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.
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
-
Systematic review
Repeated Exposure to Foods and Early Food Acceptance: A Systematic Review
NCBI Bookshelf, 2019
Moderate-quality RCT evidence: 8-10+ exposures increase toddler vegetable acceptance.
-
Randomised trial
Efficacy of repeated exposure and flavour-flavour learning to increase preschooler's vegetable intake
PubMed, 2014
RCT: 7-week exposure program tripled toddlers' vegetable intake, effect lasted 6 months.
-
Guideline
10 Tips for Parents of Picky Eaters
HealthyChildren.org (AAP), 2024
AAP tips: fun shapes, dips, finger foods, involving kids in cooking.
-
Guideline
How do I help my picky eater try more healthy foods?
HealthyChildren.org (AAP), 2023
AAP guidance: don't force eating, keep offering foods, stay low-key.
-
Guideline
Toddler Food and Feeding
AAP, 2021
Recommends repeated, varied exposure with minimal reaction to refusal.
-
Guideline
Tips to Help Your Picky Eater
CDC, 2026
CDC tips: sensory play, involving kids in prep, offering variety of colors.
✓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