How Can I Get My Daughter to Eat New Foods?!

Start by only offering healthy foods. Chicken nuggets aren't too bad. Hot dogs aren't the worst thing in the world. Don't make a big deal about eating. Offer her the food. If she chooses to eat, great. If she doesn't, don't make a big deal about it.

There's really 2 things you need to do. Keep offering healthy options (and not offering junk food). Don't make a big deal about it if she doesn't want to eat it. If you try too hard to get her to eat, it's going to backfire. She's counting on you to be upset that she's not eating and offer her anything just so that she'll eat. If she doesn't want to eat, no big deal. But the food you offer her has to be the only option.

Shes not going to starve. For breakfast offer her yogurt and some fruit. If she doesn't eat, fine - she will be hungry at lunch. Offer fruit again, maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich - use a cookie cutter to cut the sandwich in a fun shape. Dinner - she can have what you are having. Stir fry is always a good way to get kids to eat veggies. My son loves quesadillas. I'll do steak or chicken with beans, peppers, onions, and cheese.

If you can, let her help you cook. Let her stir something or mix something. After you cut something, have her put it in a bowl. If shes included she maybe willing to try what she "cooked" I started letting my son crack eggs at her age. It can be a total fail and mess at this age but my son was proud to show daddy what he made for dinner.

Include her in grocery shopping. Let her help you pick the best fruits and veggies.

Just stop getting the chips, pretzels, cookies and junk.
She can't eat any of that if it isn't there.
I don't even walk down that aisle in the supermarket anymore.
Just throw it away and don't let it into your house and if hubby brings it, throw it out the minute his back is turned.
(By the way - you and Hubby not being on the same page regarding how you are feeding your child is a big problem - get some counseling and fix it.
You've got 15 more years of raising this child - start working together on it NOW.)
A banana is easy and doesn't need cooking.
So are orange segments and apple slices.
And raisins and yogurt and cottage cheese and peanut butter, etc.
You could come up with a million excuses why you eat the way you do but eating healthy really isn't that difficult.

3 yr olds can get into food issues.
Your job is to put healthy food in front of her.
Her choice is to eat it or not.
If she doesn't want it - fine - put it away until she says she's hungry - and then bring it right back out again.
She won't starve herself and eventually she will eat what's available.

You can get a lot of good advice, but none of it will work if your husband is not on board and working on it too with you. You two have to be united on this. If your husband absolutely cannot bring himself to cook for his daughter, there are plenty of healthy choices he can serve her and he won't have to prepare anything. B already gave you a lot of good suggestions to start, and they don't require any cooking. It will be much easier to fix this now than to lament when she is 10 and overweight, not healthy, under nourished, and lacking energy because of her diet.

Chicken nuggets made with good chicken are fine, good quality hot dogs are fine too. Waffles are just a form of bread.

If you don't want her to eat chips/pretzels/cookies, just stop offering them to her. Stop having them in your home or keep them in a hidden place for only you and your husband to snack on.

As others have said below, she will not starve herself. At 3, she might not eat a big plate of whatever you cook for dinner, but you do not need to cook something separate for her. Cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, carrot sticks - there are many things you can offer her that will be healthy for her and require no "cooking" effort from you or your husband.

Problem #1 is that her father is doing something different than you are. If you are together, then you have to work together. If you are not living together, then you have no options as far as he is concerned, and you can only control what is in your house.

Problem #2 is that you have junk food in your house.

Problem #3 is that kids usually have to try things at least 20 times before they really make it part of their diet. So keep offering it, without drawing battle lines.

