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We started giving our twins choices. They are bit speech delayed so a speech therapist has come out to help us. We give them choices so they feel like they have some control and should help with the tantrums. They just turned two.

Maybe try choices. Like we ask if they want ketchup or BBQ sauce to dip their nuggets in.

Although, I do think 1 is a bit young. At 1, my twins were still starting to try new things so I was just giving them anything and everything to get them used to different textures and tastes.

Also, I do find it hard for a 1 year old to manipulate you. That's awfully young. At 2, my twins are doing that now.

Is your child communicating? Are you signing with her?

I think you can serve her a plate with a little bit of everything. The control she has is the order and amount of what she will eat. If she only eats the orange and wont eat anything else, then that's fine. We let our kids excuse themselves and go play and leave their plate on the table for about 15-20 minutes after a meal. Basically, its the last thing I clean up in the kitchen. If after a while they say they are hungry again, they can return to the same plate. They can also have some milk later on if they like.

One thing we always did with favorite foods is basically keep them out of sight and only have 1 serving of the item in view, prepped on a plate. So if I knew my kid was going to go nuts for a Cutie, I would keep 1-2 on the counter and the rest were hidden away. If he signed for more, we would throw our hands up and say "Sorry, all gone! No more!"

I serve my 17 month old the same meal DH and I are having and just include at least one thing I know she likes. Many nights she only eats her fruit and sometimes she eats everything. She's in the 96th percentile for weight so I'm not concerned that she's starving

We allowed a favourite or second boring option until about 18-24 months. We always started with the regular meal and then depending on how much he ate, he could have a veggie pouch and/or whole wheat crackers with peanut butter. We had success and continue to have success with giving choices and talked a lot about trying the food and this is what we have to eat, etc. Now at nearly 3, I don't offer another choice and he will try a bite almost always and I don't stress if he doesn't eat. I figure he is old enough to moderate himself and he understands it.

At one, he would have been nowhere close to understanding this is the meal he gets and nothing else. I would consider him quite a good eater now, even with allowing options earlier on.

A hungry toddler doesn't stay asleep or sleep long. I usually make something LO will eat and only give him fun (fruit) foods at the beginning. If he's still hungry because he's not full or just didn't eat enough of the non fun food he gets bread or crackers. So far LO has been fine with this set up.

We use divided plates and tend to put the main dish in the big part, and fruits and veggies in the smaller compartments. Sometimes they eat the main dish and sometimes they choose to just have fruits and veggies, depending what they are. A lot of times we are just eating a frozen bag of veggies, tbh.

Sometimes I get desperate and just start giving crackers, which is what I want to eliminate. I think my son would be happy to eat various crackers most of the time.

I definitely agree with @PawPrints: about presenting the meal as a whole. We used to put the least favorites first and then give fruit or bread at the end. But that became a battle because she knew it would come eventually. Then we tried the preferred food first followed by the others but, again, it was a battle because she was mad her favorite was gone. So we started giving her everything at once, we only present things we are okay with her eating. Then she can eat as much or as little as she wants.

For us one meal a day is our family meal where we all eat the same thing (or a deconstructed version of it). We use that meal to introduce new flavors so we can all have them together and model enjoying it. The other meal, when DH is at work, is a little more catered to her individual taste but it is still presented as a whole meal.

@SteelerGirl: Great! Oh yes, I do always make sure there's at least one thing on her plate I know she likes. It doesn't seem fair to me to give her a whole plate of something new, since it's not her fault if she doesn't like it.

I agree with @PawPrints:. I usually ask my kids what they'd like to eat before I make dinner and try to incorporate it as much as I can. For example, if I'm making pasta anyway and LO asks for Mac n Cheese, it's easy enough to at least shred some cheese on his while it's still hot. Or if they ask for yogurt or applesauce then I will include that on the side. That way I know there is something that everyone likes and will eat. I do serve whatever we are having too and unless it's something that I know they will not eat because it's too spicy or whatever, I'll make a separate kids meal. My almost 1 year old just gets whatever we're having because he can't communicate yet!

We do similar to PP. We use a divided plate to present the entire meal. It always has at least 1 thing I *know* they will eat, 1-2 things I think they will eat, and 1 thing that is newish. I really try to have it be what the adults are eating (or at least a version of it) but DH and I often eat cereal or cheese and crackers for dinner because its too hard to get dinner cooked.

With my almost 4 year old, she has to taste everything on the plate before she can have more of anything. We started that rule when she was about 2. We do not enforce that rule with the 20-month old yet.

@steelergirl: to answer your specific question...yes, i serve all of my kids one plate of 2-4 things at every meal. that is what is being served for that meal, so that is what they can choose to eat/taste or not. we've had this approach since the beginning. DD1 is a great eater and generally eats or tries most things on her plate. DD2 usually tapers off as the day goes on, so often eats a really small dinner; her choice!

the other issue you bring up i feel is more related to servings of any one particular thing. i got really sick of throwing away food when i gave my kids what i thought they would eat. so now i tend to give them a smaller sample of everything, and then plan to give them 2nds (or maybe 3rds) of whatever they ask for more of. i don't have a hard-and-fast rule about how many servings i will give; just go by feel based on what they have eaten, are asking for, what we have left, etc. last night, DD1 ate 3 helpings of spaghetti. DD2 ate 3 helpings of blackberries. whatever. they only get one serving of dessert

we don't force any sort of # of bites, tasting all foods, etc. i was really picky growing up, and i don't think forcing someone to try something sets anyone up to actually enjoy it.

@SteelerGirl: Regarding the part about oranges and her holding out for them - I've read a lot about the theory of giving the dessert WITH the meal. I'll find the article I most recently read. The thought is that it takes away the power of the dessert item. We have done it a couple of times and honestly it's worked! He might eat it first but surprisingly he goes on to eat his dinner like normal.
I don't do it all the time or regularly because it's still a really hard concept for me to grasp - although it works it's just hard to put a cookie on his dinner plate. But with something like oranges I would def consider that.

You've already gotten great advice, but I'll just throw in that serving a whole plate at once, including at least one food she usually eats, is working very well for my 14 month old. She may scarf down her favorites first, but once she finishes that, she usually at least tries (and generally eats) the other foods. For meals where she doesn't eat much, I try not to stress it. I've usually noticed she makes up for it later or the next day.
DD has also eaten at the table with the family pretty much since she started eating. I personally think this has helped her be a good eater so far since she sees everyone else eating (at this point she's eating the same food as us) and also has the distraction of the family around. So if she's frustrated that there are no more blueberries or whatever, we can usually distract her for a while, and eventually she'll go back to her plate and try something else.

@SteelerGirl: What a great update! It sounds like you took a lot of the tactics here that were also in the article and I'm so glad it went well.
Another thing is that if you try a new food and she doesn't eat it, try again in a few weeks. Sometimes it's just because it's new, they need a few chances to try it. If they try it and over and over don't like it, then you know.
Alternatively, she at the fish sticks last night but next time she might throw a curve ball and reuse them. That's ok and normal! Try again another time.
My son WILL NOT EAT avocado. I tried for a good 1-1.5 years at different intervals and I finally decided Ok, he just doesn't like it. So I don't bother. If he sees me eating it and wants to try I'll let him try of course. But after several tries it's ok to just say he doesn't like it and move on.
My son isn't into pieces of meat like chicken breast or steak. But since those are pretty standard I do continue to try those every couple of weeks. Sometimes it just depends how it's cut or presented. Like if I cut up chicken breast he won't really eat it. If it's on a skewer (pointy end cut off) he will eat it. It's more "fun" I guess. So you can also try things like that until they really get a taste for it.