Mommy with toddlers...HELP!

lesliemk

It's partly the age. They do grow out of this a bit, I promise! Audrey is now almost 4 and she'll eat.... (and these are faves)

For Breakfast...
Annie's cereals w/ raw milk
Steel cut/old fashioned oats w/ a bit of maple syrup
eggs w/ toast
greek yogurt w/ granola & homemade jam

For Lunch...
Annie's Organic Mac & Cheese w/ chopped kale
Organic PB&J sandwich on organic whole wheat
tuna or chicken salad w/ grapes & walnuts on org. whole wheat
grilled chicken & cheese quesadillas w/ a bit of sour cream

We oftentimes do dinner leftovers for lunch too. I don't think a nice homemade tomato sauce and whole wheat pasta is a bad lunch at all. Unlimited fruits & veggies are snacks at our house. Oh and hummus too!

autumn5gabby

Try Derceptively Delicous by Jessica Seinfeld Its a way to sneak fruits and veggies into meals without kids knowing.

lisascampo

This might sound a little nuts, but kids can only be as picky as you allow them to be. My kids had gotten to the point that they wouldn't eat anything but toast, peanut butter sandwiches, fish sticks, and fries. Ridiculous. Oh, and chips and junk, of course. So I put my foot down, and what I serve them, they eat. They have to try everything I give them. I serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with one snack between each meals (so two snacks). If they don't eat their lunch, when they tell me they're hungry later they get it for a snack. And if I serve something for dinner and they refuse to try it, they have it for breakfast.

That sounds horrible, I know. And I felt horrible when I instituted it, but I was at the end of my rope and they weren't eating enough. But it only took one time of my son (just turned 3) having to eat dinner for breakfast, and they willingly try everything now. They don't love everything, and if they hate it, that's ok. But they do try it without a fuss. They don't have to clean their plates, but they have to make an honest attempt at eating their meals, and they have to eat protein for at least two meals in the day (this was a real struggle for us).

If you don't want to be mean, find a way to set ground rules, something you're comfortable with. Offer a variety of foods, and model good eating behavior by eating those foods yourself. Since they're so young they really do need snacks between meals, but make sure they're not relying on those snacks to get them through the day (my kids were skipping meals and then wanting their snacks right away).

Just a comment on the above;- my parents used the above technique on me and I have had a lifetime of issues with food. I have bad memories of eating reheated meals from the day before, of eating sunday dinner when its turned cold, and being force fed prawns. I still can't eat prawns.
The way I treat my 3 year old fussy son is by not reacting too much when he turns his nose up at food, however I congratulate him for trying new foods, which he responds positively to. I make up silly names for food, I watch his reaction to meals (I noticed that he LOVES cheese but wont eat it if its grated onto food). toddlers can survive on surprisingly little quantities, so offer little and often.
I made vegetable soup this week (liquidized, of course), and he left the table after just eating the bread, but came back and ate the lot of his own accord and told me it was yummy - hurrah!
I found the books written by Annabel Karmel invaluable, she has taught me how to cook.
Good luck, I know its a real battle mentally.

poisongirl6485

Yeah, I used to think that kids would eat when they're hungry etc and that if you just served them last night's dinner for breakfast until they ate it, etc was the way to go until my BFF tried that with her son and he didn't eat for almost 4 days.

ajbeans

FTR, I have never and will never force feed my kids. I require that they try one bite of what I give them, and I don't give them anything unless I'm pretty sure they'll like it. We're talking normal things like potatoes with garlic instead of pepper, or shell-shaped pasta instead of long noodles. They don't have to clean their plates, but they do not get a snack after dinner if they still have food on their plates (and no, I'm not counting foods they don't like, or large portions). And I would never let my child go 4 days without eating. Or even one day. That's extreme. The whole reason we even started with the new rules is because they were going too long without eating when the choice was left up to them, and it wasn't healthy.

My kids already have an unhealthy relationship with food because I let them make their own choices for a long time, and their choices were unhealthy ones. Toast, chips, saltines. Those are the foods they will choose time and time again if something didn't change. So we have the "try it" rule. And we have the rule that they can't have an after-dinner snack if they didn't eat their chicken or whatever. Because I want my children to be healthy. They were both underweight because they were living on just snacks. Simply cheering them on for trying something new doesn't work for them -- they want to have control over their lives, as all children do, and this is the aspect they've chosen to try to control. Some kids respond well to verbal encouragement and things like that, and so do mine in a lot of things -- but not with food. So we do praise them effusively when they try something new, but they need a little push to get to that point. They won't do it just for the praise.

I'm not saying this to be defensive, but to clarify my post. Because I did think long and hard before imposing any food rules because of what lisascampo said -- I don't want my children to have food issues. But then I realized that they already did have food issues. And I wanted them to learn to enjoy a wide variety of foods before they got older and too ingrained in bad habits to change.

Mrs_McFadden

This is so tough to deal with!
With my kids, I just don't have junk food in the house. Or if I do (because I swear every time I turn around it's a holiday with treat bags or it's a bday party with treat bags GRR here comes Valentines) I limit it. Even on Halloween, I made them choose candy for a couple of days and indulged them and then made them dump the rest in the trash can so we didn't have like, a freaking month's or more supply of candy.
For food regularly, when my children are hungry, snacks are healthy, period. I ALWAYS have fruit in my house and it is always offered. Hungry? Have a banana, or an apple, or a clementine, or grapes, or strawberries. Thirsty? It's water. I let them have ONE juice a day and we do not have soda of any kind in our household.
Dinner I try to just make altered versions of what we, my husband and I, are eating for dinner. So say we were eating grilled chicken with spinach as a side and a salad. For my kids I'd feed them the same chicken and give them some salad and maybe peas instead of spinach. That's an easy switch since I can just microwave some frozen peas and my 10 yr old son and 3 year old daughter will eat them.
My whole point is you have to keep offering those foods. Always offer those foods. Be a broken record: fruit, veggie, fruit, veggie.
My son eats broccoli, asparagus, salads with vinaigrette, sweet potatoes, squash, zucchini. We are always encouraging him to try new foods and we always applaud our kids for doing so. Our kids MUST try new foods at least once and we give them additional tries afterwords if they don't like it, b/c palates change over time and often kids need to adjust to things.

One HUGE tip: get your kids involved in shopping for their own food and helping with some part of cooking. At the grocery ask him like : do you want peas or broccoli? Do we want to try fish or shrimp? Things like that. Then get him in the kitchen and at least show him how you cook it and let him help by putting a pinch of salt on it, or stirring while you hold his hand!
Trust me, it works like a CHARM.

Use a multi pronged approach:
Exposure, often, to new foods and reward them verbally for trying foods even if they don't like it.
Involve children in grocery shopping decisions between various healthy food choices.
Involve children in cooking even if only to open packages, watch, just get them involved so they feel like they have control too.
Always have fruits on hand or veggies like carrot sticks for snacks.
Save junk foods like potato chips or candies and cookies etc as treats as they should be.