Toddler won't eat mixed textures

Your daughter is displaying very typical eating habits for her age. Toddlers are separatists, liking each food alone. This means that such things as casseroles and sauces with chunks are out. Quite often different food items can't even touch each other on the plate. The best thing to cope is to respect it, but don't make a fuss about it. OK, so they want their noodles in one pile and the sauce in a side bowl. They will eventually grow out of it. I don't know of any adults who insist their bolognaise sauce can't be put on top of the spaghetti.

But in the meantime what can you offer her? Don't be surprised if, along with this separatist attitude, she also has a limited number of foods she will accept. This is also common for toddlers. Here are some suggestions for toddler-appropriate foods that do not mix textures:

• chunks of soft cheese
• cooked macaroni
• tofu chunks
• orange segments
• banana slices
• crackers
• bagels
• muffins
• crumpets
• ripe avocado chunks
• ripe melon chunks
• strawberries
• raspberries
• kiwi fruit chunks
• cooked peas
• cooked, tender broccoli florets
• French toast sticks
• chopped hard-boiled egg
• scrambled egg
• pancakes
• banana bread cut into small pieces for easy handling
• mini meatballs
• milk shakes
• apple sauce
• smooth pudding
• instant baby cereal sweetened with banana purée
• mashed potato
• vanilla yoghurt.

Hopefully these ideas have given you some inspiration. However, patience will probably serve you better than inspiration. Children don't always appreciate our attempts to bring variety into their diets, but it is important that we keep trying.

Thank you for writing.