least one that they like. Mine all prefer raw vegetables so they always have veg crudités or salad with lunch.

DD was a nightmare with veg. I used to blend/conceal some in the meal eg in the pasta sauce AND also serve a small amount alongside in the same format as we were eating. The separate veg was untouched for a long time but she gradually started trying a little which increased to whole portion.
She is now 5 and served exactly what we eat

Definitely don't stop serving as they stop seeing it and becomes a foreign item

D

Plus dishes that have hidden veg in like spag bol with carrott and celery.

D I wouldn’t make a fuss of encouraging them to eat it, just serve as part of their meal.

Always D.

I remember being forced to eat soggy cabbage when I was a child and it made me gag. I will never push that unpleasant experience on my children.

Doctor advised me to put it in the middle as a choice. Worked a bit but dd still doesn't eat much veg except cucumbers.

When my son was younger, he ate all veg. I was secretly quite smug. Then he hit a point where he became a veg refuser for a while amd nothing worked. Eventually I read a tip on here about putting a little of everything on the plate and telling him he just had to eat one mouthful of everything. And that was it. The one mouthful became more and he eats most things again now.

D and like 3WildOnes I don't encourage- if there is a comment about the food from a DC then we say, "eat what you want, leave the rest."

It makes me nuts inside but I keep it to myself, it's totally my problem. I have to work at not making an issue of it and I have managed to do that. Someone give me a fucking medal.

Thankfully they definitely get their 5+ a day.

I think most people are going to do D as that is seen as the ‘right’ thing to do. But honestly? I have a bit of A and B thrown in too. In this house there’s not always puddings and someone has to have made a decent attempt at main course to get anything else.
So example - 3 new foods (salads) put on DC plate at the weekend, expected to try all but not expected to eat any they didn’t like - they each liked and ate 1 and tried a tiniest bit of but left 2, that’s fine.
If DC start telling me they don’t like veg /meals they’ve always eaten because they’re being awkward - they’re told that’s all there is. Refusal to eat is met with an ‘oh dear never mind you can finish it later’ and it is served later. Usually when other DC that have eaten their meal are getting a snack they like so the picky DC can see what they’re missing out on. Behind the scenes I mentally note that they’re not as keen on that meal and try to adapt it to their tastes a bit more, but I’m not pandering to them rejecting it because they feel like doing so as we already adapt a lot and there are a lot of foods off the table so to speak so I don’t want to add more.

D.

There's a pretty wide variety of vegetables, plus many ways to prep each one. I'd stay away from "eat your vegetables!" and let them find things they might like individually - for example, I hated summer squash as a child and I still do (gag reflex) but even as a small child I liked courgettes the way my mother made them, lightly sauteed with tomato and onion.

Maybe ask them to taste each thing on the plate, and if they really dislike it they can stop at one small spoonful?

E. Put veg on plate at every meal time with no fuss or coercion. Make sure it's a full variety of different veg across the week / month in different formats. Fried / mashed / cubed / cut out shapes as a real one off for faff. Not just an obligatory scoop of sweet corn - but roasted brocolli / cauli with a baked cheese sauce / edamame peas in their shells to pop out / sun dried tomatoes / corn on cob with butter salt and pepper - of course the majority of the nights will be boiled plain veg but Variety and exposure is critical in getting kids to fry new things. Make no fuss. The only rule is it stays on the plate. You don't have to touch it or smell it or taste it but it's on the plate if you want to do any of those things. Then don't mention it. Don't praise if it's eaten or cajole. Be very very Blase.
I also found vegetables presented outside of meal times were more appetising. A small plate of peppers with hummus served mid afternoon (once again no fuss - maybe it's yours and the child is welcome to try) is a good way of no pressure tasting opportunities

Oh and within reason the same meal served to all at the table. I sometimes don't do this is we're really craving a spicy curry and children won't eat that but they get a very similar meal so ultimately at nearly every meal time DH and I are rolemodelling (cringe I know) the meals we eat. No point us eating lasagne salad and roasted veg and them eating waffles nuggets and beans. We only serve one meal with slight tweaks every now and then

a good tip is to serve veg before the main part of the food comes, at the beginning, when they are most hungry.

Oh another thing... if we have veg thag I can see children are avoiding I may talk generally about it 'aren't these peas so tiny today' 'isn't that cauliflower soft' 'these roasted peppers smell like the ones we had on holiday' - just a vague comment to pique their interest 😂

I’d go for D, or add in E. Meals are served in serving bowls in the middle of the table, and every can take what they want from the table and leave the parts they don’t. No mentioning what they do and don’t eat, no cajoling, no ‘just one little bite’, no ‘daddy this broccoli is so yummy, look at Child missing out on the tasty broccoli’. If your child doesn’t like any vegetables at all, I’d serve some fruit they eat with the meal, or if there’s one vegetable they will accept I’d make sure that was always available. Methods A&B make out like vegetables are a bad thing, when they are just another food. If you bribe with sweets or pudding then you are everlasting those to a very high level, when they are just another food.

D ish. If there are any veg they like, serve them pretty regularly. Otherwise it's on the plate and they can eat it or leave it. Not mentioned and not pressured up front. If it's something I know they eat I do tell them they have to have some before pudding or leaving the table. If it's new, or I know they previously said they don't like it, there is no pressure.

I have a 14-year-old dc with autism and learning disabilities who used to have a very restricted diet. I just kept offering without making a fuss. Dc now eats many veg and loves raw carrots, peppers, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber with his packed lunch or a sandwich.
When he was 3 he lived on dry cereal, rice cakes, bananas, and bread and butter!!!

E. Put some on the plate, most of the time, and ignore whether they eat it or not.

A - for my child that is fussy about it. The other eats it without fuss so none of that needed.

If they don't eat well they don't get pudding (which is usually fruit or yoghurt).

E - Put on plate without comment and with no expectation of them being eaten.

According to a show I once watched you have to present a food, on average, 50 times before a child will like it. I'd like to say we went with D. However, it depended on whether or not I knew the DC liked the food or not. For new stuff, or known unsure veg we had a taste once policy.
I also took half the veg and puréed it into a sauce. They would pick out the veg they could see and eat all the sauce 🤷‍♀️ Top of the class, my children are not.

DS6 won’t have it on his plate. I put in separate dish. He never eats it. He doesn’t eat fruit either so I bribed him to eat an apple a day (because he was chronically constipated) Gave pocket money, added it to his chores list and now he reluctantly eats it.
He eats a roast potato on a Sunday, carrots, celery and onion in bolognese and occasionally an odd strawberry. I put a wedge of orange, raspberries or sticks of cucumber in his packed lunch. He never eats them. The dietitian told me not to make a big deal about not eating them but if he could see they available to him, he might try them sometime.

Mine had to eat at least 3 different types of veg to get full portion of pudding (we sort of did B).

The older DC I forced them to eat some veg as older toddlers (A) and they immediately ate most veg, ever since. Youngest DC was too tough for me. D would have been pointless with him, so I guess we did C mostly. There was one type of veg he ate until about 5yo (as well as ketchup), then 2 different veg... since about 9yo there are 4 types of vegetable he eats -- plus potatoes and ketchup.

i just laugh at some of the "Woe is me" posts on here about fussy eaters. You have no idea. I danced for joy when mine ate a Wotsit.