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

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.......

Let her graze all day on healthy food. It is pretty normal for them to go through a fussy faze.

As long as there is no bad food given don't worry. She will soon again be eating you out of house and home

She might be tired at meal times. Try feeding her sometime more substantial just after she's had a good sleep. And always include a tiny serve of something she won't eat on the same plate with something she does eat. They say it can take them seeing the food on their plate 15-20 times before it's familiar enough to eat.

if my boys don't want dinner, then sometimes they'll just graze on fruit (bananas, strawberries, watermelon) and cruskits and cheese.
if you are looking for absolute foolproof (but not so healthy) then potato gems and little sausages always work here.

I make up a cold plate, it consists of there favourite cold meat, cheese and biscuits, sometimes I grate the cheese, boiled egg, raw carrot. They also like to eat meals with toothpicks :)
You could always try making lunch the main meal of the day?
You could try pizza muffins with toppings on top to look like a smilie face.

Home made hamburgers? That way you can grate whatever you like in there eg zucchini, carrot (I have been know to cut up broccoli and hide it in there also)
Same for home made sausage rolls.
Meat loaf
:redface: frozen peas? It's still a veggie right?

home made pizzas

dd is soooooo fussy but she loves making the pizza base, seeing it expand, rolling it out and putting ham and cheese on it, unfort she doesnt eat veggies =(

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:redface: frozen peas? It's still a veggie right?

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nothing wrong with frozen peas atall! better than fresh peas cause they are snap frozen and keep all the goodness in them!

DD wont eat dinner if she is too tired. cold platters go down well here too! Pizza. Make the base your self, super easy if you have a bread maker. Make the red sauce, tim tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil, oregano and grate veggies into the sauce as your cooking it, carrot or capsicum, or anything really and then blend it so its smooth. then top with ham, pineapple and cheese. or other toppings. goes down a treat in this house!

edit...M21SB...you beat me too it.

Thanks for all the suggestions. She doesn't nap during the day so she could be well past it at dinner. Will try swapping lunch and dinner, giving her a meal and lunchtime and trying her with a sandwich for dinner.

She's not a fan of pizza, wish she was!!!! We've even had her make it with us, put her ingredients on it and watch it go into the oven. She still didn't eat it. I might make some dip or something too, see if I can entice her with some carrot sticks during the day. She knows what all the foods are, we offer them all the time, she just won't go there. So frustrating.

Thanks though and keep the suggestions coming!

Guarantee every night without fail my DD and DS will turn their noses up at their own plates but once DH is home and trying to eat his dinner (exactly the same as what I gave them) they will down it faster than he can shovel it into them :doh: I just load up his plate with extra now :D

But an absolute never fail in our house is lasagne. I grate hidden veges into it and have even made a couple with cauliflower and broccoli puree and they were none the wiser.

Good luck

My girls both love a cold platter with cut up cucumber, cheese, fruit, crackers etc. I have also stopped pushing dinner and made sure she eats well at lunch

My DD's do eat bolognaise with vegies but I have to grate the carrot and zuc and cook it for ages so it can't be detected lol

Scrambled eggs with frozen peas and corn mixed in with tiny toast triangles

Chicken enchilada's - my very very fussy almost 3 year old loves kidney beans :think: not sure why but I cook a diced chicken breast then add a can of drained chick peas, a can of kidney beans, a jar of tomato salsa and taco seasoing, heat it up for 2 minutes the spoon onto tortillas sprinkle with cheese and roll up, then cook in the oven for approx 5 minutes to crisp up. Everyone enjoys these, not sure why my fussy child likes this in particular as its not bland?

I do a meatloaf wellington its like a giant sausage roll and I grate veggies and mix in with the sausage meat and beef mmince then wrap in puff pastry and cook for about 40 minutes, I serve it with steamed vegies which she often wont eat

and as MD said keep offering foods she doesn't eat as one day she will shock you and try it. My DD is 5 and after 3.5yrs of putting tomatoes on her plate she ate some tonight!

This probably sounds a bit silly, but what about if you got her eating different things by crumbing them? If she is a fish finger and nugget fan, she obviously likes things crumbed - could you make up some home made vege fingers and crumb them? I reckon you could google a recipe :) Maybe mince some chicken and mix them with grated carrot/zuchinni/any vege really and crumb them? And then gradually increase the vege ratio as she eats them (assuming she does)

Yum mummynaomi, I am hungry just reading that! Great idea!

What time are you doing dinner? I find any later than 5:30 and nothing gets eaten!

My fail safe recipes are bolognese, lasagne and sheppards pie. My DS is very fussy with food, I just can't work him out.

Other ideas I try include putting the kids meals into lunch boxes, this always gets eaten, or sometimes we sit outside for dinner to mix things up. We also try to eat together as much as possible and just let DS eat without giving him attention over it, I find he eats the most this way.

Good luck!

My sticky chicken wings.

I also used to make a platter of assorted cold foods such as fruit, cruskits with Vegemite, sultanas, cheese, yogurt, Cheerios.


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Thanks everyone. Some great ideas here, hitting the supermarket tomorrow so will get some things for her.

Sararose - 3 1/2 years!!!! You are one patient mumma!

appletree - We try to have dinner between 5 and 6 ideally. She's in bed around 7.30. We generally eat together - if DH is still at work, I eat with DD. She can choose where she wants to sit - she has a little table and chairs, but she always chooses to have her dinner at the family dinner table.

Home made Chicken noodle soup - she will literally drink it out of the bowl.
Hard boiled eggs
Cucumber
Tuna Pasta

Anything else and we struggle too. DD2 automatically says "I don't like dinner" so I don't push anymore. Not worth the fight. She does have to sit at the dinner table with us and I still do give her a plate of food, her choice to eat it or not.

My 3 yr old eats half as much as my 1 yr old!! He will eat plain boiled pasta spirals, spaghetti hoops/ numbers/ dinosaurs etc, fish fingers, cruskits, pear.... My husband does a great trick where he shouts out " shop's open" and "sells" little snacks which is a fool proof way of getting him to eat. It seems to change very day what he will and won't eat. I try to ask him what he wants (offer him 3 choices) and try and get it on the table by 1730.
We are in a holding pattern, not winning but not losing either. It doesn't help that DS2 eats everything offered to him and then some!!!
Good luck everyone else.

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 :)

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

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.

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!

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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.......

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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.:doh:

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. :redface: 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.

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

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


Vicks
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