How to Get My 2 Year Old to Eat!

My son gave up on some of his old stand-by veggies, so I started him on V-8 V-Fusion that is fruits and vegetables. Ocean spray makes one now, and it's a bit tarter, which my son loves. Both make a strawberry banana thats also full of carrots, sweet potatoes, ect. Fully hidden in flavor and goes down like a charm!

Here are two tricks you can try:

TRICK #1: I call it the "Smell, Kiss, Nibble" trick. When my son objects to a new food that is on his plate, I take a pice of that food on a fork and I bring it up to his nose and have him smell it. This usually illicits and really look "Yuck!" from him. The next thing I ask him to do is kiss the food item. Again, I'm greeted with a really loud, "Yuck!" And then the final I ask him to do is take a nibble of the controversial food item. At this point, I may be receive a third and final "Yucky!!!", at which point he is off the hook until the next time I serve that food for dinner. I would say about 50% of the time though, my son will end up saying "Mmm. . . yummy!", after he has taken that first nibble and will dive right into what ever he was questioning before.

TRICK #2: There is a children's cookbook called Salad People that has some really fun recipes that you can prepare with your kids. Your daughter is still pretty young but there's somethings that she can do to help you prepare a recipe. What I have been doing with my daughter is sitting down with her with the cookbook and looking over the recipes together and then, after she has chosen her recipe for the week, we'll go to the store together and she will help me select the fruits and vegetables that we need. I've found that she is more likely to try "Rainbow Coleslaw" if she had some kind of vested interest in the preparation of the dish.

Hope this helps.

My kids have been pretty good eaters all along, but they do go through phases where we have issues. I try to make one item w/ every meal that I know they like - that way they will eat atleast that item.

Sometime the only thing you can do is keep trying & have them keep trying. Even if it's only one bite of everything on their plate to get desert. We have 2 main rules when it comes to eating... #1 you have to try everything on your plate to get second of something & #2 if you want desert you have to finish everything on your plate (unless I know they really don't like it). Desert can be anything we happen to have (cookies, cake, pie, icecream, popcicle, pudding, jello, brownies or whatever is in the house).

My almost 5 yr old hated greenbeans & refused to eat them for almost 2 yrs... everytime I serve them I had him eat 1 greenbean (I'd only give him 3 or 4) to get his seconds & they didn't count for the desert rule... about a month ago he ate all 4 of them and told me the were good & wanted more. I jaw hit the floor & I about feel out of my chair... he did finish his second of green beans - which to me was even more shocking. But it took 2 yrs of serving him 3-4 green beans for him to "like" them.

So, all I can say is keep trying and try to serve atleast one item w/ meals that you know she likes... in time she will be willing to try more & find more that she likes.

As for the milk - my kids sometimes drink it better if we add chocolet or strawberry flavor to it... not sure if you daughter will or not, but sometimes it's worth trying.

So you know a few things my kids eat really well are - spagetti, bbq chicken, french fries, fresh strawberries w/ sugar, fresh apples slices, chicken nuggets/patties, mashed potatoes w/ gravey, apple sauce w/ cinnamon, deviled eggs, pancakes w/ sausage links, & cold cereal w/ milk.

Also, don't be afraid to have breakfast for dinner or lunch... sometimes it's better to have an "odd" meal that they will eat then for them not to eat. And try to make it a family meal - meaning everyone has the same stuff on their plate... don't cook special meals for them & another one for the adults - that will only cause additional issues later.

I wish you luck!!! And hope she soon starts trying a bit more for you.

Hey G.----Have you checked out Dr. Sears website, www.AskDrSears.com yet for advice on how to feed a picky eater? As a fellow JP+ distributor, I refer people to his books all of the time. Look for the Family Nutrition book, as well as The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood.

The most important thing I think is to just keep offering different foods to her. Try different ways of preparing them. Be sure that you give her what you want her to eat first then fill in with what she will eat.

Do you get info from Dr. Pam Popper? Go to www.wellnessforum.com. In her wellness 101 class, they discuss on a CD how to get kids to eat a healthier diet. One of her assistants has the policy at their house that their kids have to eat the number of bites that correspond to their age. At 2, however, your daughter does not have the ablility to rationalize like that, but, again, keep trying.