Then, work with what you have. As TF says below, make food FUN! And for me, it was about creating healthy versions of the food she likes, even if it means (in the short run) putting it in the box of the processed version and then serving it. So keep the waffle/pancake/nugget boxes and put your own version inside. Here are options:
1) Make chicken nuggets but cutting up chicken tenderloins or boneless breasts, dipping in egg and then a breadcrumb mix (I use some combination of wheat germ, wheat bran or whole wheat panko, whatever I have, often with ground flax seed/meal added and a little salt/pepper), then quick-fry in olive oil or avocado oil (any healthy fat) until brown and crispy. I often just get the outsides brown, then finish in the oven. I put them on a baking rack on a baking sheet so the bottom side doesn't get soggy.
2) oven fries - slice potato wedges (skins on) and toss with a healthy oil, then bake in the oven until crispy/browned. Do it with the nuggets and you're only dirtying one pan. You can progress to sweet potatoes or mix them half/half. Kids also like those little fingerling potatoes or mini white, red and even the blue skinned ones mixed together. The smaller pieces cook faster, obviously - usually 15-20 minutes.
3) Do oven roasted veggies the same way - broccoli, zucchini, even beans and asparagus (which take less time).
4) Mac & cheese with real cheese, whole wheat pasta, and butternut squash.
5) Zucchini "chips" dipped in oil and then a mix of whole wheat panko crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Put on a baking sheet or parchment paper and bake in oven until crisp and brown. You can do a few of these in the toaster oven.
6) Make your own pizza - make a sauce ahead of time with spinach in it, and buy a whole wheat pizza crust or even naan bread, then make a pizza "face" with green pepper eyebrows and slices of turkey meatballs for "eyes" and so on.
7) Get one of the cookbooks for kids about hiding nutrition in foods and making the presentation appealing. There are all kinds of things you can do with butternut squash, cauliflower and spinach in a puree form, then add to things. Homemade spaghetti sauce is one. You make up a bunch of puree, freeze them, and then pop them out as needed to add to what you're cooking.
8) "Power pancakes" - you can make these with all kinds of add-ins, including oatmeal, wheat germ, protein powder, flax seed, and more, then add in some bananas or blueberries. Use a small amount of real maple syrup, honey or agave rather than the junk pancake syrup that is mostly high fructose corn syrup with a dash of maple flavoring. Use real whipped cream and make a smily face on it, or use the whipped cream for "hair" with a couple of bananas for eyes and some strawberries for "earrings" and a curve of real chocolate chips for a mouth. You can make the pancakes ahead of time and freeze between sheets of waxed paper, then add the toppings with your child so she has fun creating her own.
10) Make healthy cookies, granola bars and bananas/zucchini breads. I have a great recipe for bars with almond or cashew butter, oats, dried fruits, a little honey, eggs and flax seeds I posted for someone the other day, PM me if you can't find it.
11) Make fruit kabobs on long toothpicks - a grape, a piece of melon or kiwi, a berry, and so on. Mix it up. Stick them in a half of an orange, inverted on a plate, and call it a porcupine. My son was picky and we made fruit his "first half" and the waffle/pancake his "second half" of breakfast. Sunday was "upside down day" and he at in the opposite order, but he always felt his meal wasn't complete without the other half.

Does this all take more time than opening a box of processed stuff? Yes. But it's worth it.

You cannot make food a battle. You can say "yum" all the time with what YOU are eating, and you can let her down from the table if she doesn't want what's out there. She can have PB&J (upgrade to natural PB and real fruit preserves or All Fruit), but you don't give in to demands. The assumption you make is that she is not hungry or she can have the healthy option. But you don't go to McDonald's because she's unhappy.

1. Try a month with zero of these foods in the house. Make them not available. None. Not one bag.
2. put out small "snack trays" of cut up healthy foods at mealtime if she likes the idea of snacking better than meals.
3. don't feed her a snack between lunch and dinner (my friend did this with her picky 4 year old and she was so hungry by dinnertime she actually started eating).
4. don't get in the habit of an unhealthy snack after dinner or before bedtime. Give her similar foods to dinner...cut up roast chicken for example.
5. don't coax or beg or demand she eat or try foods. Just enjoy your food and let her see you enjoying it. Don't give her attention for being picky. Don't comment on it.

Many kids go through fazes like that. Most the things you are saying she will eat are not that bad as long as it's not fast food ones. You can buy good quality ones and it's not as bad for her. Some wont agree with me but those were battles I didn't wish to have with my kids. I can understand the chips and cookies. At that age they aren't going to want extravagant things. If she's healthy don't stress about it.

When my kids were small and picky I took them to a buffet restaurant from time to time and let them choose their own food. They always tried new things. I think it was a combination of having so many choices and so much power to choose. I also took them to eat at other people homes where they would try other foods they wouldn't try at home. As they got older I sent them away to camps and on sleepovers where they would try new things.

At every meal, serve have something you know she will eat (from the non-junk options) but also serve things she does not yet eat to lace in front of her. Then wait. Don't make a big deal or a battle out of it. Realize that you're going to end up cleaning her plate for her or tossing stuff. Just keep offering, for as long as it takes.

I have one kid who has eaten almost anything from the time he was a toddler, and another who wouldn't even try very many new things until he was a teen.

i will make a complete regular meal that i know my kids will eat, then make a side dish they have never had. i put a teaspoonful of the new food on their plate and have them eat it first then let them eat the meal. sometimes they like the new thing sometimes not, but it gets tried before the regular meal goes on the plate.
they are only required to taste the small amount so they rarely throw a fit about it

Don't give her the junk food, it is that simple. You are the parent, you control her diet. Give her the foods you want her to eat, if she doesn't want them then they get packaged up for when she is hungry enough that she will eat them. She will not let herself starve.

At my house kids eat what is made, that is it. Of course if they are hungry fresh fruits and veggies are always available as "free foods" (foods they can eat whenever they would like). So if she really won't eat the food options you make you can always offer fresh fruit and veg as the alternative.