06 November, 2016

5 more tips to manage a fussy eating kid #NaBloPoMo #day7

I have written about the basic tips to manage fussy eating kids here.

Here are some more tips that worked for me:

1. Involving kids in cooking and shopping for vegetables
This is the best tip that I can give to any parent. Kids have to know each vegetable, how it is cooked, their color, their taste etc., This improves their interest to eat. When we prepare chapattis, we can encourage kids to knead the flour to any shape they want and then prepare a chappati from that. They will be happy to eat the chappati they prepared themselves.  While preparing a vegetable rice, if we make them sit nearer to us in kitchen and show the vegetables, teach colors and show the way they are cooked, they might show more interest in eating. This tip worked for my kids.

2. The whole Family eating together
This tradition was there in India from a long time. We usually eat dinner together as a family. This helps kids to get used to the routine of eating something before everyone completes their dinner. Kids always learn by observation. So, they will pickup eating by themselves easily and they also feel happy to be able to eat like their parents. I understand about the mess they make, but we might have to bear with it for some time.

3.  Setting  specific time frame to complete meals
Now a days, children watch videos on youtube while eating and no one knows how long they will take to complete a meal while they are immersed in the cartoons. Even I am unable to completely stop this habit until 4 years old but setting a time frame brings in the discipline. You might ask, the fussy eating kid will never put anything in his mouth. If that is the case, the parent feeding them should set a time like 20 mins and they should see that they sit at one place to eat without distraction for that complete timeframe. If they eat very less, its better to give a gap and set another 20 mins after sometime.  It's waste to spend 1 hr with a fussy eating kid and force them to eat.

4. Letting them eat by themselves
By letting children to eat by themselves, they feel like an adult and they feel happy. My 2 year old also likes to eat with spoon by himself. There will be a lot of mess initally, but if we can make them sit for some specific time and allow them to eat by themselves, how much ever less they eat, this becomes a good practice.Sometimes, I give my 2 year old 10 mins of time to eat by himself, then clean him up and I feed him later. This practice helps in future.

5. Preparing/ decorating meal in an interesting way
This is the famous tip that many parents are aware of. If your kid loves a McQueen or Thomas Engine, buy a plate and spoon with those characters. If you are feeding dosa, try to make dosa in a car/ train shape. I know, it need not be a perfect shape,  just enough for your kid to recognize the character. My mother used to grate carrot over dosa so that it looks colorful. Many parents draw a smiley on the sandwich with ketchup. There are many innovative ideas that we can get from Pinterest boards.

Does any of these tips work for you? Please let me know your opinion.

Until next time,



Ps: All images from www.pixabay.com 

8 comments:

  1. The older my kids get the fewer things they eat. I've tried many of these, it hasn't helped. My littles are odd. lol

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  2. Tried all these tips with my son. I've had a trying time getting him to eat a variety of foods. But, thankfully, he started eating on his own after he turned 5 and from age 8 onwards, his fussiness gave way to eagerness to eat. So glad those years are behind me now.

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  3. My son had been quite fussy until last year but he has improved a lot this year with his teachers emphasizing on eating healthy foods and classifying junk foods. My only trouble is if I ask him to eat on his own, he would start crying at the sight of the food despite the fact he eats on his own during lunch break in school. So I have to feed him.

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  4. We thought we had taught our son well, but as he grew into the school years, that all went away. I'm also glad those years are behind me now. The suggestion about the family eating together, though, is a must.

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  5. Family earing together is testing best way to do make the child learn to eat properly.Useful post

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  6. Anonymous11:21 AM

    The struggle is real! I look forward to getting them more involved with cooking and having at least 1 "kids cook" night per week... per kid.

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  7. These all sound lovely and probably do work most of the time, but I have a 20 year old who barely deigns to eat romaine lettuce, rice, and beans, and only eats those because he got tired of hearing me talk about how he was probably going to die from eating nothing but meat and it'd be all my fault for not force feeding him vegetables when he was two. :) He's absolutely healthy, though, strangely enough.

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  8. It's sometimes really difficult to get kids to eat - I remember my mom having a though time getting my little sister to eat some of her veggies! it's a hard job

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