Toddler won't eat anything healthy!

[NancyB38]

My daughter is 2 - 3 in April. She's never been a great eater but when she was younger would eat a fairly reasonable diet with plenty of fruit and veg. However, the range of foods she will eat has been getting smaller and smaller as she's got older and she flat out refuses to try anything new. This means that she will now eat no fruit, except avocados, and the only veg she'll eat are corn on the cob and an occasional bit of cucumber. She also will eat barely anything else nutritional. She just constantly wants snacks and only packaged snacks. She's the same at nursery and in different settings. Hiding fruit and veg isn't really an option as she will eat so little that we can hide it in! Only thing I've been able to manage that with is banana bread and flapjacks, but they're not the healthiest (and the healthier and less sweet things are the less likely it is she'll eat them). It's making me feel really anxious and like a failure as a parent. I feel embarrassed around other parents when their kids are happily eating fruit and veg and varied foods and our daughter just wants to eat chips and biscuits. We are vegetarian and eat pretty healthily and have always offered her fresh fruit and veg all the time. However, we both work full-time and commute a long way, so we don't often have family dinners (another thing I feel intensely guilty about).

Does anyone have any tips to offer? Was wondering about trying a sticker chart, though I don't really like the idea of giving her extrinsic rewards for eating. Or has anyone been through this period and their kid just snapped out of it at some point?

Give her meat. If she won't eat anything else at least she's getting good nutrition from the meat.

Growing children need essential amino acids that you cannot get from fruit and veg. They're just not the same.

What happens if you don’t give her pre package upf stuff and just give her healthy snacks?

So if you're vegetarian and she won't eat vegetables what is she eating?

from what I understand food regression is common in toddlers as it's baciaslly an old survival instinct. When toddlers become mobile they are newly able to grab things themselves to eat, things which they don't understand are safe or not. New scepticism and disgust at many food items protected young humans from munching down on poisonous fruit/vegetables/grasses in ancient communities.

😂 absolute nonsense

No one "needs" meat.

We would let her eat meat to be honest at the moment just to try to get some extra nutrition in her. When we were on holiday recently there was a buffet every meal and we tried offering her fish and meat there, but she absolutely would not try any of it.

She'll eat pasta with pesto, cheese, peanut butter on crumpets, baked beans, plain rice, pizza, chips, occasionally a houmous sandwich. She used to eat eggs but seems to have gone off those recently. For breakfast she used to be pretty good - porridge, weetabix or muesli, but she seems to be going off those now too and I'm a bit loathe tro try her on the more sugary cereals.

She just refuses them. Hunger doesn't seem to encourage her! And at nursery they obviously don't give her packaged snacks. She'll eat things like bread sticks or crackers there, but no fruit despite being offered it every snack time.

Thanks, yeah I've heard this too - just need her to get the phase over soon so she doesn't end up malnourished!

No advice here but solidarity.

My son is awful. Doesn't eat any veg at all. Does eat fruit though. No meat other than a sausage or fish finger. It's exhausting and be won't try anything new.

We are about to purchase a juicer though, as he likes juice and smoothies. Then I am hoping to get carrot, cucumber, avocados etc into it.

Try not to worry my child had a very restrictive brown diet and it went well on past toddler years. As an adult they are energetic with a healthy weight but really is not that interested in complex foods. A glass of orange juice a vitamin tablet and cereal with milk kept them going. I learned the hard way not to fight and not to stress

Baked beans sounds the healthiest out of that lot. Will she eat them if they're home-made or an eco brand, so not quite as sugary? Habe you tried other types of legumes- lentils maybe?

OP, I feel your pain. My eldest is now 16 and started limiting what she would eat from a similar age. She has underlying issues but hasn't grown out of it as so many told me she would. She would also go without rather than eat something she doesn't like.

Her diet's still not the best but she does like a smoothie if that would work for your DD (either fruit or fruit and milk), lives off pasta and tomato sauce, so I batch cook sauce, and will have homemade pizza for a healthier option (not too difficult), burgers (she's not keen on the texture of meat and won't eat fish) and will try some new stuff. Just make sure your DD has a multi vitamin so she's not missing out on anything.

And please don't beat yourself up about it. I now have three other DCs and they all have entirely different tastes and likes. They are all individuals.

My 2 year 3 month old is just coming out the other side of an extreme picky eating phase. I think part of what helped was just time, but I would caution you not to let the habits become ingrained by giving in to her pickiness. I ended up just stopping offering the unhealthy/convenience foods altogether. For a while she ate far too little and drank more soy milk (dairy allergy) to make the calories up, but within a few weeks she had started eating more proper foods again, that she had been refusing for months. Toddlers are wilful, if they know tasty junk food is a possibility then they will kick off/hold out for that. When it's consistently only proper/real food available then they will ultimately come to accept it even if it takes a while. But if you give her the junk and snack foods that she wants on a regular basis then she can be as fussy and eat as unhealthily as she likes.
I used to panic if my girl went a day without eating anything much and ended up offering something unhealthy that I knew she'd eat. But her fussy eating only got worse until I stopped doing that and accepted that she would not starve herself to death in the face of regular access to food, just because it wasn't chicken nuggets.

Of course all of the above applies to neurotypical children. Neurodiverse children are a whole other ballgame and need a different approach.

If she will eat pesto pasta make your own pesto with lots of spinach or other green veg blitzed in. If it gets too bitter add. Tea spoon of honey. Gradually increase the quantity of 'pesto' to pasta and reduce the smoothness of the sauce.

If she will eat a hummus sandwich and bread sticks at nursery I'd be presenting hummus with breadsticks and crudités. Even leave it out on a table and help yourself now and then. See if she follows suit.

I heard a brilliant dietitian on the radio years ago when DS was quite small giving advice about veg. Basically just put it on the table in bowls so they can help themselves but say something along the lines of ' you've got some red tomatoes but you need something yellow and green. So what about some sweetcorn and cucumber'. Etc. I think that was the gist of it.
I was sceptical with DS who was about 11 at the time but it worked!
Could that be worth a try? And maybe putting other foods in bowls on the table so she can help herself?

Maybe try cooking foods in different ways. I was a very fussy child, but it was more textures than tastes. Beige foods were safe for me.

Could you try a few different veg as chips, sweet potatoes are the obvious ones, but you can do plenty of other veg chopped up same chip style, serve alongside regular ones and see if she eats any of the more colourful veg.

My DSD was a great wee eater at 2-3. Would eat vegetable soup, paella, risotto. Between the ages of 3-4 she started getting really picky. A lot of beige foods and pasta. The only vegetable she would eat is corn and would winge if there was a bit of onion in something.

She's now nearly 6 and a great wee eater again. Still not big on vegetables but I just blend them into sauces. She's getting more adventurous and will try new things whereas before if you tried to get her to try something new she'd act as if you were trying to poison her.

Going to nursery and school definitely helps them I think as they see other kids eating and it encourages them. I wouldn't force her too much as you don't want to give her a complex. We used to try new foods next to safe foods and we also used ice lollies as a bribe sometimes. We've used rewards charts for other things but not food but that could work too.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. They go through phases but as long as they're fed and not dropping weight or anything they'll be fine. Some kids survive on chicken nuggets their entire childhood! I've always given my DSD a multivitamin as well. Made me feel better during the beige stage 🤣. I've always been a healthy eater myself so I feel your frustrations. You just want to make sure your kid is getting the best nutrition as well.