I need help with my 18 month old's eating habits!!!

[1and1onway]

Or more to the point, her non-eating habits!
I have an angelic little girl, who turns into a devil-child when it comes to food time. There are a handful of things she really likes, but she refuses to eat anything else! When she was little, she had some weight issues, so we gave her anything she liked just to make sure she was eating something. But we are over that now, and want her to be eating more of a varied diet.

What she does like it healthy - eggs, fruit, peas, sweetcorn, etc. But she won't eat other normal stuff like mince, chicken, carrots, etc!

At the moment we are trying tough love - This is dinner and if you don't want it you go without. Is this a good idea? Or is there anything better anyone can suggest?

Thank you!!

she is too young to go without dinner

Toddlers burn up a huge amount of energy so need re-fuelling

offer her what she likes to eat for now and try to disguise the stuff she doesn't like

offer a range of foods - some finger foods etc - let her squish and explore her food

My DD has never been great with food and is now 2 years old, however no weight issues (I think she lives on air). I know what its like to be thankful that they will eat something. Give her the food she likes with one new food each time, and keep repeating the new food. It took my DD 100 times at least to eat carrots but she did. Still won't eat potato and lots of other stuff. Does she like pasta? My DD lived off pasta and pesto for months. For each meal think carbs, protein and veg and offer some of each - some days my DD will only protein others over veg but over the week its probably balanced.

Far too early to do the tough love I'm sorry. Also eat the same as her at lunchtime. I don't fancy dinner at 5.30pm so I often have a snack at the same time, which tends to eat then I eat her dinner!

My DS - 2.8 - is a fussy eater too. Offer them a balanced diet - including the things she will eat and some new things (as finger foods if possible). We spent ages struggling to get food into him and having massive food battles until around 2 months ago when we decided that we will just offer him a balanced diet and if he eats, great - if not, not the end of the world. We include stuff he likes (pasta, sausages, ham, yoghurt, jelly, fruit, cheese, toast) plus new flavours (dates, pitta breads, houmous, peppers and other veg, beans, soup etc.). We have good days and bad days but his diet has expanded exponentially and it really helps not getting stressed about it anymore. Best of luck to you with your DD.