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My toddler hates vegetables how can i get her to eat more?

Vegetable refusal is normal for toddlers. The best-supported strategy is offering the same vegetable repeatedly (about 8-10+ times) without pressure, combined with modeling, family meals, and letting your child help pick or prepare it.

No single trick works overnight, but small, low-pressure, repeated tastes over days to weeks reliably increase acceptance more than one-time offerings.

Strength of evidence

Good

Backed by a systematic review of randomized controlled trials on repeated exposure, several individual RCTs, and consistent guidance from AAP and CDC, though effect sizes and best methods vary across studies.

What the evidence says

This is extremely common and usually not a sign anything is wrong. A systematic review of RCTs found that offering a vegetable repeatedly for 8-10 or more days meaningfully increases a toddler's acceptance and intake of it, and this benefit can carry over to similar vegetables. In one trial, toddlers' intake of a target vegetable increased about 300% after a repeated-exposure program, and the effect lasted 6 months later.

What helps, according to pediatric guidelines: eat family meals together and let your child see you enjoying vegetables, since kids copy what adults eat. Keep meal and snack times structured and screen-free, offer the vegetable without forcing or bribing, and let your child decide how much (if any) to eat. Serving vegetables in fun shapes, with a dip, cut small, or letting your toddler help wash, stir, or choose the vegetable at the store can also boost interest.

Don't remove a rejected vegetable from the rotation. Guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends continuing to offer foods a child initially refuses, since kids often need many exposures before accepting a new taste.

Stay patient and low-key: pressuring, bribing with dessert, or making special separate meals tends to backfire and can prolong picky eating.

Sources

✓Reviewed by CH, MD, FRCPC

Reviewed by a specialist physician certified by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, who has read this answer against the sources listed above and confirmed it reflects them. That is not medical advice about your child. How we review

Answer checked July 24, 2026

Educational information only. Not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and no doctor-patient relationship is created by using this. Founded Parent has not examined your child and does not know their history, so this may not apply to you. In an emergency, call your local emergency number. What Founded Parent cannot do

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