Fostering Healthy Eating Habits

Article Summary:

• Establish regular meal and snack times and let them decide whether to eat, respecting their hunger cues.
• Continuously offer a variety of foods, including those previously rejected, as it may take multiple tries for toddlers to accept new tastes and textures.
• Avoid using food as a reward or engaging in food negotiations, and maintain toddler-sized portions to avoid overwhelming them.

How to Foster Healthy Eating Habits

Your child is realizing more and more that they are a separate person from you, one with different opinions. So how do you balance providing nutritious food for toddlers, while giving them choices at mealtime?

Giving your toddler some say over three key basics of healthy eating—whether to eat, what to eat from the foods that are served, and how much to eat—develops their sense of being a separate person. Eating, after all, is one of the first big areas of life in which your little one can make some decisions.

That doesn’t mean you need to hand over total control of feeding or give up on nutrition—you still have the responsibility to decide what foods are served, where to eat, and when to eat.

Often, simply knowing your child, guiding them in the right direction, and modeling healthy eating habits will go a long way. Try these tips to help your toddler develop healthy eating habits:

Offer Nutritious Foods

Serve plenty of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and protein foods according to Canada’s Food Guide.

Encourage Your Toddler to Make Small Food Choices, Not Dictate the Menu

You still decide what’s in your kitchen and on the table: more nutritious foods, and little to no junk food or sweets.

Set the Schedule and Place

To foster healthy eating habits, have three regular meals and two to three snacks every day at scheduled times, and in a designated area like the kitchen table. The choice you’re giving your child is whether or not to eat at those times. If they’re not hungry, respect your toddler’s appetite. Giving toddlers choices at mealtimes helps them learn to listen to their bodies’ natural hunger cues.

Keep Serving Foods That Get a Thumbs-Down

Let your toddler choose whether to taste it (or not). It can take time (as many as 10 to 15 tries) for a toddler to get used to a new taste or texture. Skip pleading and arguments, just serve a rejected item again next week.

Expect Toddler Pickiness

Nearly all toddlers are picky to some degree. Toddlers often go on short food jags when they seem stuck on one food or food group. Rather than giving in or getting into a power struggle over what you see as poor choices, continue serving a wide variety of healthy options from each food group, and let your toddler decide what they will eat.

Mix Old Favorites with New Flavors

Your toddler can decide whether or not to branch out, while you can be sure they’ll be nourished by the foods you make available. It also helps to mix up different presentations of the same food at different times: steamed carrots, matchstick carrots and pureed carrots.

Offer Plenty of Healthy Choices

For example, let your toddler choose between carrots or broccoli.

Skip the Food Negotiations and Bribes

Avoid urging (“One more bite”) or bargaining (“Eat three green beans and you get a cookie”). You don’t even need to talk up the merits of spinach. Just present the food and let your toddler decide whether to take a bite without nagging or forcing.

Avoid Using Food as a Reward

To develop healthy eating habits, praise your child with words instead.

Allow Your Child to Take Their Time

Letting your toddler eat at their own pace can help foster healthy eating habits.

Keep Portions Toddler-Sized

Offering too much food for toddlers can make food choices overwhelming. Toddlers are intimidated by large amounts of food. Often, just a few tablespoons can be enough. Consider their smaller stomach size.

Introduce Food Gradually and Have at Least One “Safe” Option

Toddlers can feel overwhelmed if there are too many new foods given at once. Introduce new foods gradually and ensure there is always one food that they are familiar with at each meal.

Hand Over Control of the Utensils

By 15 to 18 months, your toddler is ready to manage the fork or spoon (or a combination “spork”) themselves rather than being spoon-fed by you. Yes, it’s messy, but it promotes independence. Eating with fingers is still OK, too.

Make Mealtimes Fun

Try different shapes, colours, flavours, textures and finger foods.

Eat Together as a Family

Share the table with your toddler during breakfast, lunch and dinner. It helps for your toddler to see you selecting among lots of different foods and provides an opportunity for you to model healthy eating habits.

Keep a Toddler Food Log

Worried about your toddler’s eating? Try writing down everything they eat for a few days or even a week. When you look at the big picture, you’re likely to see that your little one is eating better than you thought. If not, a record of your toddler’s breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner can demonstrate any nutritional concerns at your next doctor’s visit.

For more insights on your toddler's nutritional journey, see our toddler nutrition resources at Enfamil A+ Canada. As one more way to enhance your toddler’s nutrition, consider adding Enfagrow A+ Toddler & Kid Drink with brain-building DHA* to their healthy diet.

* DHA supports the normal physical development of the brain, eyes and nerves primarily in children under 2 years of age.