Getting 2 YO to eat veg

SqueekyMouse

Hi, I've been thinking about you overnight (lol not in a creepy way!)

Vitamin drops are actually recommended for ALL children under 5, so there's no shame in giving them to your LO - link to the NHS website about it. This might make you feel more able to step back from the vegetable wars...

One other idea, have you tried presenting fruit and veg in more child friendly ways to make them more appealing? For example homemade carrot cake with orange icing; frozen mango or banana "ice-cream"; pineapple cake (which contains tinned pineapple, cherries and raisins)

Kalama

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Cheese, marmite, bread, pears, bananas, breakfast cereal, meat, potatoes (if he feels like it), baked beans (if he's hungry), raisins, strawberries (most, although he'll put a particular perfect one aside and just won't eat it for some unknown reason, after inspecting it thoroughly), raspberries (I think, it's been since last year since he tried them), pasta (no sauce).
And that's really it

Lotus - I've not got kids but have had all the tales from my MIL about my husband. He was (and still is) incredibly strong willed and spent most of his childhood living off baked beans, dry bread, tomato ketchup, peach yoghurt and plastic ham. The doctor told her he was apparently getting everything he needed (I still find this hard to believe!) so she quit trying to get him to eat anything else.

He's now a very healthy six foot four, with the broadest shoulders I've ever seen and never gets ill. He also eats pretty much everything. Still no luck with peas though.

Compared to him your son's diet is fantastic - it seems well balanced and has all the important bits. The only thing I can think of suggesting (I have a little brother who was beyond picky as a child and this worked) is getting him involved in the cooking? Maybe sit down with a nice cookbook or magazine and look through it together - he may think something looks nice and want to try it?

lil.smartie

I leave the plate on the table if my daughter has left some food, often she goes back and eats more! She didn't like the sausages with dinner the other night, when I cleared the plate before bed time they were gone! Maybe try that?

She's 3 1/2 and doesn't like chips, actually she chooses apples & grapes at McD's too but dips them in ketchup... I choose my battles, she'll realise soon enough that it's gross!! Veggies we don't have problems with, meat we do, she eats cheese & we have some multi vits with iron in for when she's picky for a few days but she'll eat beans & pluses so she, like your son, gets what she needs!

Oh and Marmite has folic acid

Good Luck!

Kate

tesuhoha

We used to play a game at the dinner table - you're a robot and you have to follow my instructions(in a Dalek type voice) . First it was turn my fork around, pick up the salt, eat a piece of chicken, take a sip of milk, eat one forkful of rice and peas, munch a carrot stick. This was borne out of desperation for a sickly child who was underweight and would not eat any food but she found it fun. In fact both children wanted to play at the same time. The child then got the opportunity to order the adult to do the same. They got bored but it was usually after they had managed to consume some veg.

Tigsteroonie

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Cheese, marmite, bread, pears, bananas, breakfast cereal, meat, potatoes (if he feels like it), baked beans (if he's hungry), raisins, strawberries (most, although he'll put a particular perfect one aside and just won't eat it for some unknown reason, after inspecting it thoroughly), raspberries (I think, it's been since last year since he tried them), pasta (no sauce).

Heck, if Andrew would eat even that, we'd be happy. (He's coming up to 3 years old but has learning delay .) He won't feed himself at all, if it doesn't come on a spoon then he won't countenance it. He'll eat weetabix, one flavour of stage 2 pouch, two flavours of stage 3 jar, puddings & yoghurts. That's it.

We're fortunate to have received support from community dietitians and S&LT who work with feeding issues; we have been given suggestions of how to get him interested in handling food and playing with it (which, if we ever get a dry day, we can put the highchair outside and try!) But the primary instruction we've been given is simply to keep feeding him, even if he'll only eat one thing, as it's "eating" that is more important than "what" he is eating. He still gets a balance of vitamins through prescription milk, so we don't have that worry. The dietitian reassures us that he won't be eating the same diet when he's 11 years old, but we're not so sure :rotfl:

System

My kids didnt like veggies either and i ended up renaming the veggies to something i think they appreciated. Cant remember what i called them its so long ago but i do remember green beans were toe rags and the kids wolfed them down because they liked the name.

sexymouse

Have you tried raw vegetables with dips? I'm not an expert, but I know being a slightly fussy eater myself that there are a lot of vegetables I prefer raw because I can't stand the texture of mushy or slimy veg (eating them at my MIL's was interesting - I used to get my husband to eat them when she wasn't looking, as they were invariably cold as well as overcooked as she insisted on boiling everything to oblivion).

angelil

You can also cook vegetables into muffins. I make courgette and walnut muffins which first involve you grating the courgette, which is then whizzed in a food processor with the rest of the ingredients. This means there's nothing of the original texture of the courgettes left at all and you genuinely wouldn't know they were in there as you were eating the muffin - it's the stronger colour and flavour of the walnuts that affects the taste and appearance far more. I reduce the amount of sugar for a less sweet muffin but you wouldn't have to do this (depending on how far you wanted to disguise it!).

So you could try looking for savoury muffin recipes maybe? I have definitely seen recipes for ham and pea muffins as well as sweetcorn muffins.

lostinrates

The idea of dips made me think that the rest of the family, his parents, his sister, all munching crudite and laughing and not really worrying too much about what he is doing might be enough to atleast get him to toddle u to the table and feel a bit curious?

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

The idea of dips made me think that the rest of the family, his parents, his sister, all munching crudite and laughing and not really worrying too much about what he is doing might be enough to atleast get him to toddle u to the table and feel a bit curious?

Done that veg and hummus. He'd be interested until he saw what it was.