Toddler Eating Questions

I have a bunch of toddler eating questions and hopefully some of you can help me out!

1. How do you get your toddler to eat veggies? I hide them in turkey meatballs, etc. but will it get better? I'm totally at a loss on this one!

2. When did the highchair go away and you switched to a booster? Age, height?

3. When did your toddler start eating with utensils?

Thank youuu!!!

Toddler Eating Questions

DS is 21 months. Luckily he likes most veggies on their own, but I do sneak some into other foods just so I know he is getting more. I put veggies in lasagna, meatballs, casseroles, I buy veggie meatballs, make soups with loads of veggies, I will put carrots or peas in his mac and cheese.

Right now he is still in his highchair, but he is beginning to look a little umcomfortable in it. I've been meaning to buy a booster, I will have to put that on my list for this week.

I started giving DS a spoon to eat with his yogurt at around 11 months. He loves feeding himself. I still spoon feed him things like soup and applesauce, but I offer the utensils other times. Sometimes he uses it, sometimes he prefers his hands.

Toddler Eating Questions

DD is 21m and is picky about veggies but still loves cooked carrots and anything with sweet potato anything. i hide veggies in sauce, mac and cheese, eggs..etc and she's pretty good about it. just recently she started eating the little peas/corn/carrot combo again. she hates broccoli!! i think it will get better in time.

DD is still in her high chair and i dont plan to change anytime soon. she def doesnt love actually going in it but once shes in shes fine. shes also on the smaller side if that matters. our high chair comes with a booster (graco blossom).

she has been back and forth with utensils. at 10-11m she loved the spoon and would hold it while i spoon fed her. then she went through about 6m where she wanted nothing to do with utensils or being fed with them. around 18m she started having interest in them again so i started giving her kiddie utensils and she loves it. now she eats best with a fork and prefers to have one. she still uses her hands a lot too but def likes the fork and is pretty good with it. she can also eat things like apple sauce with a spoon but she still flips over bowls and throws plates so that doesn't work as well yet.

Message edited 2/17/2013 1:01:55 PM.

Re: Toddler Eating Questions

1. At 2...I bribe her...sometimes it works sometimes not! I give her the veggies first and make her have 3 bites before she gets the part of the meal I know she likes. Then I have her take 3 more bites if she wants a "snack" =fruit. Depending on her mood it will work. But if she doesn't eat them she doesn't get a snack (fruit) at all. With consistency and sticking to my guns she knows I mean business now.

2. I switched to a booster around 22 months. Mostly because I have twins and I was sick of having 2 high chairs in our kitchen.

3. I gave them utensils early...10 months i think.
They started to use them consistently around 15-18 months. Now at 2 they are good at it.

Toddler Eating Questions

If DS needed to eat 10 bites of meat, vege and pasta, I'd put 10 meat and 10 vege and 5 pasta (his issue was he'd eat all his pasta and nothing else). So he'd eat his 5 pasta and ask for more. I told him eat one meat and one vege and he can have 1 pasta.

We also did "green bean cheers" where we'd clink forks and say "vege cheers". He thought that was the funniest thing ever. It got old after about 3 bites but at least he'd eat.

Toddler Eating Questions

cheese sauce...

It was about 19moths we started sitting him at the table.

Toddler Eating Questions

Started young and basically.. monkey see, monkey do. I eat TONS of veggies. I'd rather have a plate of veggies over just about anything. I snack on carrots and broccoli. I honestly never offered her any. She got curious and wanted some. I said no. Mine! She thought it was a game. So she finally won and took some of mine, then did it again. It was a game until she started to ask for her veggies. I have never put anything on my veggies like cheese or any sauce, so she's never had that. Just steamed, raw, or maybe some seasoning in the water if we boil them.

Re: Toddler Eating Questions

1. How do you get your toddler to eat veggies? I hide them in turkey meatballs, etc. but will it get better? I'm totally at a loss on this one!
Luckily, DD loves her veggies. But here are some ideas:
Broccoli bites - Steamed broccoli rolled into balls with cheddar cheese, breadcrumbs, and an egg. Then just bake.
Butternut squash as pasta sauce
Add veggies to mac n' cheese
Cauliflower mashed potatoes

2. When did the highchair go away and you switched to a booster? Age, height?
DD is 19 months and we still use the highchair sometimes. I give her the option to sit in her highchair or at her table to eat. Whatever she picks is where she sits.

3. When did your toddler start eating with utensils?
I started giving them to her probably around 13 or 14 months, but she just started really being able to use them at 18 months.

Re: Toddler Eating Questions

We just continue to offer veggies. My 5 and 6 year olds love them! We just kept offering and we eat them in front of them. Eventually they started to enjoy them. My 22 month old loves asparagus but that's about it so far.

We stopped using the Highchair by 10 month. By then he was climbing up on our bar height chairs on his own, with no problem so we stopped using the chair. We didn't use a booster at home.

We started with forks and spoons when he started eating table foods often at 7 months(we never did baby foods and we never spoon fed him, he had always only fed himself). By 12 months he was great with a fork and the spoon(spoon for thicker things). Now at 22 months he almost always uses a fork instead of his fingers. The first time he tried solids(avocados at 5 months old), I handed him a spoon with avocado on it and he knew just what to do with a spoon even though he never had baby foods.