12 Surefire Ways To Get Your Picky Toddler To Eat Their Vegetables and End The Battle!

Has your toddler stopped eating their vegetables? Were they once happy to eat their peas and carrots and recently decided to start throwing them across the room? Well, that’s what happened to me. Read on to find out how to get your picky toddler to eat vegetables again.

What To Do When Your Toddler Stops Eating Vegetables

As much as I wanted to pretend it didn’t matter that my toddler wasn’t eating their veggies I knew better. That’s why you’re reading this I’m guessing. Because you know how important it is for them to eat their vegetables. You’re worried about their health and you don’t know how to get them to eat their veggies again and stop the battle once and for all.

Vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet as they offer your children vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants. To ensure your child’s healthy growth and development they need to eat their veggies!

So how many vegetables do my kids really need to eat?

According to Healthy Chidren.org, toddlers should eat 2 to 3 servings of vegetables per day.

A serving is 1 tablespoon of cooked vegetables for each year of age.

Now that we know how much they need how do we get our kids to eat vegetables?

How To Get Your Picky Toddler to Eat Vegetables.

Get the Whole Family involved. 

Clap when their done eating. I know it may sound silly, but my daughter loved this so much. We would tell her to eat 3 peas and that we would all clap. So she did,we clapped and her face lit up. Then we stretched it to 5 peas, we clapped and then she clapped. 

We don’t do this everytime, but if she is being fussy we pull this trick out and it works. Our boys have fun doing this with her and it really makes dinner fun.

When she finishes her whole dinner we make a big fuss about it. We want her to know how important it is and how proud we are of her.

Kind of like you would do when potty training. In the beginning, you have to make a big deal about it.

My daughter is so proud of herself now when she finishes her meal.

Make a Game Out Of It.

Along the same lines, we sometimes make a game out of it. Her brothers will eat their veggies and we’ll say I wonder if you can eat as much as your brothers?!! She thinks this is funny and loves a challenge apparently!

So we say I bet you can’t eat 5 beans, and she does. Then I will eat 3 beans and she does and so on…..

Try to Reason with Them and Follow Through.

Reasoning with a toddler sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? I mean how can you reason with a 2 year old? It’s amazing what they can comprehend though.

For lunch , I allow my daughter to sit in a regular chair at the table to eat. If she refuses to finish her lunch or eat her veggies I tell her that I will have to sit her in her highchair. That is enough for her to sit back down in her chair and finish her lunch.

She likes to be a “big girl” and sit on her own without being constrained by the tray. 

Don’t Allow a Second Helping of the Bad Stuff.

If I’m serving something she loves that isn’t so healthy and she asks for a second helping I say not until you eat the rest of your broccoli. She understands that and usually, she wants the mac n cheese enough that she will eat more veggies!

Put them in your other foods. 

Our pediatrician highly recommended doing this when we first talked with him about her sudden refusal to eat vegetables. Sneaking vegetables into your toddler’s food. He said it’s still giving her the vitamins she needs even if it’s cooked into the meal. So I started grating zucchini and putting it in my meatball and meatloaf recipes. Carrots are also great to add to your recipes.

You can add carrots to meatballs too and the sauce.

I added canned beets and carrots to our tomato sauce and it worked like a charm

I think omelets are also a great way to add in vegetables because the cheese helps coat it and camouflage it. However , my daughter still picked out the spinach for her omelet 🙁

I have had lots of success with these healthy muffin recipes. I highly recommend these for your kids and for yourself! You can put some veggies in any of them. It won’t change the taste of the muffin. My kids love them!!

Did you know you can even put veggies in popsicles? Pretty amazing. 

So  Muffins, meatballs, meatloaf, pasta sauce, popsicles. Throw those veggies in!!

Smoothies.

Many parents have luck with giving their kids smoothies. I did this for my elementary school kids and they thought they were okay. They didn’ t love them though.

Every kid is different though so give it a try. I think they are a fantastic way to get vegetables and fruit into your diet. I personally love them!

Dips.

This trick works well for two of my kids , but not the other. Offer a side dip with the veggies. Ranch, greek yogurt , hummus or guacamole. A healthy side dip can make the vegetables more appetizing for them. 

Limit Snacks.

Stop the grazing before dinner.

If your toddler is pretty full from snacks earlier, then they are less likely to eat their veggies at dinner. Even if they are eating fruit as a snack close to dinner it can keep them full. Then they will eat the parts of dinner they like and leave the rest.

Always have an idea of when you plan to eat and limit the snacks an hour or more before your meal so they are really hungry for dinner. 

Make It Fun With Vegetable Cutters.

These vegetable cutters are adorable and are amazing when it comes to motivating my toddler to eat her lunch and dinner! She can choose which shapes she wants for the meal and I think having a part in that helps too.

She is so excited when I put her plate in front of her. It’s so funny how something so simple can get her to eat!

The little animal forks(below) worked like a charm. They come with the pack of sandwich and veggie cutters.

It really makes it fun. We stick them in her veggies and pretend the animal is eating the vegetable and that the broccoli is the grass. She loves them!

The whole family is having fun with these cutouts. You can use them for fruits, veggies, sandwiches, and pancakes.

Here you can see I used them on cheese and cucumbers for her.

Offer Vegetables As Snacks and At All Meals.

Sometimes we forget to try serving vegetables at other times besides dinner. I think breakfast is tough though unless you can offer veggies with an omelet. Lunch is a great time to offer vegetables in addition to serving them as a snack.

Try serving vegetables with cut-up cheese as a snack . Give one food they like with it which will make the experience more pleasant!

Keep ReIntroducing Them Even When They Refuse.

If your child refuses green beans repeatedly for a few weeks don’t stop serving it. Keep it in the rotation because they may start liking it eventually. Our daughter despised green beans, but now it’s her 2nd favorite vegetable!

Set an Example.

If you’re not eating your vegetables at dinner or if you allow older siblings to not eat them it will be tough to convince your toddler.

Make sure everyone at the dinner table is eating them!

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How To Get Your Picky Toddler to Eat Vegetables- Don’t Give Up!

All of this may seem like a lot just to get your kids to eat their veggies, but when they refuse everything we become desperate, right? 

After a while, you won’t need to do all these things. They eventually will start to eat them on their own.

After a few months of following these tips, things had changed in our home. My daughter actually enjoys green beans now. She even requests carrots as a side when I give her an option.

I’m hoping these tips help you figure out how to get your picky toddler to eat vegetables again! Some kids are more stubborn with this than others so it may take some work and patience on your part.

Here’s the Plan:

• Get the whole family involved
• Make a game out of it
• Reason with them
• Only allow second helpings after they try their veggies
• Add veggies to your other foods
• Smoothies
• Dips
• Limit snacks
• Keep introducing them
• Try vegetable cutters
• Offer veggies at every meal
• Set an example

Getting your toddler to eat vegetables is not easy, but if you are consistent and don’t give up they will eventually eat them!!

Good luck and please let me know how it goes!! I love getting comments and hearing from you.

Please share and pin for later! Thank you!!!

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