According to Dr. Pam, you would know that not eating meat or dairy is best for her health anyway. If you are not familiar with The China Study by T Colin Campbell, I suggest you read it. A couple of websites I share with people are www.eatingwell.com (has a whole section on kid friendly foods, recipes, etc) and www.pcrm.org.

I like the smoothie idea. You can put just about anything in those and make them taste decent for a picky eater. Keep feeding those gummies and she'll get there. Lots of love and positive expectations will get you far.

Contact me if you have any questions about anything. How long has it been since you've discovered JP+? I am so thankful that I have JP+ as my nutritional back-up plan. Hope this helps. Take care, D.

I'm right there with you! :( I know it's frustrating, as we go through the same thing. With my daughter, she's had issues with the texture of foods & gagging since she was about 15 mos. So... we've also had her going through feeding therapy as well, which really hasn't helped much. What helps with my daughter, is giving her smoothies. There are recipe's I found online (google kids fruit & veggie smoothies), that she loves & I can get fruits & veggies (like carrots, fresh spinach) in her that way. Mine also doesn't eat meat or pasta or anything I want her too. She does love peanut butter, sun butter or any kind of nuts. Try trail mix's you make yourself with sunflower seeds, nuts (if there's no allergies & she's good with chewing them), dried fruits, cherrio's, chex mix. etc. Does your little one like pita chips? Those would be good w/humus. I also find giving my little one a VARIETY of foods on her plate (even if she doesn't eat them all), gives her choices & looks more tempting to her. Sometimes she will try them! I encourage her to try things & spit out if she doesn't like, this has helped IMMENSELY! I also make sure she eats all meals at the table with us. I hope something in here helps. I know it's frustrating, just hang in there & keep offering different things.

I wouldn't worry about the meat and dairy right now. Sometimes chewing something as chewy as meat takes a long time. The smoothies are great - you can put more in them than you think. Does she like to use the blender at all and listen to the sounds or watch the stuff whirl around (if it's a glass pitcher)? Sometimes involving her in the process helps.

I used to hide all kinds of things in my son's food. Pancakes were awesome - wheat germ and soy milk and (I kid you not) ground up broccoli - a little real maple syrup and dim lights, and he ate right up! I also saved the water from steaming green vegetables and used it to make rice or couscous, anything that absorbed all the water. (Don't waste it on pasta).

Hummus is great. Start providing things she can dip in it - and you can do it with her. Start with really thin shredded carrots or julienne them yourself into matchsticks. Then think strips of cucumber or even multi colored peppers. If she has an aversion to green ones, start with red or have her pick out her favorite color at the store. Will she play "dinosaur" and eat broccoli "trees"? Try broccolini - it's thinner. Also try different shapes of whole wheat pasta - kids sometimes like different textures to hold even if they are loathe to eat them otherwise.

I LOVE the "smell/kiss/nibble" game the other mom suggested!

Finally, you can stop worrying while she develops a taste for new foods by giving her all the nutrition she needs in Reliv's Kids supplement - it's delicious (vanilla or chocolate) and it mixes in water or any other liquid you choose. I wish I had known about it when my child was little. Kids all over the world are getting great nutrition, including many who are malnourished, and it is changing lives! It has DHA and omega 3s and everything else they need in BALANCE. Liquid nutrition is absorbed at a very high rate, much higher than vitamin pills. Many pediatricians say that pills are just providing "expensive urine" to the kids since most of the product is eliminated and therefore so is most of your money. I can give you more info and send you some studies on this if you want.

Good luck with everything!

my son is the same way. just keep trying and eventually she will find something she likes. He likes the dinosaur shaped nuggets from target (no rib meat, white meat only) and some weeks...that is all he will eat for dinner. Last week, I made bbq chicken (drumsticks) creamy pasta in a mushroom sauce and a medley of veggies. I did not think he would take a bite and he actually ate from my plate and ate ALOT! He will not eat leftovers (he has his father's palate) and he hates bread.
Loves: vanilla pudding, fruit cups, cheese balls (ugh) nutter butter cookies, the golden oreos cookies and french fries...oh and bananas...sometimes. That's it. Like I said, just keep trying. Every child is an individual and she just may not be a big eater. I was so stressed at first and making appointments to see specialists at children's hospitals until my awesome pedi told me to stop, relax and not to worry. My son is very active and tall for his age of 2 and a half, but he is skiiiinnnnyyyy. Just less of him to love more. lol

Best of luck to you.

