Help! 3 year old won't eat any fruit

[Melpomene]

My 3 year old literally will not touch any type of fresh fruit. She won't drink fruit juice either. The closest she comes to eating fruit is eating raisins (which she loves) and eating fruit-flavoured petit filous. She won't eat any other type of dried fruit apart from raisins.

When she was a baby she used to eat lots of different kinds of fruit, but she went off it by the time she was 18 months old.

We have offered her fresh strawberries, pineapple, cherries, mango, blueberries etc as well as the standard apple, orange, grapes and banana, but she won't touch any of it. When we put fruit in front of her she covers her mouth and looks like she's going to be sick.

We've tried the following tactics without success:

• fruit kebabs (which she helped to make).
• bananas 'hidden' in chocolate milkshake / chocolate ice lolly
• showing her different types of fruit in the supermarket.
• apple muffins and banana muffins (which she helped to make)
• fruit on her breakfast cereal
• pureed fruit mixed with yoghurt and honey
• bribery with stickers and comics
• explaining that she needs fruit to stay healthy (she gets constipated).

When she goes to pre school I put fruit in her packed lunch, but of course it comes back uneaten every time. They also have fruit at snack time so she sees her peers eating it, but she won't.

Please, has anyone got any other suggestions? We are getting desperate, and sad that she is missing out on something so delicious

will she eat veg? It doesn't look like she is going to eat fruit any time soon, so it might be best to leave it for a while and hope she forgets rather than keep fighting to get it in her.

She eats peas, broccoli, cooked tomatoes, and a little bit of sweetcorn, but no other vegetables. I've tried hiding other (pureed) vegetables in tomato sauce, but she rejected it.

Juice ice lollies? apple juice ones are really nice.

well that is a start, maybe you should stick to them and give it a break for a while until she relaxes a bit. Does she drink juice? Pure juice would give her some of the nutrients.
Mine also like those humzinger bars, which look gross, but are essentially dried fruit. They do eat fruit but they love these, and they think they are sweets.

Something that may work wonders is to avoid snacks and serve her the fruits before the food she prefers, son't give her any other thing unless she has at least agreed to try a spoonful, if she decides afterwards next time she doesn't like it change it, but keep trying. Most of the success we have had with DS fuzzyness are based in this technique, most times he decides he likes the thing once that he has tried it. Or invite one of his friends around, DS would eat anything to be like the rest of the children.

what about fruit smoothies - either with icecream or yogurt? or freexing the smoothies in molds?
I have the opposite problems - dd loves fruit but her veg likes consists of carrot sticks, cucumber and if I'm lucky potatoes
!!!!

another thought, pulses like chickpeas can count as a portion for the five a day thing too.

It is hard trying to get them their '5 a day' it's bad enough for adults!

I sometimes serve up chopped bananas, strawberries or raspberries with a small blob of ice cream. That way they think it's a'treat'

Melon also goes down well in this house - I have more of a veg eater and at 5 has announced he doesn't like anything that is red!

Melpone, those veg, plus raisins, plus baked beans, if she eats them, will do fine for a while, especially if you give her a vitamin supplement.

I would relax and let her enjoy what shge does eat, and then see if you can introduce (in a non-pressurised way) somehtinh=g new in a while. Like when she is 4.

Oats are good for constipation - flapjacks, porridge, etc.

Thanks for the advice everyone; I'll try a few of those ideas. She does eat baked beans and sometimes chickpeas.

Chandra you have a good point about the snacks; she does snack a lot (biscuits, raisins, breadsticks etc). I am thinking of not buying any more biscuits, and telling her she can have fruit as a snack if she is hungry. It is bound to go down like a lead balloon at first but maybe if she gets hungry enough she'll try some...

It has made a huge difference to DS Melpomene. A nutritionist asked us to cut the meals to three in a day and no snacks, to insure he would eat 3 well balanced meals a day. Now he is used to the new food a bit of snacking or even a 3pm tea do not ruin his apetite for dinner time.

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DS2 was the same and just went off all fruit between 12 and 18 months. He will eat pureed fruit though, so I buy those Goodies or Clearspring pure fruit things for lunchboxes. He would eat pureed fruit mixed with yoghurt first, so I did that, and then left out the yoghurt.

He eats raisins, dates and cooked pear in things like crumble. He is nearly 5 now and every so often I just try fruit.

We had our biggest success with vegetable soup. When I started I would ask him just to lick the spoon before his meal. Then he needed to have a teaspoon, then a couple of teaspoons, then a ramekin dish. Now he happily eats bowlfuls of soup full of all sorts of pulses and veg - so I worry less about the fruit.

For my 2 year old I give mashed up weetabix with a little milk poured over then microwaved for 20 seconds. Stir in some fruit puree like apple or pear. It only has a subtle taste of fruit but all the goodness. Goes nice with those little cow & gate fruit purees which come in some nice combinations of fruits

Fruit juice ice lollies work for mine. You could also try (not easy i know but i have a cheapy icecream maker) making fruit icecream. I generally use the juice of freshly squeezed oranges or pureed strawberries - sugar to your taste and mix with a carton of double cream.

I wouldnt worry too might. Ease off with it - if she is eating veg its no big deal. Her tastes will probly change again when she gets older.

Long shot, but have you tried tinned or stewed fruit? DD (3) doesn't eat fresh fruit, maybe occasionally a banana or a bite of an apple, but she will devour a tin of mandarin segments, tinned pears or pineapple. She'll eat stewed apple and pear too.