To ask how you get vegetables into a toddler?

[BradPittsLeftTit]

And I do mean via food 😊

My toddler (2.5) isn't particularly fussy BUT his diet has slowly narrowed over the past few months so that everything vegetable related now gets rejected. I used to do a vegetable curry that I rammed with veg which he now won't touch. No peas with food, rejects anything remotely green and identifiable as veg or salad

He does seem to eat better at nursery and will eat most fruit but I'm conscious his main meals at home are slowly turning beige

Does anyone have any sneaky ways to get veg in or healthy meal ideas to give us a shake up?

Thank you!!

Have you seen how they produce fois gras ? 🤮

That might work.

Don’t give them beige food. Make sure you put 2/3 veg or fruit option cut up with every meal but don’t get hung up on combinations - ie cucumber is fine as a side with hot food -
don’t give an alternative. Don’t give juice or milk with meals, just water.
don’t compromise. If they’re hungry and moaning give them left overs of what they didn’t finish / wouldn’t eat as an option.

On the plate in plain sight with ketchup or mayo to dip, no pressure to eat them. And blended into sauces/gravy's/soups, chopped up finely into bolognaise/curry/cottage pie etc. Added to smoothies.

Hide lentils in the mince

Would something like this help?

My DD is heading this way too. She used to eat quite a wide range of veg but the number is reducing daily. She won’t eat and has never eaten salad-y stuff like tomatoes, pepper, cucumber etc, and is increasingly picky about cooked veg.

My approach at the moment is-

1. serve them anyway, just keep exposing her to them. Every so often she’ll surprise me by taking a few bites, mostly she just shouts ‘no that’ and puts it on my plate. I don’t comment either way, don’t encourage or praise or bribe or whatever.
2. Make the most of stuff she will eat and try and get extra veg in where I can. I add grated carrot and sometimes courgette to porridge (with other stuff like sultanas or apple and cinammon). Have always done this since weaning and I quite like it too as a way of me getting some extra veg, up to now she still enjoys this. Also add grated veg to pasta sauces, and make muffins and scones with it in (the courgette and chickpea muffins from the what mummy makes book for example).
3. Soup - she still really likes soup so try to do a big veggie soup once a week.
4. corn on the cob - never been refused (yet!)

To be fair this weekend I’m not sure she’s had any veg at all. Didn’t do any ‘hidden’ stuff and she refused any of the veg that was served in other ways, including sweet potato which used to be a hit. She eats piles of fruit which will just have to do (I know blah blah sugar etc).

I used to mash cauliflour into potato & top with cheese. Mashed potato is great for hiding veg if that's the only way to get it into the little darlings.

Try cooking your carrots with orange juice. My nieces nanny also used to squeeze lemon juice on green beans. Give fewer non-veggie items so he can't fill up on carbohydrates.

My DC is a late teenager, so pre-BLW. We tended to do a main meal at lunch-time (both family and nursery) and then more casual for tea.

What worked for us was a BLW by accident. My child didnt seem to manage "sandwiches" so I offered lots of small pots of cut vegetables (pepper, cucumber, lettuce, olive, carrot sticks, avocado, cherry tomatoes, etc) with small pots of every dip you could think of. I used brightly coloured bowls, and fun divided platters. I would then add sliced sausage rolls, cheese rolls, pork pies, ham, cheese etc. Sliced apples, halved grapes, banana slices etc. Ate everything, because they could touch,feel, dip etc.

For mains - always small portions of what we were eating. I am veggie, his dad meat eater so mostly my DC would eat meat as their protein. But we (me!) always serves at least 4-6 different veggies with every main meal. Different colours and textures. My DC used a knife, fork & spoon from a young age. And we sat at a formal dining table.

15+ years on the only issue I have is that they don't like "spikey" food. (fair enough - I recently started using chilli flakes - yes they are HOT!)

So variation, child-led, flexible. But just not all sweet foods.

A few methods:

Hidden veg pasta sauce - garlic, onion, tinned cherry tomatoes (add more flavour than normal), carrots, courgette.

Like a pp doing a 'vegetable voice' / playing games.

Putting veg I know they don't like (hello spinach) next to veg they will tolerate (carrots, peas) in the hope they will eat the latter.

Through the loading slot.

If you make something like spaghetti bolognaise, whizz up a few veggies and mix it in.
Could do it also with chicken curry things like that.
Or make smoothies if will drink them and add a vegetable too. X

Totally agree re adding some seasoning - who wants bland veg!

