How can you sneak prunes into a toddler's diet?

go raisins

bran muffin, or give her “chocolate”. I think you know what I mean…

Honestly, I’d probably give her a few medicine-droppers full right into her cheek. She’s forced to swallow it. Problem solved.

I’ve heard of blending them into a smoothie.

@Seek_Kolinahr – “she’s forced to swallow it” You don’t have kids, do you? : )

Actually, I have a 16 month old son that recently had to take antibiotics.

That was the only way he would swallow them – Hold up his chin, and shoot it right into his cheek. All gone!

I agree with @stratman37 think raisins.

Also, Jessica Seinfeld wrote a cookbook Deceptively Delicious http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com/site/ which is all about sneaking healthy foods into a childs diet.

Try pureeing them and mix with something like applesauce ( or even ice cream) so it’s not so cloyingly sweet. That the most likely guess on why she doesn’t like them straight.

Does she prefer more tart flavors? Perhaps mixed with cranberry/orange purée.

Just keep trying various things to dilute it and various proportions until you find the right combo.

Mix into oatmeal?

How can you sneak prunes into anyone’s diet?

@Seek_Kolinahr – oh yeah, now I remember the infant reflex. just wait until they get a little older. You’ll be donning the hazmat uniform.

@stratman37

Hopefully by then, we’ll be moving on to bribery and chewable tablets. ^_^

Yeah, the Jessica Seinfeld book and another similar one is what inspired my response.

The name of the other book is “The Sneaky Chef”.

Problem with raisins is she only has a few teeth (same with the prunes). While I appreciate the Seinfeld and other books, in general I don’t believe in that whole “theme”. In this one case, maybe, but in general, the kids eat what we eat.

Also, if you’re into baking, find a good date cookie recipe and substitute chopped pieces of prune for the dates.

Or try oatmel raisin cookies.

@shilolo have you tried mixing the prune juice with grape or some other juice? Diluted with water, the prune juice didn’t go over very well, but grape juice seemed to make it more palatable. After having an incredibly constipated child for a couple of weeks, and wanting to avoid the “tablespoon of mineral oil” idea, this is what finally worked for us.

Smoothie.

Try finely chopping them or blending into a fine paste then fold it through some nice yoghurt…wow that made me hungry I think I’m gonna go eat some yoghurt now.

@erichw1504
How can you sneak prunes into anyone’s diet?
LOLL…
touche!

ohh I like the smoothie idea! And she’ll be getting probiotics from the yogurt. I might steal that idea because my son just doesn’t eat fruit. I think it’s the texture or something, but he’s never liked it…he drinks juice though (which may be the issue)

I grew up eating this stuff, it’s very yummy on toast and Ritz crackers.

At that age my daughter absolutey loved baby strained prunes, although in her excitement she tended to get as much on the outside as the inside. You could try mixing some of that into something sweet that she does like, perhaps apple sauce, a strong-flavored juice, sherbet or ice cream, jam, or the aforementioned yogurt.

Of course, since she is so much smaller than you are, you can always go with suppositories.

She does not like prunes?

They are natures candy! :-)

Why would a toddler need prunes, anyway? most have diarrhea most of the time. constipation in a toddler should be checked out. never had this problem with our children.

I’ve been seeing prunes in a lot of meatloaf recipes lately and in a lot of chocolate recipes—my guess is that like coffee or vanilla, prunes enhance chocolate flavor. So my suggestion would be to go to epicurious.com and do a search for prunes. Have some chocolate. Or bread pudding which I happen to love. With the bread pudding, increasing the amount of prunes would be easy, though that recipe doesn’t have high fork ratings, so I’d make sure to read the comments for corrective suggestions. The prune and walnut crescents have a much better fork rating.

@john65pennington Um, “most have diarrhea most of the time”? Who told you that? Having constant diarrhea is not normal. And usually at the age @shilolo‘s daughter is, is when constipation issues arise because they switch to whole milk, which can be a little binding. And it’s never a bad thing to add fruit into a child’s diet.

Prune juice mixed with the milk. It tastes pretty good, yet is pretty well disguised.

Thanks all for the suggestions. I will try some of those tonight. Also, I agree with @casheroo that most kids don’t have diarrhea. That would be a lot more worrisome then the aforementioned incidental constipation. Indeed, as @casheroo astutely noticed, the recent switch from breast milk/formula to whole milk is the likely culprit. We are giving her a ton of fruits and vegetables (oranges, kiwi, blueberries, broccoli, peas) to no avail. Thus, the desire to try something with greater laxative properties.

Man, my kid had his first constipation at 3. He had to poop, but it wouldn’t come out and was quite painful. Of course this was in the middle of the night. Not fun.

My sister had this problem and prunes helped. Good luck.

@shilolo Have you considered switching to soy, almond or rice milk? Or maybe mixing whole milk with one of these 50/50?

@stratman37 and @Seek_Kolinahr LOL! Well, when they get older and have to give them meds, just drop it as far back on their tongue as you can! Works best when they’re yelling at the top of their lungs!

If shes a little contipated a spoonful of karo syrup will do the trick.

Karo syrup cures constipation? That seems kind of counterintuitive to me.

@Snarp It does cure constipation… But it can also cause diarrhea if you use too much. And you have to mix it with formula or milk for best results.

I haven’t read the previous answers, so forgive me if I’m repeating what someone else has already said.

You can substitute “prune puree” in for butter/shortening in most baked goods. It works marvelously well, but about 24 hours later…

Also, you might try being sneaky and saying that there’s this new dried fruit, dried plums, that she might like. Sometimes just changing the wording is enough for toddlers. :D

Good luck!

Take a tube of crescent roll dough and put a couple of cooked, smooshed prunes in each, roll up, bake and serve. You could even put a couple of frozen blueberries in there too.

@Darwin

After I read your answer the second time, I realized that you were being totally serious.

But I was going to comment about giving you a GA for the funniest answer of the day. I laughed put loud thinking you were facetiously recommending prune suppositories :)

I guess it’s because ALL of the suggestions were about adding prunes in various forms rather than an alternative to prunes, and thus prune suppositories.

Or it could be because sometimes I just have a very, very strange mind indeed.

:)

@Buttonstc – I can see where you are coming from. Let’s just say that sometimes I am absolutely dead on serious, sometimes I try to be funny, and sometimes I have a very, very strange mind indeed.

:)

Rectally? ;)

Forbidden fruits taste the best. Get the petite prunes and snack on them yourself, when the toddler wants one of what mommy is having, and she will, say “These are mommies.” The second time she asks, give her one.

Update: So eventually, I mixed the prune juice in with yogurt. It looked and tasted just as it sounds, but she gobbled it up. That, combined with lots and lots of water (and the tincture of time) did the trick. Thanks everyone.

Yuck. But, glad she liked it. :)

Make boiled prunes with boiled raisins, in as a treat. My grandpa gave it to me and we ate it together as a treat I never had problems after that.