I cook dinner nearly every night and always offer a balanced meal including some form of protien, veggie and usually a fruit (my toddlers love fruit like most). My problem is my kids never seem to eat the veggies unless its a couple carrots. Any ideas on how to get them to eat other things?
I thought about offering pediasure to my son to fill in the gaps in nutrition but my daughter has a milk protein allergy and can not have pediasure. Do they make a form of this that is a soy product or even almond or rice milk based?
Also they do take a gummy multivitamin everyday so maybe i am worrying for nothing.
I have read that most young children do meet their nutritional needs. (Better than we think) It's helpful to look at what your child eats over a one week period. Are they getting a variety of foods? Often looking at just one day is not enough. Have you thought of a gummy vitamin?
Serve fruit as a snack or only with breakfast, lunch etc. At dinner serve a vegetable and protein only - with less choices on the plate, maybe they will be more likely to eat the veggie.
Offer them the veg and say if they try it they can have fruit. It's a fine line with bribery but I find that if I give DD berries right off, she'll eat nothing but. If I say she can basically have them for dessert if....then she'll eat her veg. She doesn't eat all veg. The other day she did not want a tomato, but she happily ate sugar peas and lettuce. If they don't like one version, try another. I don't like candied carrots and DH doesn't like them cooked. If I make carrots, I cook some for me and let him eat them raw. Broccoli goes well with cheese. DD does not like salad dressing or iceburg lettuce, but she will eat romaine and leaf lettuce. Give them non-dressing or non-sauce options, too. Maybe that's the hangup.
As far as vitamins, we use Gummyvites, for our kids. They taste really good actually. You can get them at any drug or food store.
Use the V8 Fusion juice, that works wonders for my kids. It has a bunch of fruity flavors but has actual vegetables in it and you cannot taste it what so ever!!! Also Mott's Medley's has vegetables in it.
Also use a food processor. When I make casseroles, I steam some broccolli and carrots and mix the sauce inside the food processor and they will never know !!!! I do this for alfredo and tomato sauces, and meatloaves.
