Four easy snack ideas for picky toddlers

Do you ever find it’s like pulling teeth trying to get your toddler to eat something (anything!) let alone a healthy snack?  My picky little eater barely touches most of her food which drives my stress level way up!

There are four tricks that I generally use to help make the foods on her plate a little more fun and hopefully more appealing.  I love love love fancy toddler meals that look like bears, snowmen or mermaids, like the amazing ones at Creative Food, but most days I just don’t have the time to make her snacks and meals into a masterpiece!

These four easy snack ideas for picky toddlers are relatively simple to put together if you only do one or two at a time, and they are versatile enough that you can use them with nearly any food.

1. Put it in a cup

2. Cut it into shapes

3. Put it on a skewer

4. Cut it into sticks

Use these ideas with your regular snack menu items to make the meal more appealing.  You don’t need to dress up everything on your toddler’s snack or meal plate.  Often I’m surprised how one special item coaxes her to eat the rest of the snack.

Put it into a cup

Meals are just more fun when they come in a neat little container, like a cute cupcake cup.  Maybe it’s the novelty?  You can pretty much put anything into it: goldfish, grapes, olives, cheerios, blueberries, strawberries, nuts, beans or basically anything that can be chopped up.  This also really helps if you have a toddler who doesn’t like to have their different foods touch each other.

Cupcake cups even come in different sizes (although, it’s hard to tell in my photos).  Use bigger cupcake cups for larger foods, and smaller cupcake cups for smaller foods, or for items that you want to limit the portion.  

Cut it into shapes

I bought a few multi-sized cookie cutters at Michaels awhile back and they really make snacks look more fun!  (I think they were actually meant for cake decorating). My favourites are below:

Cut a thin slice of cheese and cut out large or small shapes.  Then use them to decorate the plate.

Do you need to make a peanut butter and jam sandwich more exciting?  Munchkin sells bread cutters that will cut sandwiches into shapes, like this elephant cutter.

The best part about using a cookie cutter with a cucumber is that you don’t have to peel it!

Put it on a skewer

I’m not sure what it is about skewers, but both kids and adults seem to love foods that are on a skewer!  Pull this trick out for less appealing items like lima beans and kidney beans, and really anything else you can put on a toothpick.  Just don’t over do it or the skewer will lose it’s appeal!  And of course, monitor your child closely when you are giving them toothpicks!

Cut it into sticks

Kids also seem to really like things that are cut into sticks – and if you can serve it with dip, even better!  If you are chopping anyway, take a couple extra seconds and cut the food into a stick.  It works great for things like cheese, apples, carrots (thin sticks), bell peppers, celery, etc.

These are cheese (above) and apples (below) in case you can’t tell from the photos.

You don’t need to be supermom to put together a fun looking snack, but a little bit of extra effort in presentation goes a long way!  Although, it does make it sting a little more when still they refuse to eat it… lol

What are your tricks for getting your picky eater to eat?  I’d love to hear them!  SERIOUSLY… I’m always looking for new ideas to get my picky little eater to eat!