28 Tips for Getting Your Toddler To Eat

• Offer new foods at least twice a week, along with old favorites.
• Don't coerce your child to eat, but make it clear that you expect him to taste new foods. Spitting it out is ok.
• Offer desserts with nutritional value:
  pudding made with skim milk, fruit salad, a fruit and yogurt "sundae," whole-grain oatmeal cookies.
• Serve small, toddler-sized portions.
• Foods should be bite-size and easy to chew.
• Toddlers like colorful foods.
• Change the venue: serve lunch in the playhouse or have an afternoon tea party for snacks.
• Toddlers enjoy playing with their food. It is a part of learning about it, so, within reason, allow this to happen.
• Let them help in food preparation.
• Grow a vegetable garden.
• Make food attractive -- arrange it in the shape of an animal, a face, etc.
• Offer limited choices. Ask "Do you want orange juice or apple juice?" instead of "What do you want to drink?"
• Eat as a family as much as possible. Kids learn by imitating.
• Help ensure that they come to the table hungry.
• Don't use food to cure boredom or as a pacifier.

Healthy Snack Ideas for the Toddler on the Go

• bananas
• small boxes of favorite cereals
• boxes of raisins
• Fig Newtons
• whole wheat, low-salt pretzels
• homemade mini-muffins (Keep a supply in your freezer.)
• peanut butter crackers (Make sandwiches out of whole grain crackers and natural peanut butter.)
• mini-whole grain bagels
• cheese cubes
• rice cakes
• small juice boxes
• whole grain granola bars
• ziplock bags of gorp (Let him decide what to mix in!)