As for the continuing to offer and the wastage, yes you should do this and accept it will likely be wasted. Having worked with an nhs speech therapist dealing with a major food aversion, I would literally just give a small portion of what you are having anyway - I.e if you are having broccoli put one floret on his plate. And that is all you should do. Don’t ask him to try it. Don’t complain if he doesn’t eat it. Don’t watch him like a hawk. Don’t shower him with praise if he does eat it. Don’t make a sticker chart.

By all means the first few times say I’ve cooked this a different way so you might find it tastier but the key thing is that there should be zero pressure.

I know it’s extremely frustrating but you just have to be patient and hope he will eventually chose to eat it himself. In my experience trying to force it really just makes it worse. Good luck!

Home made cheese sauce. Both kids loved anything with cheese sauce when they were toddlers.

Repeat repeat repeat.

They will try to refuse a lot of stuff at this age but just keep on rolling it out and they do eventually pick it back up again.

My 3 yo was at worst end of spectrum for pickiness but continued efforts with veg mean they now eat usually eat peas, carrots, swede, sweetcorn, beetroot, broccoli, thin green beans, red yellow & green peppers, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, plus spinach & kale in sauces (eg curry).

If I could go back in time and tell myself this a year ago I'd save myself a lot of stress.

Wow, thank you all so much for your advice. I got a bit side tracked by Thor Love and Thunder this evening but just having a read through now

The consensus seems to be not to fuss, to offer a few choices with a LITTLE seasoning each meal and hope that over time he might try and grow to like. Also love the pasta sauce/pizza/soup suggestions to get it in there hidden.

He will eat loads of fruit so I'm not too worried overall about his diet but he really has grown an aversion to veg and salad over the last few months

My DH has reminded me that he is very good at trying things off our plate as we never fuss if he doesn't like it and chooses not to finish the mournful, so this may be a way in.

Thank you again, I'll read through in more detail

And for those that have been through it, we are also at the NO stage which seems to be the answer to everything!

He's also got my stubborn streak so I absolutely know if I force him to eat things (even gently suggest), I'll get a big fat NO and out of principle he'll refuse to try it again as he seems to know that's what I want

We are hitting tantrum city which is LOTS of fun 😌

Very cute!

This is interesting and the second time I've read something on muffin trays. I'll look into it!

Have you tried them in muffins? There are lots of recipes using carrot, spinach and so on - if it works!

Eat with them and eat lots of veg yourself.
Grated carrot or courgette is nice in porridge.
My daughter used to love homemade Mac and cheese with spinach think it was Annabelle karmel recipe.
Try new things eg let him pick something from aldi veg offer and new ways of cooking eg griddled.

I make cauliflower and cheese sauce for pasta (wholemeal) by blending cooked cauliflower with grated cheese and a splash of milk. DS is a similarly picky eater. Also veg chips (Waitrose do them in the freezer section, made from beetroot, parsnips, sweet potato and carrots).

You can sneak lots of stuff into tomato-based pasta sauce too, as long as it's blended smooth. Smoothies are good if he'll drink them - my DS likes them made into ice lollies, you can put stuff like spinach into them without it tasting of it.

DS will eat limited types of fruit and veg, but I make sure he gets his 5-a-day through a combination of sneaky blending and bribery!

Repeated presentation with no pressure to eat

I agree with this. They go in and out of fussy phases so it's honestly not worth stressing over otherwise you'll be doing a lot of worrying. But yes, I do throw out more food than I'd like to when they're in a refusing stage.

I offer the food, I'll gently encourage them to give it a go but there's no pressure. If they don't eat it, fine. Pudding is not a reward......they have that whether or not they eat their dinner. If they don't want to eat what I've offered they can have bread and butter or a piece of fruit but I don't cook anything else.

They're 5 and 3 now and both good eaters but even still go through phases. DD1 recently started refusing to eat mushrooms after always liking them but now has gone back to eating them again. DD2 would never eat a tomato but now loves tomato. It's too much to keep up with their likes and dislikes so I just don't worry about it. Makes for a more relaxed mealtime!

Stolen food is best!
We used to have every thing on our plates and then just leave the room for a moment to see what she would take
On her own plate - no!
On ours - she took quite a lot! ☺️

Mine went through the same phase around 2yo. I didn't force it and I gave her meals with veg on the side that she could choose to eat but would often get ignored. This went on for about a year. I'd try gentle encouragement but never too pushy. As she got older I gave her spare veg and a blunt kids cutlery knife to play with when I was prepping dinner. She now loves raw Bell peppers, especially green ones, and lots of salad veg. I have noticed that dd isn't keen on cooked veggies, so most of her vegetable intake is raw, but that's not a bad thing. In the meantime, whilst yours is being fussy, supplement with a daily multi vitamin.