how to get toddler to eat

[lijahbaby]

Hello everyone!I just got back from the doctor who I was seeing because my 18 month old son won't eat anything but junk.She told me to only give him the foods that I want him to eat and eventually he will break down and eat it.We are in a serious power struggle.Right now he won't go near anything green and is pretty much living on cheese and crackers.Did anyone else go through this?I've also been tryng to switch him over to a vegan diet but I always give in and give him cheese because that's all he'll eat.What should I do?
Thank you!

[Erin Pavlina]

Since he's just 18 months old, I think you've got an excellent chance of transitioning him.

There's actually an entire chapter devoted to just this sort of thing in Raising Vegan Children in a Non-Vegan World (www.vegfamily.com/raising-vegan-children (http://www.vegfamily.com/raising-vegan-children/index.php?src=forumpost))

But here are some questions that will help us help you:

1. What do you and your husband eat around him? Does he see you eating healthy foods?

2. Give us a list of exactly what he will eat. Nothing is too small to mention.

3. Also, tell us what he does when you try to present him with a new food. And how do you present it? Do you act like you don't expect him to want it? Or do you play it up like he's just going to love it!

4. What form is he eating the cheese in? Is it raw, like in block form? Or melted on mac and cheese? Or every which way?

Answer that and I'll have some more advice for you.

[lijahbaby]

Erin, I usually cook a healthy vegan dinner (tofu,stir fry,veggie burger,rice)and give him a little on his plate but when he doesn't eat it I give him something he will eat(cheese).He'll almost always eat ritz cracker sandwiches,yogurt,pizza,mac and cheese and some fruit.Not very vegan,is it.I admit that when I give him something new I watch him to see what he'll do which probably isn't good.I sometimes get frustrated and now he knows he'll get a reaction from me.I need to work on that.
About the cheese,he eats american slices and mac and cheese.Unfortunatly where I live there are no good vegan cheeses.I'm not a big fan of nutritional yeast either.
So that's my story!Can you help?

BTW,congratulations on your pregnancy!

[5xblessed]

Will he buy into the same types of foods only vegan? Vegan crackers with nut butter, fruit, homemade vegan pizza w/o the cheese? soy yogurt? plain macaroni? I sure don't have all the answers (one of my kids lived on bananas and soy milk for a long while) but if you keep offerring him dinner and make sure he has a light afternoon snack and maybe a light before bed snack he won't starve at dinner. Eighteen months is a hard age because they can't express verbally and sometimes they don't like foods that are really hard to chew. Does he eat well at breakfast and lunch? And don't forget cereal if he likes it, it's not perfect but there are much worse things to eat for dinner. Not sure if any of this will help, just thought I'd offer some suggestions to choose from.
Lisa

[Erin Pavlina]

Okay, I think I have some good ideas for you. One of the things I talk about in my book is transitioning first the stuff that doesn't matter so much... in other words, the stuff the kids won't notice or care too much about. For example, instead of using butter, switch to margarine. Instead of ranch salad dressing, switch to creamy garlic from Follow Your Heart. Instead of mayonaise, start using Veganaise, and so forth.

But for the obvious things, you have to do something else.

You said he likes Ritz cracker sandwiches. Do you mean the kind with cheese in them? Or peanut butter? There are vegan crackers on the market made by Barbara's Bakery that look just like Ritz crackers. Maybe you could spread some peanut butter on them and make sandwiches out of them and try that.

Instead of regular cow's milk yogurt, try Whole Soy. This is the one vegan yogurt that I feel really tastes the same as the cow stuff. Great flavors too! I mean, at this age, will he really notice the difference between Yoplait and Whole Soy?

For pizza, do you make this from scratch or are you buying the frozen kind? There are no frozen vegan pizzas that have cheese on them, but if you make pizza from scratch then I would highly recommend you buy some of the fantastic vegan mozarella cheese from www.imearthkind.com. Follow Your Heart is the distributor, but if you can't get this in your store (it's relatively new) you can order online. Yes, it's expensive. No doubt about that! But you'll get a lot and you can make enough cheese pizza to get this kid totally into the new stuff and off the old stuff. I would see it as an investment in his better health. (There's also a nifty coupon for the cheese when you buy my book - shameless plug!)

I don't like nutritional yeast either! I'm right with you there. You may want to try the new 123z and Chreese from Road's End Organics. It still has nutritional yeast in it, but not nearly as strongly as their other flavors. Definitely worth a try. I liked it and ate quite a bit before I gave it to my toddler, whom I had actually made it for! That's telling you something if I would eat it.

Now as hard as this may be for you... I think it's a good idea to "run out" of this other cheese that you don't want him to eat and let him find new favorites. he won't starve himself, and it's not like you're offering him bland, yucky foods.

Now how about fruit smoothies? Do you have a nice blender? I have a list of recipes for smoothies on the site. I really think all kids will like these. It's all fruit. so delicious! Full of vitamins. Easy to make. Check out the recipes here:

http://www.vegfamily.com/vegan-pregnancy/fruit-smoothies.htm

Make sure the healthy dinners you're making appeal to kids his age. Often times when people try to make healthy stuff it comes out bland, especially if they aren't used to vegan cooking. Does he like potatoes? At that age I could make my daughter some healthy french fries, baked, not fried, and she loved to dip them in ketchup. She also ate zucchini sticks cuz they were breaded and also baked and we dipped them in creamy garlic vegan dressing.

How about baked sweet potaotes? With a nice slab of margarine on them to make them a little more appealing?

Also, you could switch first to vegan versions of the junk he's eating and then slowly introduce new healthier foods until he is used to them. You have a lot of options here. Perhaps others will have some ideas for you as well. IN any case, you are not the first person to have this situation with their toddler. Please keep us advised of his progress and let me know if any of these suggestions were helpful.

Good luck!

[lijahbaby]

Wow,thanks for all the tips.We've actually already made some progress. I made a nice dinner tonight. It was quite good I thought but he didn't eat much at all. But before he went to bed I gave him hummus,pita bread and a bannana.He ate it all!He was actually licking the hummus of the plate!So now I know he likes that,or maybe he was just starving.Either way,he ate it!I'm very pleased.So my plan now is to try and find replacements for the non-vegan foods he likes.Thank you for your help!I'll keep you posted.