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You are not alone if you dread dinnertime in your household. There are thousands of parents out there who even stay at work longer to put the inevitable event off for as long as possible.
Feelings of frustration that yet another mealtime has come and gone where you know you have given in to your little ones desire for yet more bread, or whatever his or her favourite tipple seems to be, and the guilt that comes along with knowing that a green or orange veggie really should have featured somewhere during the day!
This is in addition to the mess, chaos and general mayhem of trying to prevent the dog from getting all the best bits (and he knows just where to sit to get your toddler's attention!), to trying to keep the bowl upright on the table.
All finished off with a pint sized amount of feelings of rejection that your culinary efforts have once again been sneered at by a 2 year old!
Toddlers are meant to be picky eaters, its all in the genes!
- Developmentally, they need less food in year 2 as their growth slows down so they don't eat as much.
- Sitting down for a meal requires focused attention that even some adults struggle with, and yet we expect a toddler to sit down to dinner.
- They are much more independent, now realizing that they are separate from you. They have woken up to the fact that they can make decisions, and have learned the word “no”. After a small lifetime of not being able to communicate, it must be wonderful to finally be able to have your say!
In fact, snacking their way through the day is a much better way for a toddler to eat. They have small tummies, and they can't eat a lot of food in one go.
It is better to give a toddler five small meals, using creative tactics to get him to eat, and if you have a child that doesn't eat very much, it is important to realize that every bite counts. So, if you are filling your child up with chips or sweets because that is the only thing he or she will eat, there are two things to note. Firstly, there is no nutritional benefit to these things. Even giving your child a bag of chips in the afternoon will affect how much he or she eats of the good stuff. Secondly, giving in to your child when you would rather he had eaten an apple, gives him the message that he can push you to giving in each time. So, he just says “no” to every healthy alternative until he finally gets the 6 th slice of bread for the day.
Try and make mealtimes (all five of them!) into a creative culinary adventure.
Some ideas:
1. Dipping: Toddlers love to feed themselves finger foods, they love to paint with their food and they love to be as creative at dinner as they are with paints, crayons and play dough. Put a few different sauces into little colourful containers and a selection of dipping foods (chicken fingers, chicken meatballs, sausages, roasted butternut, halved rosa tomatoes, eggs etc) and play a dipping game.
2. Drawing pictures: Cover the table with a plastic table cloth and allow your toddler to use his yogurt or cottage pie as paint. He gets a spoon, and you get a spoon. He gets to put a spoon of yogurt onto the mat to paint with, and you get to feed him the yogurt. Make sure the yogurt is a full fat, unsweetened variety. A good alternative to ready prepared supermarket fruit yogurts is a full fat greek style yogurt with dried fruit puree as a flavourant. This is a really healthy alternative which is packed with live probiotics and good calories, and calcium. No added sugars or preservatives. Also great for the digestive system.
3. Change the environment : If even approaching the “feeding” chair in the kitchen produces adrenalin and stress hormones in both you and your toddler, as you both front yourselves for a food fight, then eat somewhere else. Try the garden if it's a nice day. Take a toy truck and get your toddler to drive it to each depot, loading a meatball at each point. He has to then eat one in order to load the next one. Or something.
4. Reduce the juice : If you are giving your child juice with his or her meal, then cut it back. In fact, get rid of the sippy, non-spill cups with teats, spouts and straws. Not only are they damaging your child's appetite as he is able to keep it in his mouth all the time, thus preventing you from getting a spoon of food wedged in there at all, but it is also impeding his speech development through the lack of drinking and swallowing motion required when drinking from an open top cup. Finally, the motion of drinking helps strengthen your child's jaw for chewing. Keep non spill cups for cars and when you are out and about.
You can make the juice part of the meal a prize for eating well. Use a small amount of juice in an open topped cup (100% juice diluted with water. Avoid concentrates or nectars as sugar has been added as well as preservatives) and let him have a sip of juice for every mouthful of food.
5. Buy the right food: Your job is simply to buy the right food and prepare it nutritiously. Avoid processed foods if possible as they are not giving your fussy toddler the best nutrients. If you need to make food more exciting, then try All Gold ketchup which is preservative free.
6. Your child won't starve himself : In fact, a large part of the responsibility is your toddler's. If you say “no” to the one thing he wants to eat (like ice-cream) and move on to bath time when he won't eat the yummy dinner you have lovingly prepared, it won't take him too many days to work out that if he doesn't eat it, he doesn't get fed. That means he gets hungry. Not such a good feeling. Better eat while he has the chance.
7. Expect the unexpected : Toddlers are erratic, and it follows therefore that their eating habits will be too. So, if he loves spaghetti bolognese today, it doesn't necessarily mean he will want to eat it tomorrow. In fact, when you find a food that your toddler loves, take care not to over offer it. There will come a time when he is bored of even that and then you have to find something else very quickly! Your child may eat really well one day and hardly anything the next. Over a week, you will find that his eating habits even out and he has had sufficient calories and nutrients. Toddlers need between 1,000 and 1,300 calories (good calories!) a day, but they won't eat this in evenly spread calories every day. Aim for a nutritionally-balanced week, not a balanced day.
