When I first introduced my daughter to solids, she’d eat just about anything. My naive self thought “This is easy. She’s such a good eater!” Boy, was I wrong. Once she hit 15 months, she started refusing anything green or vegetable flavored, and it took me months of Googling “How to get your toddler to eat vegetables” before I finally figured out a system that worked. Here are the tips that worked best for my daughter. (Spoiler alert: she now eats her veggies like a pro!)
How to Get Your Toddler to Eat Vegetables
Mix the Vegetables into Their Favorite Foods
Vegetables with mild flavors and orange or white colors are perfect to sneak into just about any food without your little one detecting it. Puree some carrots or cauliflower and mix it into their mac&cheese, muffins, or even desserts.
Set Out a Veggie & Dip Tray While You’re Making Dinner
Offer veggies when your toddler is hungriest, aka right before mealtime. When your toddler is whining because she wants food and dinner isn’t ready yet, she just might not be able to resist an appealing tray of veggies and dip when you make it easy for her to get.
Let Your Toddler be Involved in Making the Vegetables
Toddlers love to “help”, so let your little one help with making the food. Give her some small tasks that make her feel important, and she’ll be dying to try the fruits of her labors.
Combine Fruit Juice & Veggie Juice
Mix in some vegetable juice with your toddler’s fruit juice to give your feisty little one an extra veggie serving. Carrot, beet, and cucumber juice taste amazing and are subtle enough to blend with fruit juice. Your toddler won’t even notice!
Experiment With Different Ways of Serving the Vegetables
Maybe your toddler hates steamed broccoli but loves sauteed broccoli or raw broccoli with dip. You never know ‘til you try it.
Appearance is Key
A huge part of how toddlers form opinions is based on appearance. Keep your veggies fun, bright, and fresh looking. You can serve them in a brightly colored bowel, serve up fun color combinations, or if you’re feeling adventurous, you can try your hand at food art incorporating vegetables.
Keep Exposing Your Toddler to Veggies
As we all know, toddler preferences change faster than Michigan weather. Your toddler could hate zucchini in September, but develop a great love for it in October. Keep offering different types of vegetables, both new and old to your little one, and she just might like some of them.
Buy Snacks That Come With Veggies in Them
Many classic snacks offer options that are secretly infused with veggies. For instance, my daughter loves carrot-flavored Goldfish. For parents of a mini Sherlock Holmes, put the veggie snacks in the non-veggie package for extra sneakiness.
Recreate Dishes From Favorite Books or TV Shows
Your toddler will be thrilled to eat a dish from her favorite book or show. My daughter loved eating my spinach-dyed green eggs & ham from the classic Doctor Seuss story.
Substitute Veggies for Meat
I’m not suggesting that you go vegetarian or anything like that, but if your little one loves their meat, this idea to get your toddler to eat vegetables might work. For instance, try substituting veggie burgers for burgers to get that tricky daily vegetable serving into your toddler.
Conclusion
Getting toddlers to eat healthy (or eat at all sometimes) is enough to make any mom’s hair go white prematurely. I felt like I was going crazy before I learned some of these tricks on how to get your toddler to eat vegetables. If you follow a few of these tips, your toddler will be a vegetable eating machine in no time.
If you liked this article, share it with your friends, and check out my post on Top 17 Superfoods for Toddlers & How to Serve Them for more feeding advice for your little one.
