1. Turn the noise off – Extra noise can actually be quite overwhelming for children while they are eating. Turn the TV off, the music off, or down very low.
2. Don’t hover – Leave them alone (but quietly supervised) to eat, don’t sit there watching their every move. That would make an adult nervous and cranky, let-alone a small child. I would hate it if my husband stood next to me eyeballing me while I tried to eat my sandwich!
3. Let them make mess – If you’re hovering while they eat and scolding each time they drop broccoli on the floor, or smear pumpkin in their hair, they are bound to become anxious at meal times. I certainly would if my husband was scolding, cranky and disappointed with me at each mouthful of my dinner.
4. Relax – Children pick up on the tiniest bit of tension. Even when you’ve had a mega day at work, are busy trying to cook dinner, tidy up and help with homework (all at the same time of course), little ones pick up on this. By the time you put dinner on the table, frazzled, they feel this too
5. Pair liked foods with disliked foods – If they love cheese but hate broccoli, whack them together.
6. Make sure their feet are touching something stable – Often little ones can’t reach the floor and have their feet dangling. Many high chairs don’t come with a foot rest. After some time, this can cause pins and needles in their feet and lower legs. It also affects their posture from their tailbone right through to their jaw, which can influence how comfy they are while eating. Whether they sit at a table or in a high chair, make sure their feet are resting on something.
7. Focus on the week not the day – It’s easy to freak out thinking ‘But she hasn’t eaten any veggies or fruit today’ but children’s eating patterns change drastically from day today. She might not have wanted to eat any fruit today because she gorged on three punnets of blueberries yesterday and is just ‘fruited out.’ It happens to adults as well. Look at what they have eaten over the course of the week to evaluate if they are eating enough and whether their diet is varied.
8. Serve dinner earlier – If you find they are having a melt down during dinner at 6pm, serve it earlier. Maybe 4pm fits their body schedule better and catches them before they are too tired.
9. Don’t offer multiple options of meal choices. This is not a smorgasbord menu! If the first offering is not eaten, then a single boring alternative to stop you worrying about them going to bed hungry, could be Weet-Bix.
10. Too much milk? Make sure that if your child is over one year of age, they aren’t drinking more than 500ml of milk per day (from a bottle or a cup). If they are, they are likely filling up on milk, and too full when it comes time for meals and snacks. More than this amount can interfere with iron adsorption and will mean they also miss out on a wider variety of nutrients because they are filling up on the milk.
BONUS TIP!! If your child is eating more than two serves of fruit per day, it’s time to reduce fruit offerings. The sugar (fructose) in fruit may be causing them to favour sweeter foods in preference to those more savoury choices, such as meat and vegetables, pasta, bread and rice.
Copyright Louise Shalders
