Give me your best fool proof dinner for the fussiest of toddlers

[Miss.September]

Tonight she ate about three pasta spirals, and then DH was able to bribe her without too much fuss to have a couple of mouthfuls of pasta and sauce.

Noticed she's been a bit grizzly over the last couple of days though, so I'm thinking that it's all related.

I did make her some icy poles - pureed some strawberries and added some juiced oranges and then froze them. She wasn't impressed until I ate one (they're not bad!), and then she wanted to finish the rest off. I haven't been able to crumb and bake anything yet, my oven element is gone and is now on order, so itching to get that back.

We'll keep trying and working through your suggestions. Thanks

[Butterfly Dawn]

soup. i make what the kids call bone soup. slow cooked pork bones in a basic veg stock and they'll drink the clear soup happily.
silly sandwiches - what crazy yummy stuff can she come up with. we have competition between the boys-.some stuff works other times it doesn't but its fun. I also feed fussy boy the lactation cookies as a treat-eats more raw then cooked but that's ok.

Sent from my Galaxy with the barefoot princess covering me in kisses, so please forgive the mistakes

[Jellyfish]

We make iceblocks by juicing things too but you can add vegies into it like carrot without compromising taste - we usually do orange, watermelon and carrot mmm. We also add spinich occasionally with stronger fruits!

Also freeze banana and then wizz it up and chuck back into the freezer - this is what my DD gets as an "icecream" treat.

Another thing that usually encourages DD1 is a little exageration of how vegies help us and so I will say things like capsicum helps you see further, have a bite and tell me how far you can see... gets her super excited and she keeps shoveling it in to try and see further and further or jump higher and higher or run faster or whatever!

And I let her taste things as I'm cooking and help me in the kitchen so she knows what is going in - if it is just pasta sauce that she gets at the table, she will be confused about what is in it and afraid to try just in case she doesn't like it but if we make it together, she helps me grate the carrot and has a taste, chop up the capsicum and has a taste and as she realises all the things in it are things she likes then she is fine to have it once it is all combined. I also don't worry if she eats too much on the way to dinner while creating it and doesn't eat much once it is combined, as long as it is healthy. Also having helped make it, letting her stir and grate things and chuck them in then we can be like 'wow, what you made tastes great' as we are eating it and she seems more encouraged to eat food she has made.

We also always eat early so she is in a good mood lol.

[AnyDream]

Oh yeah, another trick. Offer them some of mummy's dinner. When my dd was going through a picky phase, she would happily eat my food off my plate. Not ideal, but better than nothing!

Happy, I love the "shop's open" idea!

[Vixstar]

DD simply will not eat dinner.

Well, she will eat chicken nuggets or fish fingers. Sigh.

But other than that, nope. She's stopped eating mashed potato. No pasta. No cous cous. Very little rice. She just isn't interested. She sits at the table and plays with her food. She doesn't get offered anything else other than what we give her. During the day, she grazes, but the only thing she eats of any value is weetbix or bananas. Her snacks consist of cruskits, LCMs, occasionally a box of sultanas, toast, cheese sandwich. She's also off yoghurt. Bland food.

We've tried hiding vegies in bolognaise sauce in the past. All that happened was she stopped eating bolognaise.

Tonight she asked for cous cous. I made it for her. I don't usually make things she asks for but I thought I'd try it. She didn't eat it.

So please share with me your most fool proof food ideas for your fussy toddlers. And I mean fussy!!!!!!! She's 2 years, 7 months and still got two molars coming.

From despairing mother of one.......

I kid you NOT!!! This is my daughter all over and the reason I am sitting here at the computer, far away from my fireplace, freezing my butt off. Alannah now lives on plain bread (wholemeal, multigrain - thank goodness), peanut butter sandwhiches, cereal, milk (hit and miss), cheese (but only when I am cutting it up - runs in and out of the kitchen sneaking it off the bench to eat), an okay variety of fruit, nuggets from Maccas or KFC, fish fingers and oven cooked fish. Oh and sausages but thats hardly a meat! Not a veggie in sight! Tonight - not even one stupid pea.

I thought about hidding veggies but there is no point if she wont eat spag bog or lasagna etc However, some one mentioned making home made 'veggie fingers' or the like. What a brilliant idea!!!!! Mine will probably be blitzed veggies with bread crumbs coated with more bread crumbs. lol

I am thinking about buying V8 veggie juice...........im not really into making my own juices although I do have a juicer. I might see how she goes on a V8 veg juice, if she likes it I might trial my own...........

Ho Hum!

I only offer what we are eating for dinner and we only have dessert on Sunday nights. She water loads during the day but how can I refues her water?????? Yesterday she drank 400 mls milk - today 0mls. We always eat as a family and if DH is running late, I still go ahead with dinner for a 6pm sit down. Some mornings she will eat 2 or 3 bowls of cereal (weet bix bites, nutragrain etc) or two slices of crunchy PB on toast.....I think she is making up for dinner.

Sorry to hijack the thread!!! Just getting concerned. She is not starving......just not eating the best.

[Butterfly Dawn]

Ds2 would do that at breakfast too. Load up for the day.
We had a Dr put him on a rice and veg diet- after him eating nothing much for 4days i gave him vegemite sandwiches.
You could try mini menus. Show her today for breakfast there is buttered toast and your choice of topping or weetbix.
For lunch today we have ham tomatoe sauce sandwiches or banana and peanut butter. Etc
We have found looking through cook books helps over time to develop an interest.
Papa johns pizza does lesons in pizza for kids- perhaps some thing like that would be a kick start.
We also got books on food and the body and read to him. Download coloring pages about food.
Really trying to get an interest in food going.
Some days are better then others. Would love to get him out of the 3% bracket.
Sorry no recipes -try the chocolate cake in a cup recipe in that thread

Sorry if it doesn't make sense, the barefoot princess is covering me with kisses

[Vixstar]

Never thought about thinking outside just eating....like colouring in pics of food!!


Vicks
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