My baby loves fruit but refuses vegetables — why and how do I fix it?

This is tied to your baby's natural taste preferences from birth. Sweet taste is familiar and feels safe to babies because breast milk also tastes slightly sweet; bitter and sour tastes are new and more likely to be rejected. So it's not that your daughter is "addicted to sweet" — she's going through a developmentally normal process.

Here are a few simple steps to bring balance:

• Offer vegetables first: Serve vegetables when your baby feels most hungry (hunger is strong), before moving to fruit — they're more likely to take a few spoonfuls of vegetables when their appetite is highest.
• Don't hide vegetables in fruit: Keep vegetables and fruit separate in the same meal, or in separate meals. Hiding vegetable taste delays your child from learning to like it. Serve them on separate spoons.
• Repeat the same taste: After your baby refuses a vegetable, offer it again the next day. It can take 10-15 tries before acceptance, which is perfectly normal.
• Highlight the vegetable's own taste: Steam broccoli, cauliflower, squash lightly, puree it plain. Over time babies learn that flavor.

When to see a doctor: if weight gain stops, or if your baby refuses every single vegetable for 3-4 weeks, an underlying sensory or other issue might be at play.