5 Tips to Get Your Toddler to Eat

I don't know if you know or not, but Baby Fox is somewhat of a picky eater. He still eats the food I made for him as an infant. No joke. What can I say, I make good infant food. He's never had jarred food, actually not true, we tried once and he hated it, so we never tried again.

Let's start with when Baby Fox was first trying food, this is his reaction:

 He had the defense down!

We decided that he just wasn't ready and we really didn't stress about it. We just went with the flow, and you know what? Eventually he liked food.

We use the same philosophy when he became a toddler and was STILL eating infant purees. We decided you know what? I'd rather him get his veggies  that way then none at all. And heck if I had what I made him, I wouldn't want to eat it either.

We kept trying new foods, but always made sure that he got his pureed veggies with each meal. You know what one of the first things he loved that wasn't in pureed form?

Spaghetti, he might have gotten this every night for a few months cause it's the only thing he would eat that involved carbs.

This boy loves him some ribs, totally random right?

Look Mom no hands!

Okay enough pictures, this is what we did/do:

5 things to get your toddler eating:

1. Don't stress about it. I think this is the most important, don't stress about it. Kids feel that and then it stresses them out. If he doesn't like something then find, leave it aside and eat what you do like. Kids won't let themselves starve! Keep that in mind when they refuse everything. They will not starve themselves!

2.  We give him something new to try and he has to take one bite, and sometimes we bribe him to do that, cause sometimes when he takes that one bite he likes it and will keep eating it, but he just needs to take try it first. But mostly we try to give him the foods that he likes. Kids are creatures of habit, so they don't care about eating the same thing three nights in a row, at least mine doesn't. If he likes zucchini (the only green veggie that he'll eat not pureed) then he's going to get that as often as he likes. We'll try new veggies, but always go back to the ones he likes.

3. We have set times to eat food and we usually don't stray from that. He gets breakfast, lunch, sometimes a snack after he wakes up from nap and dinner. That's pretty much it. No snacking inbetween, if he does want a snack we give him some fruit or something healthy (which is rare that he wants something between meals because he's so used to eating at those set times)

4. Make it their choice, but give them choices that you want. If he wants cookies for dinner and we say no and he starts throwing a fit we tell him, you can either eat your veggies (or whatever you're having) and get a cookie when you're done, or no cookie at all. Or do you want this veggie or this veggie for dinner? We make it seem like he is getting a choice when in reality we are choosing for him.

5. Eat with your kids. I know this seems simple, but sometimes when we're all sitting down to eat, and we'll ask Baby Fox if he wants something, he sees us eating it and asks to try a bite. I know harder said than done. Most nights we eat different meals, but I try to get everything done at the same time.

I know that if we just stopped making the stuff that Baby Fox likes that he would eventually eat what we ate every meal, but I would rather him get some veggies than none at all. You don't see any high schoolers still eating pureed veggies right? When he starts preschool in the fall, they serve him lunch, so he's going to have to start eating what everyone else eats. But for now, this is what works for us.

Currently Baby Fox's favorite meal? Persian Food. I know, he won't eat hamburger, but he'll eat the ground beef skewer like no ones business.

And just this past week, he started eating BREAD! Like honest to goodness toast.

Miracles do happen!

FYI, I don't think we're going to have the same eating issues with Mini Fox, so far she hasn't met a food she doesn't like. Even when we can tell she doesn't really like something, she'll still keep eating it.

This is her, every single time, mouth open ready for food to enter, okay lunging towards the spoon is more like it.

Linking up with One Year and Beyond Link Up and Nicole