Kid's Eatting

The best advice my pediatrician gave me was this: give your children access to healthy foods. Eventually they will eat it... as they will not starve themselves!

If only one of your children are obese; are they sneaking poor food choices when you're not looking? Not getting exercise like the others?

By the way: I'm a stay-at-home father of three little girls myself: 9, 7, 5.

what percentile is she in for height? My kid at that age was 100th for weight and 96th for height. She's never been obese or thin.

If your kids will eat other healthy foods and protein sources, I don't see why it matters if they won't eat meat. You can make a whole grain pasta dish with cheese for her protein and some meat on the side or later added to a sauce for the meat eaters. Breakfast for dinner is a huge hit here. Make sure she drinks some milk, and see if you can get her to eat yogurt for snacks. It's great with fruit, so she might like it. Beans and green leafy vegetables are other good sources for protein. You might also want to see if it's taste or texture on meat.

My 10 year old daughter rarely eats meat too. She's on the slender side though. The doc wants me to get her to gain weight, but hard when she's so picky. I can get her to eat trail mix (peanuts, raisins, M&Ms). She'll eat yogurt, string cheese, and hummus. Those are full of protein. She loves smoothie/shakes. I usually throw frozen bananas, milk, yogurt or whatever I have on hand in the blender. You can make smoothies with cottage cheese or peanut butter. As long as she gets protein somehow, I don't care. Good luck!

My 12 year old did not eat meat for a LONG time - actually he just started eating it this year - and still wont eat lunch meat etc - where my 10 year old used to be my non-picky eater, now he is picky about food choices - kids go in and out of stages with food choices, with weight/height etc

Like suggested find other good sources of protein that she likes - Peanut Butter, greek yogurt etc

and being only 3 she will grow out, then up, out then up -- Ive watched my kids do this so as long as healthy offerings at home she will be fine

How tall is she? My 4 year old is 33 pounds and is in the 24th percentile for weight (she turned 4 in February). But, she's also short, at 39 inches, which is 20th percentile or so. Is it that your daughter's BMI is in the 99th percentile? using height and weight? Because using LO's height & weight, she's 51st percentile, BMI wise. I guess it doesn't really matter if your doctor has talked to you about her weight being an issue.

There's no need to cut snacks, just make them healthier. You may also want to talk to grandma about treats and health concerns. I know that can be easier said than done, but it's a start.

According to my mother's stories, I weighed 30 pounds at 10 months - so I was quite large and a very good eater. I probably was about 140-150 in HS (at 64 or 65 inches). In grade school and middle school, I biked everywhere - my territory covered a couple of counties (but I stayed heavy). At 18 or 19 I dropped down to 120 or so without trying - no idea why. I would only worry about a child's weight if it is due to poor food choices (excessive junk) and/or lack of activity. Are the relatives who mention her weight the same ones offering cake? If so, I could see some room for "discussion" (and putting my foot down) there.

Kids are often "notional" in what they'll eat. I can remember mine having periods where they'd only eat the whites of eggs and then doing a turnabout and only eating the yolks. The only "bad" thing you can do is push for "clean plates", as, in my opinion, that creates "guilt" for not overeating (what I call "clean plate syndrome") and sets one up for poor eating habits (making it a "sin" not to eat everything offered or throwing away food when you order or fix too much). Graham crackers or saltines might be an alternative for bread (any chance of celiac or gluten intolerance - it's possible she's not liking bread because it makes her feel "ill"?)

Make sure healthy choices are available. Cater to their appetites to some degree, if only by making available healthy food they can "fix for themselves" when they don't like what you've fixed (for a 3-4 YO, that might be pre-prepared items in the fridge - celery sticks with PB, yogurt, peeled hard boiled eggs (can't remember if eggs were "in" at the moment or not), string cheese, etc)

I find the best way to get my three year old to eat his dinner is to involve him someway in it's preparation. I cook pretty much every thing fresh, and I take him food shopping with me most of the time. We talk about the food we're putting in our trolley and I'll talk about what we would cook with the ingredients.
I sometimes give him the choice of what side we have with our meals and around once a week he'll get to choose a meal that I cook, I'll guide him with his choice ('just sausages' is no good) and we usually end up with a well rounded meal that he is super chuffed with because he got to choose it.
I also let him help cook, mix up the ingredients and stuff or shake in some herbs. Today he helped mix up the dressing for our salad and ate a good portion.

I've only got one though not four, which makes all of the above a hell of a lot easier!

I sometimes make salmon (PINK fish!), cod or chicken breaded fingers, Maybe you could pre-cut some meat into small cubes and get her involved in the breading, bake them in the oven and serve with something dippy (that you could also make together). The crunch of the breadcrumbs and taste of the dip might disguise it enough for her to eat some.

Another thing I do is that if he says I'm finished and there is still quite a bit on the plate I'll say that because you are three years old you have to have three more forkfuls of food before you can get down from the table.