picky-eater 3 yr. old

[chellesbeach]

Hey- i have very picky 3 year old when it comes to green vegetables. She will occasionally eat baby spinach with blue cheese dressing! I'll take a blue cheese trade-off for eating spinach. I have the Deceptively Deliciuos cookbook and am familiar with the Sneaky Chef. Any ideas? I told her she must eat something to green everyday to stay healthy! Mama's mantra- not so effective.

[MommaC]

I feel for your daughter, because I remember HATING vegetables. Give her as much control as she can have by allowing her to make choices: Do you want green beans, or peas? Do you want them before lunch, or after lunch? Do you want them hot, or cold? Do you want to eat big bites, or little bites? And dips seem to go a LONG way with little kids: bleu cheese, ranch, veggie dip, hummus, various salad dressings, steak sauce, ketchup, cheese, etc. You can certainly keep up your mantra so she knows WHY. You're not making this arbitrary rule to make her miserable...you want her to be healthy. Maybe some sort of reward (which is hopefully different from bribery...very thin line there) like she gets to call gramma (or whomever she wants) to report which vegetable she ate that day. And maybe involving her in the grocery shopping so she can help choose the best spinach and the best asparagus will make her more excited to taste them. Good luck to you!