Read What to Expect the Toddler Years Online
Authors: Heidi Murkoff
What to Expect the Toddler Years (177 page)
Turn the tables.
Stir up some excitement: Switch from finger foods to foods your toddler can eat with a spoon, or the other way around; from a “sippy” cup to a cup with a real straw; from breakfast foods at breakfast to breakfast foods at lunch, and vice versa; from cooked vegetables to raw, from junior foods to table foods.
Take no captives.
Sometimes it’s not the meal itself that a toddler finds objectionable, but the confinement (in a high chair, for instance). See the tips on page 149 for less-confining seating options.
Let the picky pick.
As long as your toddler is presented with only nutritious selections, let your picky eater pick and choose what appeals—even if it’s pizza for breakfast and cereal for dinner. Encourage him or her to try what everyone else is having, but don’t insist, at this point (the preschooler should begin to learn to eat what’s set in front of him or her; the toddler simply has to learn how to eat). Of course, when being picky isn’t polite (you’re at a friend’s house and it’s waffles for breakfast) or practical (you’re at Grandma and Grandpa’s and there’s no pizza in sight), let your toddler know what the options are: “You can have the waffles (or Grandma’s oatmeal), some toast, or these crackers I have in my bag and a glass of milk—or you can leave the table and go play.”
Be sneaky.
Fruits and vegetables don’t have to be whole, or even recognizable, to be nutritious. Blend chopped or puréed fruit into stand-by yogurt; serve the yogurt sundae-style, topped with halved berries and a drizzle of warmed fruit-only preserves; serve cereal with a few slices of banana; add chopped or puréed vegetables (cauliflower is hard to spot in an otherwise white dish) or tiny new peas to the macaroni and cheese (if your toddler doesn’t object); cook up a vegetable soup (many children especially like minestrone); add a small amount of finely grated carrot to pancake or waffle batter (it won’t change the taste or texture significantly enough to bother most children).
Whip up a banana or berry milk shake (sweetened to taste with frozen juice concentrate); serve a variety of vitamin- and mineral-rich juices and blends (apricot, peach, mango, papaya; carrot, tomato, V-8). Though the latter lack the fiber of their fresh counterparts, they may get your child’s finicky taste buds acclimated to new flavors, which in turn may make them more accepting of whole fruits and vegetables later. If your toddler has a sweet tooth, satisfy it while satisfying dietary requirements by adding diced dried apricots, puréed dried fruit (soak first in hot fruit juice to soften), ripe bananas, carrots, sweet potato, or pumpkin into whole-grain bread, cake, muffin, pancake or waffle batter. Look for sorbets or ice pops with nutritious fruit bases (apricot, mango, cantaloupe, berries), or make your own (see page 834).
GRATIFYING A SNACK ATTACK
How do you keep a toddler happy at snack time without compromising The Toddler Diet principles? By keeping the following wholesome nibbles on hand:
Whole-grain pretzels, crackers, rice cakes, breadsticks, rolls, and bread
Cheese (sticks, cubes, slices, or coarsely grated)
Whole-grain fruit-sweetened cookies and muffins
Soft
dried fruit (apricots, raisins, dates, unsweetened pineapple, apples), for older toddlers
Raw vegetable strips (red or green peppers, carrots, zucchini, mushrooms), for older toddlers
Cooked legumes, such as kidney beans or chick-peas (garbanzos); halve them for young toddlers
Fresh cucumber or fruit slices (apples, pears, apricots, bananas, peaches, nectarines, mango, melon, and so on), as appropriate for a toddler’s age
Yogurt (plain, plain with fresh fruit or fruit-sweetened jam added, or fruit-sweetened commercial brands)
Peanut butter and jelly or banana on whole wheat; peanut butter thinly spread on peeled apple slices
Offer choices.
If your toddler rejects new additions you make surreptitiously, try providing some options: “Would you like your yogurt with bananas or with applesauce? . . . berries or peaches in your cereal? . . . peas or broccoli in your macaroni and cheese?” If neither alternative is accepted, you’re no worse off than you were before; but if one is, your toddler’s taken a giant leap forward. Offering your toddler choices provides some control over dining and often increases the chances that he or she will try something new.
Vary the options.
In most homes, two or three vegetables and three or four fruits turn up repeatedly on daily menus. But there are literally dozens of fruits and vegetables to try (see page 506 for suggestions) before you decide your toddler won’t eat any at all (and don’t assume your toddler won’t like a particular food because you don’t). Remember, vitamins and minerals don’t only come in green packages. It’s a rare toddler who won’t accept at least one food in each Daily Dozen category. And for the moment, that one, eaten daily, is all that’s necessary.
Make food fun.
See page 522 for tips on how to do this.
Keep the purist happy.
Many toddlers reject stews, casseroles, and other “mixed-up” meals, or even foods that are “touching” each other, preferring instead to keep foods separate on their plate or to eat one food at a time. Keep such a purist happy by serving foods singly or on a plate with built-in dividers.