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I read somewhere that it takes 15-25 times introducing a new food to a toddler for them to try it for the first time... even if it's a food they end up loving!

I dip a lot of foods into applesauce, and if it's a food he likes, I do less and less applesauce each time until he's eating it bare. We did this with cut up fishsticks and he loves them plain now.

I heard that to create good eating habits, you continually put a balanced plate in front of them so they see various fruits, veggies, pasta, etc on their plate and it gets "ingrained" in them to know what a healthy meal looks like. Even if they don't necessarily eat all the things on their plate, it still helps them. Does that make sense?

With my nieces, they know they need to take at least 3 bites of all their options on their plate before they can get down from the table. But they are older, 2 and 4. Even if they cry and throw a fit about it, there's no getting around taking 3 bites.

@chopsuey119: Isn't it hard not to get kind of mad at them when they do that??? I know he doesn't understand, and it's not his fault, but there's totally a part of me that's like "Ok, you're totally just doing this to be a dick and you're ticking me off."

@chopsuey119: Wagon Jr. hates potatoes! He hates french fries! He hates mashed potatoes! What kind of kid doesn't like french fries or mashed potatoes?!?!? Every time we offer it to him, he hands it back saying "I don't like it?" (he always poses that phrase as a question, hehe.) I guess I can't complain! We just got him to eat chicken nuggets for the first time in FOREVER and we're psyched because some places only do chicken nuggets or fingers. Like at weddings and stuff.

@Lozza: lol! Wagon Jr. totally pissed me off doing exactly that. I would prepare an entire plate of some food he totally polished off just the day before and he would throw a fit and not touch a thing. I'd just throw the entire plate into the sink and cry. Haha.

I had posted about this a few weeks ago! Toddler independence is tough! We have been making sure to sit down and eat the same thing we give my son for all meals to help "demonstrate" that the food is good. He eats like a champ at school because the other kids are eating it so we figured we needed to help model the behavior. It has helped but is far from great. We offer a balanced plate of what we are eating for a particular meal and he is allowed to eat what he wants on his plate. If he doesn't want it and throws a fit, that is too bad and he can wait until the next meal. I was worried this was too harsh since he is only just now 14 months old but ultimately he is doing it for independence, not because he truly doesn't like a food in our case. We tried the dipping foods in applesauce thing @Mrs. Wagon suggested but it was a no-go. We just keep trying to change it up and at least offer one piece of the meal that we know he'll eat or has liked in the past.