8. Offer a nibble tray : Use different coloured and sized containers to offer different varieties of food in. Use compartmentalized dishes and put bit-sized portions of colourful food in each.
· Thinly sliced apple and other fruits (grapes should be halved)
· avocado boats (a quarter of an avocado)
· banana wheels
· broccoli trees (steamed broccoli florets)
· carrot swords (cooked and thinly sliced)
· cheese building blocks
· egg canoes (hard- boiled egg wedges)
· little O's (o-shaped cereal)
· Butternut sticks
Place the food on an easy-to-reach table. As your toddler plays, he can stop, sit down, eat some, and, when he's done, continue with his play. These foods have a table-life of an hour or two. When a toddler doesn't eat for long periods, it messes up his sugar levels and makes him grumpy, resulting in bad behaviour which increases stress levels in general. Frequent grazing is a necessity!
9. Loading: Toddlers are into piling foods on top of each other the way they love to build blocks. Putting nutritious, familiar favorites on top of new and less-desirable foods is a way to broaden what they will eat.
10. Drink it : Blend a smoothie using full fat yogurt, fruit, honey (for the over 1's), wheatgerm, etc and provide it to them in a colourful cup as a drink. They get the nutrients without realizing that it is good for them!
11. Grow a garden : Although your toddler should be offered three to five servings of veggies a day, for children under five, each serving need be only a tablespoon for each year of age. A two- year-old should ideally consume two tablespoons of vegetables three to five times a day. So if you aren't the proud parent of a veggie lover, try the following tricks:
· For older children, plant a garden together. Not only is it a great learning activity, she will definitely want to eat the produce of her efforts.
· Slip grated or diced vegetables into favorite foods. Try adding them to rice, cottage cheese, cream cheese, guacamole, or even macaroni and cheese.
· Camouflage vegetables with a favourite sauce. Cheesy sauce is always a winner. Prepare it with wholewheat flour for added benefits.
· Use vegetables as finger foods and dip them in a favorite sauce or dip.
· Using a small cookie cutter, cut the vegetables into interesting shapes.
12. Eat with friends : If your child is going through a picky-eater stage, invite over a friend who is the same age or slightly older whom you know enjoys his or her food. Chances are, your child will follow suit.
13. Respect tiny tummies : Keep food servings small. Wondering how much to offer? Here's a rule of thumb – or, rather, of hand. A young child's stomach is approximately the size of his fist. So dole out small portions at first and refill the plate when your child asks for more. This less-is-more meal plan is not only more successful with picky eaters, it also has the added benefit of stabilizing blood-sugar levels, which in turn minimizes mood swings. As most parents know, a hungry child is generally not a happy child.
14. Snacktime: If you want your child to eat well at dinner, don't feed him snacks within two hours of dinnertime. 11. Make it accessible. Give your toddler shelf space. Reserve a low shelf in the refrigerator for a variety of your toddler's favorite (nutritious) foods and drinks. Whenever she wants a snack, open the door for her and let her choose one. This tactic also enables children to eat when they are hungry, an important step in acquiring a healthy attitude about food.
15. Child-sized tables and chairs : Children are likely to sit and eat longer at a child-size table and chair where their feet touch the ground. They feel more like a grown-up than when in a high chair. The Sit-Right high chair is great because it changes from a high chair to a chair that your toddler can get up onto on his own and has somewhere to put their feet.
16. Let them cook: Children are more likely to eat their own creations, so, when appropriate, let your child help prepare the food. Use cookie cutters to create edible designs out of foods like cheese, bread, thin meat slices, or cooked lasagna noodles. Give your assistant such jobs as tearing and washing lettuce, scrubbing potatoes, or stirring batter. Put pancake batter in a squeeze bottle and let your child supervise as you squeeze the batter onto the hot griddle in fun shapes, such as hearts, numbers, letters, or even spell the child's name.
The most important thing is to RELAX. Sometime between her second and third birthday, you can expect your child to become set in her ideas on just about everything – including the way food is prepared. Expect food fixations . If the toast must be on top of the egg and you put the egg on top of the toast, be prepared for a protest. It's not easy to reason with an opinionated two-year-old. Don't interpret this as being stubborn. Toddlers have a mindset about the order of things in their world. Any alternative is unacceptable. This is a passing stage.
We hope that these ideas help you to get your toddlers enjoying their mealtimes. Food should be fun. It is important to raise children with a healthy and happy attitude to food. Take the stress away, and you may be surprised at how much you all enjoy mealtimes. Just like the Brady family.
Sally is co-founder of babypure and purekids food products. See www.babypure.co.za to order some tasty treats to tempt even the fussiest eater!