Hi G.
I never did experience this problem with my boys--they actually ate me out of house and home!!! But Reliv Kids NOW (stands for Nourishing Our World) is a complete food supplement for children. If you are concerned about your child's lack of nutrients -then this would cover everything she needs.
J. H

When my middle son was in his cracker-only phase (which was particularly frustrating because he had previously been in an I'll-eat-anything phase), we'd bribe him. If he ate one bite of meat or vegetable or whatever the meal was, he'd get a bite of cracker.

Another thing we do in our house is serve nutritious dips (hummous is good, or avocado dip [avocado, cream cheese, and a little lemmon juice), roasted eggplant dip) and tell the kids they can only have crackers if there is dip on the crackers. If they are eating crackers alone, we take them away.

We do the same thing with soup. The kids get to put cracker crumbs in their soup, but if they are not eating soup AND crackers, we take away the crackers.

I've also found that kids are much more likely to eat something they made themselves. We make pizza for lunch a lot (it's a fun playdate activity, too). I put out bowls of cheese, mushrooms, broccoli, zucchini, chicken, pepperoni, bacon, and even spinach and give each kid a personal-sized pizza. I make my own dough, but you could also buy it or even use French bread. For a tomato sauce, I make large batches of Annabel Karmel's tomato sauce with hidden veggies (from her Superfoods babyfood book) and freeze them. Then even if a kid only wants pepperoni, they are actually getting some veggies in the sauce.

We also have a juicer, and my kids love to help make the juice. If they helped make it, they will try drinking it. We make carrot-orange juice frequently, but we've also made cucuber-honeydew-green-grape-spinach juice, various beet juices (beets and apples are good), and apple-butternut-squash juice.

One last thing that has worked with my kids is for me or my husband to ask whether we should eat their dinner. We then pretend like we're going to take a bite, and the kid in question usually says he wants the bite instead.

G.,
From what I've heard, Kids go thru this phase. (that's the response that is supposed to make you feel better)lol
With my son (3) we have a one bite rule. He has to at least try it before saying he doesn't like it. We do allow him a snack after dinner, if he has eaten all of his dinner. If he doesn't eat, no snack. If he decides he's hungry later he gets to eat his cold dinner. After about 3 times he figured out food is much better warm, than cold.

I give Jax a carnation breakfast shake every morning. It does have sugar, but it also has lots of vitamins and gives him some energy to get thru the morning.
and lastly.. (my doctor says this is fine for my son) We give him protein bars every once in a while. My sons dr did tell me, that in his 20 or so years practicing medicine he has never seen a child starve to death from being picky. :-)
After saying all of this... I know boys are different than girls. Regardless, they are kids and their taste buds change weekly.. Good Luck. Have a Blessed day.
jt

It sounds like the biggest problem is getting her to try something. It's not fun, but I think what you have to do is give her something and say that's all there is for lunch. Prepare yourself for a tantrum but stay calm and say that she doesn't have to eat it but that's all there is. She will test you but stay calm and nicely tell her that's what there is to eat today.

I know it's hard (been there!) because you feel like they are going to starve to death if you can't get them to eat, but this is what we had to do with our son and it worked very quickly. I found it helpful to sit at the table myself and eat very slowly so he had many chances to come back and eat. If he wanted to play that was fine, but I couldn't play because it was lunch time. It's easier for them to "save face" and not admit that they are giving in if you stay calm and not make it a big deal whether they eat or not. If you act like it's a really big deal, they'll just fight it more. When you're done eating, put her food away too and then try offering it to her later. She might realize that she only has so many opportunities to eat.

What is she drinking instead of milk to fill in those dietary needs? Is she getting yogurt at least?

Again, I know it's hard to let them just not eat! Especially if you need them to hurry up and eat so you can go somewhere. I would try it when sometime when you are home all day so she can eat whenever she decides.

my picky kids liked chocolate milk...better for them than no milk at all.