Vegetables provide rich nutrients such as vitamins, plant fiber and folate for growing babies, but most babies will experience the stage of picky eating, especially for vegetables.
Here are some ways to help your baby eat more vegetables:
Encourage but not force the baby to eat vegetables.
Focus on your baby’s hobbies and appetite. For the food or cooking method that the baby does not like, it is necessary to gradually explore and improve according to the characteristics of the child, so that he can slowly accept it. Give your baby a variety of vegetables to choose from. Encourage but not force the baby to eat vegetables. Improve the environment and atmosphere of eating, for example, let him have a meal with other children, or use a picnic or lunch box to let the baby have outdoor activities and meals.
Make full use of the bright colors and shapes of vegetables.
The baby is very sensitive to color. Parents can use the bright colors of food to promote their baby’s appetite. The diversification of food can also help children get rich sensory stimulation of taste, smell, vision and touch, which are conducive to their early development. Sometimes it is better to give the children unfamiliar food some funny or strange names, or use a knife to cut different vegetables into various interesting shapes, to attract his attention. In addition, the taste should not be too strong.
Reduce the special taste of vegetables to adapt to the baby’s taste.
If some vegetables are processed as usual, they will have a strong smell, which many babies do not like. So if you choose these vegetables for your baby, try to chop them up, filter them, and then feed them to your baby. You can also add a little apple juice or other food to neutralize the smell of the dish. Or let the baby eat raw vegetables, allowing him to add sour cheese, ketchup, salad sauce and other condiments to the vegetables. When the baby is 4 or 5 months old, he is not very sensitive to taste. It is a good time for him to try all kinds of vegetables, and this habit should be strengthened constantly. By this age, the baby has a more obvious taste preference, parents can use his favorite seasoning to cook.
Remove the adverse factors that affect your baby’s eating.
A good eating environment needs parents and children to create together. Adults should not judge food in front of their babies. In daily meals, you should pay attention to increasing the portions of vegetables and fruits, reducing the portions of oil, sugar, salt, eggs, beans, fish and meat, especially fried chicken and chips, which are either too oily or too salty, while cola, soda and other drinks are too sweet. If the baby often eats this kind of food, he will further refuse to try vegetables.
Update vegetable patterns frequently.
Make delicious meals for the baby, and try to change as many patterns as possible. If your baby doesn’t like vegetables, try wrapping them in dumplings and wontons. You can also chop vegetables and mix them with shrimp (or with a variety of minced meat, seafood) in egg liquid or flour to make a variety of pancakes and porridge. In short, try to make the baby love all kinds of food.
Let the baby participate in cooking vegetables.
You can take your baby to the supermarket to buy all kinds of vegetables and fruits, or you can let him come into the kitchen to help you, let him see the potatoes being stewed, see how to make dough and pasta with flour, and find the shrimp in the stuffing? What other ingredients are there? You will find that your baby likes to help in the kitchen very much. Don’t worry that they will dirty or damage things. You can let him do simple things, such as pouring water, peeling vegetables, cleaning vegetables and fruits, etc. And if you cook it in his way, he may prefer to eat it because he thinks it’s made by himself.
