Toddler Food For the Picky Eater

Executive Summary by Peg Baron and Rae Glispin

Toddlers Food

What comes to mind when you think of toddler food? If you think of prepackaged snacks or jars of chunky baby food in your grocery store’s baby food isle, then think again. You want to have your child eat the same thing as the rest of the family most of the time, but there are other times when grown up food is neither appropriate nor the healthiest option.

There are times when you can get a little creative with your picky eater, especially at snack or lunch time. That’s when toddler food is the best choice. Here are some general rules of thumb:

1. Toddlers like finger food.
Good finger foods are peas, carrots, bananas, sliced grapes, gelatin wigglers with fruit, green beans, natural all-meat hotdogs, hard cheeses, cream cheese wrapped in natural lunch meats and sliced, medium pasta shells stuffed with something, or small homemade granola wedges. Cut sandwiches into squares and triangles, and cut carrots into slivers.

2. Toddlers like to choose.
Give your toddler options, but not all the options. This works pretty good with the picky eater.

3. Toddlers like foods that come with cool names or good stories.
My kids were willing to try broccoli after my sister told them a story about broccoli trees. Try naming some of your toddler food, just for fun. Amanda’s Amazing Apple Spread or John’s Jumping Green Beans might be the perfect thing for today’s menu.

Tips for Keeping Kids Interested in a Variety of Foods

1. Let them help…Even simple things like a Parent cutting up some veggies and letting your kids put them into a big bowl to help make salad.

2. To encourage my kids to eat more healthful, rather then strictly telling them they should, I often just ask them to come help me prepare some foods so that they are more interested in tasting their creations. Kids can always help with the mixing process.

3. Smoothies are another great thing to make with the kids. You can pre-cut some fruit so that your kids can add it to an unplugged blender.

4. Make your own pizza night is great! Buy some ready-made pizza crust, preferably the mini ones. Put small bowls of each topping in front of each child…pizza sauce, shredded cheese, pepperoni, etc. The fact that they are preparing their own pizza makes them so excited about actually eating it.

5. Play restaurant…We often put out all of the TV trays in a row in our family room, sort of like a counter at a restaurant. Then we fill about eight little bowls with what we call “snack foods”. We use baby carrots, cucumbers, strawberries, celery sticks, cheese sticks, wheat crackers, apple slices, goldfish crackers, etc.

6. We find that letting our kids “serve” themselves from the dinner table works so much better than preparing their plates for them. It seems to change their mindset from us telling them what they are going to eat, to them making the decision on their own as to what they will eat.

7. Making your toddler food into shapes is a huge success in our house as well. We make grilled cheese shaped like robots. We make sandwiches shaped like circles, squares, triangles, etc.

8. If you are not a very good “home-made baker” (like me), you can add mashed fruit into almost anything that you are making from a package…muffin mix, bread mix, cake mix, cookie mix.

The key is to be creative and keep your kids interested. Participation is the key.

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