How Do I Get My 19Month Old to Try New Foods?

My pediatrician made a valid point one time by saying ***parents create picky eaters***

I thought about myself and growing up...I ate what was put in front of me because I knew it was that or go without. Didn't you?

Give her what you're having, nothing else (unless it's too spicy for a child). She'll adapt when she gets hungry. Tell her that you are fine if she doesn't eat, but she won't get anything else until the next meal (no snack either).

Remember, now is the time to nip the pickiness. The longer you allow this behavior, the harder it will be to stop.

Good luck~

Let her be around you as you prepare meals. Letting her see the food as well as smell it before she even eats it could help.

You are in that stage where you feel all you do is throw away food but just keep offering her different foods and one day all of a sudden she won't reject something she has refused the past few months and actually eat it!

Some people try to go the bland and plain route. While I did believe in offering my son whole foods w/o alot of glamour when he was younger, I did add a littel salt and/or butter to things just to get him to try it...I mean, that's what its there for - to make food taste better - right?

Make yourself a bowl of frozen (I don't like canned) peas with some butter. Sit down in front of her and start eating without offering her any. Within a minute or two, she should start asking for some!!! It always worked with my kids!

I also have a 19 month old and everyone always comments about how good she eats. Here are some of the things I try.

If she is hungry before dinner is ready, instead of offering her animal crackers or similar, give her a vegetable (or occassionaly fruit) that actually is part of the meal. Canned grean beans are popular. I also take a handful of baby peas from the freeze and nuke them in a plastic cup for 1.5 minutes. You mentioned she doesn't like peas, but baby peas are sweet and can be eaten by hand. I sometimes buy the single serving veggies (mostly carrots) that come in the plastic cups like fruit come in and save them for this type of occassion.

With only some rare exceptions, she eats what we eat for dinner. Since most 19 month olds want to do it themselves, I bib her up and let her eat stuff with her fingers. Cut meat on the 'grain' (diagonal) so the bite size pieces chew more easily. Sometimes with kids, it is the texture they don't like, so you have to get them accustomed to it. KEEP TRYING. Repetition is the key.

You may also want to look at when your daughter gets snacks. I think we oversnack our kids and they are not really hungry at meal time and can then afford to be picky. I know when I oversnack before dinner, I am more picky. Don't get me wrong, I think kids need snacks, but watch giving them too close to meals and try to use 'hungry times' to get her to try new things.

You may also want to try-
Blueberries
Mandarin oranges
Scrambled or cubed boiled eggs (good protien)
Baked fish (my daughter loves tilapia or salmon with a little garlic powder)

Good luck!!

Get her off the chicken nuggets and mac and cheese these are not foods to build a healthy body with. Yogurt that is made with natural cultures and no sugar. No french fries. Put out vegetables cut small, preferably slight cooked so they are soft enough for someone who may not have a full set of teeth.
Cook from scratch and get her to know what food really tastes like.
Last November I asked Mamapedia Moms about food and got wonderful helpful answers even about books to cook with. So I know all the Mamas will answer you with the best they have.
Meantime acclimate your daughter to natural healthy foods. My best advise is to never, ever give her sugar. Dentists went to the poor house from my kids aside from the three sets of braces I've paid for. No cavities.

That sounds like a fine diet to me. It's hard at this age. That is more than my daughter ate at that age. She ate babyfood until 19 mos old. Just gradually try to add more and eventually something else will stick. I find when we are around other kids and she (who is 3 now) sees other kids happily eating a food she isn't used to, she will suddenly try it and find she likes it too. My daughter wouldn't touch broccolli until recently. I have no idea what shifted in her. I told her they were little trees and that they were dinosaur food. You just have to get creative. And I hide food in the food she will eat. Like, mine won't touch chicken, but if I dice it up and mix it in with a baked potato, she doesn't notice. You can hide a lot in mac n cheese and yogurt. And 19 mos is still pretty young. She'll branch out eventually.

My daughter has a similar diet to what you describe with the exception of a few things. She loves pickles and cucumbers and most fruit, but refuses to eat meat except for chicken nuggets and the occasional hotdog. She doesn't eat pasta period. She too used to love peas and carrots when she was a baby. She has had this same diet since she was around 15 months. Did I mention she is now 10? It was a concern for me as well, however she isn't malnourished, is getting plenty of iron and over all is a healthy kid. The doctors are not concerned. I figure she can't eat this way for the rest of her life and she does introduce new things on her own in her own time. I do make sure she gets a daily vitamin and I limit her sweets. I don't think you can force your daughter to eat something, but it is possible. If introducing new things doesn't work, then maybe she will change it on her own.

The trick is simple repetition. According to multiple research studies, the average number of times a toddler needs to try a new food item before she will consistently eat it is between 11 and 16. The average parent gives up well before then.

I think you also need to discontinue the chicken nuggets, turkey dogs, mac & cheese and ham. I would also NOT try to get her to eat fried chicken, fish sticks or french fries. These are all foods that are specifically DESIGNED to appeal to the innate human craving for fat and salt. Children will eat these items to the exclusion of all others and disregard their normal satiety mechanisms so they overeat these things.

Once you have eliminated these items (I would include pizza in this list too) from the menu, you just offer a little bit of whatever you are eating at each meal. So - if you are having hummus on whole grain pita, veggie sticks and an apple for lunch - you offer her a little (in appropriate size pieces) of each for lunch. If you are having broiled salmon, green beans and rice for dinner, she gets a little of each on her plate. I would NOT make a big deal of her either eating or not eating the items. With repetition she will try them and learn to like most things (everyone has something they don't and will never learn to like).

There is good research that shows bribery does not work. If you bribe her to eat broccoli by offering a cookie - she will like the broccoli less and the cookie more. There is also good research that shows that food habits formed NOW are extremely important in later life - in willingness to try different foods, in forming healthy food preferences and in maintaining normal satiety mechanisms.

I never made my daughter eat anything... I asked her if she would like to try a food. I always told her if she didn't like it she could spit it in the trash. Worked like a charm! She tried everything because she knew I wouldn't make her eat things she didn't like.

I always liked Dr. Greene's answer to this question - http://www.drgreene.com/qa/when-your-baby-won%E2%80%99t-e...