Try, try, and try again!
Research shows that it can take 8-15 exposures for a child to accept a new food! Research also says that most caregivers give up after 3-5 times.
If this is you (🙋yup) I totally get you! You spend time washing and peeling and preparing food hoping your child will show any kind of interest and then... They cry and scream and throw it off their plate. Going through that isn't fun but going through that multiple times is just plain old awful. So naturally we just stop trying... But please dont give up! Once I learned that it's normal and expected for my child to take some time to warm up to new foods, things got a little easier.
And here's the thing: exposure can mean presenting it differently to your child each time. You don't even have to put it on their plate in order to expose them to it! Here are some examples:
🍇Point it out while grocery shopping
🍉play with pretend food
🥑Talk about food while reading books
🍅Have a tomato squirting contest
🥦make a broccoli forest
🥒Use a vegetable as a paint brush