Q&A: getting 18-month-old to eat food

Sarah writes:

"Any ideas on how to convince my 18-month-old that fruits and veggies are not a tool of the devil??  He ate pretty much anything we put in front of him up until a few months ago.  Now his diet is becoming increasingly limited.  Loves cheese, yogurt and bread related items and will tolerate the occasional banana and applesauce.  I'm running out of ideas in how to prepare veggies to tempt him to try it.  He's also been known to chuck fruit back at us as well.  Any thoughts on making them more appetizing to toddlers or am I doomed to just wait out this phase??"

Since 18 months is all about asserting control, I don't think you're going to be able to convince him to eat anything you want him to. Instead, you're going to have to con him or trick him into eating vegetables.

You can con him by making a big deal about the delicious peas or carrots or whatever other vegetable you're eating, but talk about how it's only for "big kids" and little kids like him can't eat any. If you make it look and sounds really delicious and like it's something he really wants to do but can't, he may fall for the con and beg to eat some. If it works, ride the con 'til it's dead.

You could also trick him into eating vegetables and fruits by putting them into something else. I've known people who started making smoothies for their kids with yogurt and blended fruits. A friend had a muffin-crazy child who would eat anything in muffin form. So she'd just add vegetables to sweet muffins. It was disgusting, but her kid loved them. Spinach-banana muffins, sweet potato-apple muffins (which actually sounds kind of good to me), zucchini-chocolate chip muffins, green pepper-raisin muffins, etc. You could also try pancakes, which are just as deliciously starchy as muffins are and can hide all kinds of vegetables (mmmm...forbidden broccoli pancakes).

Now none of this might work. But by the time you've gone through all the ideas (and I'm hoping some commenters will have some other ideas) a month or two will have elapsed and maybe your son will become vulnerable to peer pressure ("Sophia's eating peas! Why don't you eat some peas, too?"). Or maybe he'll be past the horrible 18-month control-freak stage and into the delightful 2-year-old stage and will eat whatever you and your partner are eating. Or maybe you'll start drinking more wine with dinner and it won't matter to you anymore.

At any rate, eventually this stage will pass, and he'll eat fruits and vegetables again. And then he'll stop eating them again, and then start, and then stop, etc. And then he'll go away to college and it won't be your problem anymore. So do the best you can, but don't let it become an emotional issue for you or else it'll take on too much importance and will stress you out for no reason.

Comments

[Katie]

Try foods than can be dipped in other foods. Apples in yogurt, carrot sticks in humus, veggies with cheese. Allow them play time with the food.

[Linda]

My kids are 21 months.

Please pass the wine.

[Beth]

These tips come courtsey of my cousin, who has three kids. Pureed cauliflower folded into mashed potatoes. That assumes your kid will eat mashed potatoes, I guess. And shredded carrot & peanut butter sandwiches. That sounds disgusting to me, but her son wanted it for lunch every day.

[Kathy]

Words of (not-so-much) wisdom from the parent of a 25-YEAR old.

I just didn't let it bother me. I got lost of pressure from THE GRANDPARENTS that every meal should be WELL BALANCED. (So I divided the food equally on her plate - moved into four corners - see, now IT'S BALANCED.)

Anyway -- I figured it wouldn't kill her if she didn't eat everything I shoved in front of her. She's now an adult with no noticeable deficiencies (sp?) Never been arrested, not pregnant -- even graduated college with a 3.0 GPA, sigh, maybe if she had eaten those veggies it would have been a 3.2!!!

(Sorry for the sarcasm. Bottom line -- the kid is not going to starve or be malnourished. Just find something the s/he will eat and balance it as best you can. This phase too will pass.)

[Lisa C.]

Yes, what is it about the 2-year-olds wanting mom and dad's food? When I make lunch for the Moosh and myself, if my plate differs from his in any way, my food is deemed superior and he crawls into my lap and eats my lunch. Of course, this only works when I want what is for lunch. If I try to strategically arrange food on my plate that is meant for him to eat, he won't eat it. HOW DOES HE KNOW???

[liz]

Pesto. Most kids love it. It comes in handy jars.

Mix a little Gerber's pureed spinach into it, he'll never notice. Puree up some broccoli and add it too...

[meg]

My son would eat anything in a tortilla. We used to add all sorts of things to quesidillas, and in a pinch would just wrap the veggie up in a cold tortilla and hand it to him.

[Jessica]

I am going to the echo the other comments and Moxie and say that this is a control issue, lots of toddlers refuse to eat certain foods for certain time periods but will come back to eating them again. This too shall pass and if you try too hard to make your toddler eat (or do) anything, it will only make the situation worse. But since that's easier said than done, I'll also say that these were some things that have worked in our house:
1. Giving her the choice of which veggies to eat. I always let M pick out our weekly vegetables at the farmer's market. This helps for two reasons--illusion of control, and also invariably either the farm stand people or someone else at the market makes a big deal out of her, and the ensuing pride makes her more willing to eat them.
2. Along the same lines, I keep a bunch of small bags of frozen vegetables inthe freezer door, and every day she gets to pick out a small serving to eat with her lunch. Usually I just steam whatever veggie she picks quickly in the microwave, but sometimes she wants to eat them still frozen. I think she likes them this way because she is still getting molars in, but I don't really care because it's fast and she eats them.
3. Cut up veggies with "dip" of any kind. In our house dip is low-fat salad dressing.
4. Grated veggies in tomato sauce. I make my gravy with carots and onions in it already, but have been known to add shredded zucchini or spinach.
5. Vegetable in soups (pureed if need be).
6. If you have the yard space this spring/summer, I highly reccomend planting your own small garden and growing vegetables. M loves "helping" her dad in the garden and will eat anything that comes out of it, because she and Daddy grew it. You can get your toddler in the mood now by looking at seed catalogs, and depending on where you love, it will be time to plant certain things like onions and peas and lettuce before you know it!
7. Go for the wine at dinner.

Good luck!

[Ally]

Jamie loves "wet" food, and will eat almost anything if it comes in sauce or soup form. So, soup. Or, I have a great vegetarian crockpot cookbook and everything comes out all nice and mooshy and saucy and mashable. Cauliflower straight up? No. Cauliflower and zuchhini and carrots and lord knows what else (can't remember) with some kidney beans in a tomato-y, giner-y sauce all nice and mushy over rice with some plain yogurt on top? He couldn't eat it fast enough.

WRT fruit, Jamie will love something one day and hate it the next. And he has his little quirks (imagine!). Blueberries must be straight from the freezer, and if grapes are sliced lengthwise over the side of the high chair they go. But if they're sliced into litte medallions so the skin isn't so noticible, down the hatch it is.

[Nopenname]

If the kid will eat Spaghetti you can do a lot of Veggie hiding in spaghetti sauce. Dump a jar of strained peas in the sauce, or carrots, or what have you.

[Brooke]

I *know* you weren't dissing the chocolate zucchini muffins.