Yes, it was only a teeny tiny matchstick carrot out of my salad at lunch today, but you guys…progress. You see, I am fairly certain that Little Lion hasn’t actually voluntarily eaten a vegetable in about a year.

Let me rewind a bit. When LL was just starting to eat solid foods, we took the Baby Led Weaning approach. He wasn’t afraid to try anything new, and loved things that I never would have expected a kid to love (black olives anyone?). Meal times were stress free as we offered our baby foods that we were eating already and let him follow his hunger and decide how much he wanted to eat.

We thought BLW must have been magic! We (somewhat pridefully) marveled at what a “good” eater we had! We took a very hands-off and laid back approach to introducing solids, and weaning LL from formula onto solid food and cow’s milk was a pretty smooth transition.

I am honestly not even sure what happened after that, but around 18 months LL slowly started being less accepting of trying new foods, and flat out refused to eat any vegetable we put on his plate. Life was crazy at the time. I was newly pregnant and we were in the middle of a huge home addition project that left us with little to no use of our kitchen for a few months. To be honest, I didn’t eat a whole lot of vegetables during this time either (unless fries count), so I wasn’t exactly the best model anyway. Assuming it was just a phase, we decided to ride it out.

He continued to become more and more selective about what he would eat, with pretty much only a handful of different foods. At his 2 year well visit with our pediatrician I mentioned this dilemma, and our doctor wasn’t concerned. He advised us to keep doing what we were doing (more on that in a bit), and to try to get him to take a multi-vitamin. He was confident that eventually he would come around, and his growth and health were not a concern.

While I would like to say I was so go-with-the-flow that this didn’t concern me at all, I definitely felt the pressure to get my kid to eat some healthy food. I am a problem solver by nature, and eating healthy is a huge priority for me (most of the time), so despite this hurdle I wanted to know that we were still making the best choices we could to encourage LL back toward trying some new foods again.

So what did we do in the mean time? Nothing extreme, that’s for sure. But if you are facing similar veggie-resistance, these tips might help you too.

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  1. Don’t force the issue – I did quite a bit of research on this topic, and the general consensus among experts is that a child’s relationship with food is far more important than the actual food they eat. My priorities are to teach LL to eat when he is hungry, stop when he is full, and to choose to try a variety of foods. Creating battles around mealtime does not achieve any of these goals.
  2. Let him eat fruit – LL could eat fruit all day long if we let him, so we did! While vegetables are much lower in calories and sugar than fruits, my teeny guy doesn’t need to watch his calorie intake and I don’t really worry about the sugar in fruit like I would the sugar from processed foods. This article from The Science of Mom goes more in depth about the nutritional content of fruits vs. veggies (spoiler alert: veggies really are more nutritious), but if the choice is between a banana or goldfish crackers, we choose the banana every time.
  3. Take a multi-vitamin – This took some work, because at the time LL would literally not try a single food he had not had before, but eventually he came around to the idea of taking his gummy vitamin every day. I feel a little better knowing that he is getting at least a little bit of a variety of nutrients, and he thinks they are a special treat.
  4. Drink green smoothies – This is the only way we got LL to eat any sort of vegetable during the last year. He helps me make them (so he knows what is in them…no hidden veggies over here), but he loves helping me add the ingredients and pushing the button on the blender. I can usually count on him to eat at least one cup full when we mix one up.
  5. Be a good model and keep offering – Continue eating a variety of vegetables yourself. Talk about what you are eating and offer some from your plate.  (“Wow, this broccoli is so delicious! Would you like to taste some?”) Hopefully (eventually) your toddler will get curious about what you are eating and will want to give it a try.

So did LL eat the carrot he asked for? One tiny bite. But I am still celebrating. This new curious attitude about food is a complete change from where we were a month or so ago, and is such a relief! My fingers are crossed that as we continue with these strategies and LL gets older, he will be more and more interested in trying new foods. We are starting BLW with Baby Lion this month, and while our experience with LL’s eating hasn’t exactly been what we expected, I don’t think there is anything we will change. I still believe it was the best approach for our family, and I am looking forward to watching our littlest eater tackle these new skills in her own way.

Have you found any great strategies for helping your toddler choose to eat new or different foods? I would love to hear about them!