Got a picky eater on your hands? Learn more about the causes of selective eating in young children and how to help your little one eat healthy foods.

Selective eating is as much a part of childhood as tantrums, bedtime battles, or insisting on wearing snow boots on a scorching summer day. In other words? It’s a completely normal phase in your child’s development—one that your little one will eventually outgrow.

For now, you may be wondering what you can do to ease your child’s picky eating tendencies and make mealtime a little less exhausting. There are several strategies to help with selective eating, but before applying them, it’s helpful to identify exactly why your child is being so picky in the first place.

Sometimes, it’s all about wanting to call the shots, and in that case, a bit of reverse psychology might make all the difference. Other times, the culprit may be more direct—perhaps your little one is having too many snacks or has a distorted idea of appropriate portion sizes.

Whatever the issue, there is a solution. Here are six of the most common causes of selective eating in toddlers, along with simple ways to encourage your child to be a bit more adventurous.

She Wants to Assert Her Independence and Be in Control

Your child probably doesn’t always pick up her toys willingly or cooperate when you dress her. So why would she willingly eat whatever you put in front of her?

This challenge is completely normal as your child begins to seek more independence and control. And taking charge at the dinner table is one way for her to assert herself.

Honoring her requests for only cereal or cookies is, of course, only going to make selective eating worse. But you can still give your little eater a sense of control over what goes on her plate.

Create a “one meal for all” policy (no special requests, please!), but allow her the option to decide what and how much of each item she’d like. Not every dish on the table needs to be her favorite, of course. (Exposing her to new foods may, over time, encourage her to try them.) But try to include at least one food she’s familiar with and enjoys.

Resist the urge to bribe or negotiate over food as well. Begging your child to eat three more pieces of chicken in exchange for her favorite cookie only encourages the fussing and sends the message that sugary treats are more valuable than other foods.

She’s Skeptical About New Foods

Routines are comforting for toddlers, from insisting on reading the same bedtime book every night to needing her sandwich cut in a specific way. With this desire for predictability, you can imagine how a new food with a different color or smell might seem very, very suspicious.

That doesn’t mean you can only serve comfort foods like pasta, chicken nuggets, or cereal. Even if your child says no to new foods, you should keep offering them. It might take many, many meals (typically between 10 to 15!) before she’s willing to try. But she’ll never try something if it never makes it to the table.

Try not to pressure her to try new foods, as this will only make her more likely to refuse. If she’s not interested in asparagus, no problem! More delicious veggies for you today. Consider serving the new item alongside a familiar food (mac and cheese with broccoli florets, anyone?) to make it seem a little less intimidating.

She’s Not a Fan of Strong Flavors

If vegetables, in particular, seem to be a problem for your little gourmand, her hypersensitive taste buds might be to blame. Strong and bitter flavors, intense smells, and unusual textures can be overwhelming for young eaters (and may explain why many toddlers go wild for bland foods like crackers and toast).

It’s likely that your little pea will eventually come to love kale or cabbage. But if strong flavors are a hard no for now, try bridging the gap with combinations that make foods a bit easier to swallow.

Pepper strips might not be so offensive when dipped in hummus or ranch dressing (be sure to keep the strips long and nearby to avoid any potential choking hazards). And tiny pieces of spinach will likely be masked by the flavor of marinara sauce and cheese in a vegetarian lasagna.

She’s Not Hungry at Mealtime

A handful of whole-grain pretzels here, a cup of milk there. Well-timed snacks are key to keeping active kids fed, but endless snacking can make it harder for your little one to develop an appetite for actual meals.

Resist the urge to offer snacks all the time and stick to a predictable eating schedule. Most toddlers do well with three full meals plus two to three healthy snacks a day. Try to serve snacks at least one or two hours before the next scheduled meal so your child is still hungry at lunch and dinner. Limit your child’s daily milk intake to 16 to 24 ounces, or 2 to 3 cups. Anything more may negatively impact her iron absorption and leave her unnecessarily full when actual meals are served.

If your picky eater asks for food at other times, remind her when the next snack or meal will be and redirect her attention to something else. Sometimes kids just want to snack out of boredom, so suggest another activity like reading a book, building a block tower, or getting outside to burn off energy.

Your child may still not want to eat much or anything at all during the scheduled meals—and snacks—and that’s normal. You should never force your child to eat when she’s not hungry, experts say. Doing so can trigger power struggles at the table, create negative associations with mealtime, and make it harder for your child to tune into her body’s hunger and fullness cues.

Her Appetite Isn’t As Big As It Used to Be (or As Big as You Expected)

Toddlers grow more slowly than babies, so even though your little one had an insatiable appetite before her first birthday, she might not need as much food these days.

It may also be the case that you simply think she needs more food than she actually does. Toddler portion sizes are small—on average, the amount on her plate should be one-quarter to one-half of what you would serve yourself!

Try not to worry if your child isn’t eating what looks like enough to you. Instead, focus on offering nutritious meals and snacks at regular intervals throughout the day and let her decide how much goes in her belly. She may ask for seconds (or thirds!) some days, and take just one bite on others.

As long as her weight gain and growth are on track and she’s maintaining normal energy levels, her calorie needs are probably being met. (If you suspect her lack of appetite is affecting her growth, talk to your pediatrician.)

She’s Picked Up Selectivity From Others

Do you tend to snack here and there instead of eating during meals? Does an older sibling regularly label vegetables as gross? Toddlers learn by watching the world around them, so if others are being picky at the table, it’s no wonder your little one might follow suit.

One of the best things you can do to encourage healthy eating is to model good eating habits yourself. This means serving and eating a wide variety of healthy foods, and eating together as a family whenever possible.

Does that mean your picky eater will go from eating nothing but peanut butter toast to begging for Brussels sprouts? Probably not. But seeing that you have a healthy, laid-back attitude toward food will gradually rub off on your child. And one day, you may find that your once-picky eater isn’t quite so picky anymore.