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Parents have been picking my brain in regard to how to handle their picky eaters. Well, here’s a healthy mouthful of information.

More than a quarter of 3-year-olds are picky eaters, according to recent studies, and a new food may have to be offered at least 10 to 15 times before a normal eater will try it, let alone a picky one.

Even if children don’t eat what you want them to eat, they usually get all the nutrients they need from the foods that they do eat. Parents need to keep their expectations in check since a toddler only needs a tablespoon of a particular food served per meal per year of age. When they get that, they usually take in much more than the required 1,000 to 1,400 calories per day for growing toddlers to thrive.

Don’t make veggies a family food battle. If children don’t eat their vegetables but eat fruit, they will usually get all the vitamins they need from fruit. You might also offer your toddler a choice between two vegetables. If the rest of the family eats that vegetable, your toddler will likely do so, too.

Milk is not the only way to build strong bones; calcium can be found in yogurt, cheese, broccoli and even calcium-fortified juices, although juice intake should be limited due to its high sugar content and ability to decrease your child’s appetite for more nutritious foods.

It’s doubtful your child, if otherwise healthy, really needs a vitamin supplement. But it may give you as a parent piece of mind to give your child a multivitamin if it can result in your not engaging in food battles with your picky eater.

Don’t use bribes to encourage eating. Offering a cookie if they eat their vegetables only makes the less nutritious food more desirable to a toddler and rarely fixes a picky eater.

Remember to eat what your child eats, when your child eats and that serving small portions on large plates to a toddler goes down better than large portions on small plates.

Here’s my favorite tip: When your picky eater sees their friends eating a new food, your child will probably try that food, too, even when they won’t do it for you.

Hopefully, tips like these will whet your appetite when it comes to being better able to deal with the normal developmental phase of picky eating.

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Lewis First, MD, is chief of pediatrics at the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital of Vermont Children’s Hospital and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine. You can also catch “First with Kids” weekly on WOKO 98.9FM and NBC5.