Dealing with your toddler’s picky eating habits can be stressful. While the fluctuations in their appetite and food preferences are normal, they may cause a nutritional gap in their diet and interfere with their optimal growth and development. One way to deal with your toddler’s picky eating is by encouraging them to explore a wide variety of food, without instilling force and fear in them or having arguments. Just ensure to give your kid some time and space, and practice trying new foods along the way. Apart from this, you can also try making their food more colourful and appealing, and involve them in the cooking process.
To make things easier for you, we have compiled a list of helpful tips that you can integrate to overcome your toddler’s picky eating habits. Try to get started with these as soon as you can, and incorporate them one by one to encourage your toddler to start eating healthy, right from the start.
10 Tips To Handle Your Child’s Picky Eating Habits
Offer Your Tot New Foods
While you are working on getting your kid to expand their palate, it’s important to consistently introduce them to new foods. But doing too much of it, and too soon can overwhelm your child. Hence, introduce them to one new food item at a time, along with another familiar favourite of theirs. For instance, if your child loves paneer, try adding a veggie to it, like broccoli, and prepare a paneer stir fry with veggies. This way your child will be exposed to a new vegetable, also have a familiar one on their plate, and not feel too frustrated or overwhelmed. It will also help create a habit of trying new foods gradually.
Go Grocery Shopping With Your Child
Taking your kids grocery shopping can get them more excited about their meals and snacks, as it involves them giving input on the meal preps and also discussing their snack plans. In fact, you can also make a game out of picking different colours of vegetables, and how fun it will be to make a rainbow-coloured dish out of it. This will help garner your child’s attention and make them excited about having something colourful to eat.
Involve Them In The Cooking Process
Involving your toddler in the cooking process will not only help level up their cooking skills from a young age but also teach them the importance of different foods in their diet. It will also give them a sense of self-satisfaction (that they helped you cook a meal), and they will proudly look forward to eating what they’ve created. It also shows them the various steps for cooking, and exposes them to different spices, and condiments that you add to the food to make it more delectable.
Avoid Saying Things Like “Veggies Are Healthy”
If you are always referring to veggies as something “healthy” and snacks like biscuits and cupcakes as “yummy treats”, then your child may perceive the wrong message and think that vegetables don’t taste good and that they are something that they have to eat forcefully. Try to avoid labelling different food groups as healthy or yummy. This will teach your kid that there’s not much difference between treats and veggies, and they will show more interest in eating them. Also, labelling foods as “good” or “bad” can lead to unhealthy relationships with food, as your kid ages.
Make Food Fun
Try to make your toddler’s food more colourful and appealing. You can cut their veggies and fruits into fun shapes and offer them alongside a homemade dip. This way your child won’t get bored of eating veggies or fruits, and might even look forward to the different shapes that you cut them into.
You can invest in cookie cutters to cut fun shapes out of sandwiches and veggies, or even try creating a rainbow out of brightly coloured fruits. Another option is to use colourful silverware and plates at home, or prepare bento-styled lunch boxes for school.
Serve Small Portions
Serving your tot small portions of food can serve you a dual purpose. First, it won’t make them feel overwhelmed by large portions of unfamiliar foods, or items that are not their favourite. Second, There will be no chance of argument, and you will even waste less food. Just think about it in this way, giving your child a floret or two of broccoli along with a familiar dish will be much easier than handling their tantrum or fussiness when given an entire cup of the veggie.
Have A Snack Plan
Your kid’s snack time may be a great way to fit in foods that they would otherwise not prefer to eat during their meals. Again, your kid may react positively to snack time when they have a say in them. So, sit with your kid and discuss different snack options for the week. Tell them that you are going to create snacks with specific fruits and veggies, and let them pick what they want to eat with that, or if they have a preferred dip.
Be A Role Model
Remember, your kid is always watching and learning from you. So, try to be a good role model, and show them the benefits of eating healthy. During mealtime, you can try talking about how you love foods like carrots, beans, sweet potatoes, and broccoli, and how they enhance the taste of every dish. This will help garner your child’s interest, and they will also want to try those items during their meal.
Don’t Demonise Certain Foods
Don’t force the idea that eating cookies, chocolates and lollipops can be bad for your health and should be forbidden. This will make your child feel overwhelmed, and feel forced to only eat the foods that you decide for them. This can also make their picky eating habits turn worse, instead of helping them cope with them. A better way to handle this situation is to give them balanced portions of each food item. If your child is having a cupcake as their evening snack, then make sure they also have a cup of veggies at night to balance their meals.
Try To Motivate Your Child
Constantly saying things like, “you are such a picky eater”, and “eat your vegetables” can send a negative message to your child and demotivate them. Instead, try to be patient and give them time. If needed, give them more choices, and involve them in the process of deciding how their meal plan should look for the day. Acknowledge what they say, and then encourage them to try something new by saying, “Oh your plan sounds good, I think carrots and potatoes will go great with this dish, should we consider adding them to this dish?” A positive attitude will only motivate your child to expose their palate to different food groups and overcome their picky eating habit.
Your child’s picky eating habits may be concerning, but don’t stress and be patient, even if your efforts aren’t successful in the first few attempts. Just remember, the goal is to encourage healthy eating in your child, right from an early age, so that their growth and development aren’t hindered and to help them form good lifestyle choices in the future.
Also read:
High fibre foods for toddlers: Check out this post on high fibre foods for toddlers to enhance your child’s digestion and metabolism.
Fruit and vegetable smoothies for toddlers: These delicious smoothie recipes keep your child refreshed and energised during the summer.
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