14 Month Old vs Vegetables

My kids love peas or broccoli mixed in with their macaroni and cheese! Don't worry, my kids went through that stage too, but they're pretty good eaters now.

Does she like to feed herself, or do you feed her? My son around that age decided that he would be overly independent and wouldn't eat unless he fed himself.

I make a lot of sauces and that way I can sneak veggies without a problem. I steam and puree the veggies and add them to whatever my son will eat--pureed sweet potatoes to beshamel sauce for mac and cheese, it turns yellow, as if I had put cheddar.
I stuff chicken breasts/ beef/ pork chops (whatever on hand) with a mixture of pureed veggie, mushrooms, cheese,and bake until thoroughly cooked.
Shepard's pie is another easy one, and kids usually love mashed potatoes, so you can sneak carrots, parsnips, etc underneath the spuds.

I am lucky that my son loves meat and will eat anything with it.
Also, I make my own soups, and when you puree those, you can add whatever you can think of.
My biggest trick is pizza sauce, once again, I make my own, but you can always spike store bought sauce with pureed veggies and add any pasta, kids love pasta!
If you make it look like it is fun, for example get a colorful place mat with animals or whatever she likes and put peas where the animals' mouths are and ask her to do the same. Experiment with textures, she might not like some veggies cooked, may be she like the crunch of the carrots (watch out for choking hazard foods).

Good luck with it, it's tough!!

I've never believed in sugar-coating the whole eating process....so I don't follow the method of "hiding" the vegies. Our meals are simply just our meals. The food is offered, saved in the frig if possible, & then offered again when the child is hungry. It only takes one or two rounds of this to win the battle for childhood! There are no snacks offered in between, & that's the important part!

At mealtime, I acknowledge that not everyone is in the same mood for the same food. To that end, I do offer my request that each child take as many bites of each food as their age: a 4 y.o. is asked to eat 4 bites of the vegie, 4 bites of each of the other foods on the plate. I also limit the amount of drink prior & during the meal, with the remainder of the drink at the end of the meal.

I am not an insane control freak, but I do believe that my job on earth is not to cater to the tastebuds of each & every family member. As one of my daycare moms likes to say, "just suck it up & do it".....offensive, but true. (actually, I hate it when she says this, but it works! I just phrase it a little bit nicer.) Good luck.

I used take baby food veggies and mix them with yogurt and fresh fruit and blend it. It usually ended up tasting like bananas, but would have several kinds of veggies in it also.

have you tried checking out sneakychef recipes? the lady who does them has a lot of neat recipes to get kids to eat without knowing what they are eating. just go to sneakychefrecipes.com

They go through lots of silly phases, right now my youngest asks for pizza for Every meal...Obviously he is not going to get Pizza for every meal = ) Just keep offering them to her and don't make that big a deal out of it. As long as she is eating a balanced diet she will be fine. Talk to your pediatrician about a vitamin supplement if you are really worried. Lots of fresh cut up fruit have just as many vitamins and nutrition as veggies. She will have lots of picky days between now and becoming a young adult...sometimes you have to cut out the "snacking" that definitely improved my little guys appetite. Now if I think he really "needs" a snack I am more thoughtful about what he gets, some cubed cheese, a cup of apple sauce, some crunchy carrots with dip. Kids like to dip things to, find out what she likes, Alex is a ketchup kid, but other kids will eat ranch dip or even yogurt for fresh cut up fruit.
Lots of luck!
B.

i don't really recommend the whole "sneaking" thing...when she's 18 they don't really "sneak" veggies into whoppers do they? lol...i think it's a better idea to keep working on ways to make her a more well-rounded eater in the long run. make sure she gets lots of fruits, possibly try a multivitamin (i think a year old is when they recommend starting those? or is it two? not sure, call her dr.) what we did with my son, was not to make a big deal of it. i would try to include a little more often, the foods he would eat more easily, but when i made a veggie he didn't like, i asked him to eat at least one bite of it. at this age it's hard to convince them, but keep offering them, and when she's old enough, start teaching her that she doesn't get anything else if she doesn't at least try it. worked for us...hope it does with you. good luck!

I put pureed vegetables in pasta sauce, spread that on toast to make "pizza" for the little ones, and mixed it into cottage cheese. I also added pureed pumpkin into muffins and pancakes and shredded zucchini and carrots into muffins.

Our daughter did the same thing. She still won't touch hardly any veggies and she's 20 months. She will, however, eat fruit so we decided to choose our battles and keep trying veggies at every meal (and try to sneak them into things) but to deal with it until she gets a little older.

I read something that my old pediatrician gave me that said that kids' tastebuds actually go through phases and certain things may taste bitter to them that don't to us.

Also, one veggie that my daughter eats and loves it is spaghetti squash. We cook ths squash, put pasta sauce and parm cheese on it and she loves it! She also likes baby carrots (uncooked because they tend to taste better to little kids when uncooked) and celery with peanut butter.

Good luck!