Parents of young-ish kids: Do you fix different foods for yo

Nope they eat what we eat, but we try some new recipes and maybe if we are doing like a pork with a marinade, we will leave it off their portion.

I am the same as the previous poster. I do not eat the same breakfast or lunch (they usually have cereal, waffles or pancakes for breakfast and sandwiches or something else quick for lunch). We do however eat the same dinner. They used to refuse to try much, but in the last few months their palates have definitely expanded! They are 8 and 5 year old girls by the way They love everything I have been cooking and my 8 year old repeatedly asks me to make the skinny taste baked ziti with spinach.

I have four boys and they eat whatever I eat besides greek yogurt and egg beaters. My 2 year old actually prefers a lot of fruit and any vegetable you place in front of him. If I am eating something, he wants whatever I'm eating including peas! Weird child. :laugh: I made it abundantly clear that we were going to start eating much healthier than before, not that I fed them all junk food but, it was still too much junk food in between meals. They have adapted quite well to the change.

My favorite food to eat that my kids enjoy too is apples and oranges all day.
Spaghetti is an easy dish to make healthier changes to i.e. ground turkey instead of ground beef and organic spaghetti sauces and noodles (the kids can't tell a difference). They also prefer turkey burgers and bacon now instead of beef.

I have 2 fairly picky kids (ages 3 and 6)

For breakfast my daughter (3y/o) eats cereal or a cereal bar. My son (6y/o) eats cereal bars or pinwheels.

For lunch, my son is at school M thru F so he eats whatever hot meal they have. My daughter for a long time wants the same lunch: a banana, piece of cheese, 4 slices pepperoni, container of yogurt and animal crackers or pretzels.

For supper, they like pasta a lot. I make up batches of homemade mac n cheese and it lasts 2-3 nights. They love spaghetti with lots of cheese. One night they have chicken nuggets and homemade fries. Stuff I don't want the calories for.

I don't eat the same things at all. I eat pasta maybe once a week. I like salads and my kids don't. I like soups (homemade) and they don't. I don't want to feed them tons of stuff they hate so I try to reason with them.

I'm a mom to four: 10, 8 and 5 yo twins. I do cook pretty healthy for my family, but sometimes a bit more caloric and saucy than I want to take in for my calorie count...

So my questions are:
Do you eat different meals from what you cook your family?
What's your favorite thing that your kids eat that you can eat too?
What kid-friendly meals do you cook that are easily adapted to someone who's watching calories?

Just curious to see how other families deal! My oldest is a "healthy food" anarchist and won't touch anything if she thinks it's at all healthy for her (ie if I try to sneak whole grains into pancakes, etc.) so I sometimes have to be sneaky and creative

TIA for any thoughts!

My kids are 2.5 and 1.5 yo, respectively.

I do not make anything different for them. We all eat well and they nearly always have healthy appetites (it varies, just like ours . Make the food YOU want and let them adapt. Keep sneaking those whole grains into your pancakes, eventually she'll eat them. They won't starve themselves. Remember that these crazy kids change their appetite frequently, they have "graze" days where you can't get anything green into them, and other days where they eat like a horse. If all you offer is good food, they will adapt to it and accept it.

We love chili and cornbread, very nutritious and delicious! I make it mild for the kids and DH and I add hot pepper flakes.

We love macaroni and cheese, you can use whole-wheat pasta and slice up nitrate-free hot dogs in it, make your own cheese sauce from scratch with lowfat milk and cornstarch and some dried mustard and pepper.

Cooking from scratch is a PITA sometimes but well worth the effort - especially if you're taking the time to cook, make a double-batch so you can skip cooking another night in the week

Pureed soups are another favorite here, Roast veggies (think sweet potatoes, carrots, onion) and simmer in some vegetable broth with ginger, puree and serve with a dollop of nonfat sour cream alongside a grilled cheese on whole-grain bread.

Keep doing your research and hit up allrecipes.com and cookinglight.com for ideas. Tear out pages in cookbooks and make a list in Excel of all the new things you want to try.

My kids are 8, 7, 4 and 3 and they actually prefer to eat healthy stuff most of the time. We typically don't buy "junk food" or we'll all scarf it down. We don't buy potato chips, snack cakes, donuts, candy, etc. Instead, we get snacks like popcorn, fruit, low sugar yogurt (mixed with chopped fruit), cottage cheese and low sugar/low calorie popsicles. The entire family eats the same thing for dinner, sometimes lunch and breakfast too (they love eggs and whole wheat pancakes!). They'll eat just about every kind of meat we prepare (grilled or baked chicken, tuna, pork, etc.) The biggest thing they don't like are cooked vegetables. They'll eat most raw veggies so we go with those a lot of times. They still eat things like Mac and cheese and frozen pizzas from time to time too but not real often.

They always complain when dinner consists of chicken or pork because we do eat a lot of it, but it's also one of the only meals that they devour quickly and want seconds of. They eat meat and veggies much better than they've ever eaten Happy Meals from McDonald's!

my kids eat at 5.30ish, whereas me and dp dont eat till 8 or 9pm, so we dont eat the same stuff normally

My daughter just turned two. The only thing different between what my husband eats, what I eat, and what she eats is portion size... and she eats a lot more mandarin oranges and strawberries ("stars") than we do. (but to be fair we drink coffee and she doesn't get any, yet. :laugh:)

Definitely not. What better way to encourage healthy eating than by feeding the whole family healthy food.

My daughter eats anything I put in front of her - probably because she knows that if she were "picky" then she'd be "hungry".

When I was a kid, we ate what we were given and were grateful for it or we ate nothing at all.

This is how my house operates. If you want to eat something in my house, you eat what I make or you go hungry. I cook healthy, I have healthy snacks around and there is plenty of food to keep everyone from starving.

I have two kids: 6 and 3 years old. My oldest is uber-skinny and kind of thin so I try to give her foods that I know she'll eat. I sometimes worry about if she's eaten enough. I try to add more calories into her day by giving her a cheese-stick for a snack or whole milk instead of 2%. I know for a fact that she only eats about 1/3 of her school lunch (she spends most of her lunch time standing in line) so we're going to start packing her lunches this year.

There are some healthy foods that we all like to make together. This past weekend, we made wontons at home and I packed in plenty of veggies into the filling. Also, we dice up veggies and add it to rice porrige. And the kids like fried rice. For some reason, my oldest LOVES broccoli so we always try to have some of that. I mix in peas, carrots, and string beans into their mac and cheese. We really try to put veggies into everything.

My 3 year old is a different story. She eats plenty but at some point during the meal, she'll become aware that I've mixed veggies into her food, even if it's been there the whole time. She'll start taking it out of her mouth (especially if it's squash or eggplant) and that's when I tell her that it's good for her and she's gonna forfeit her candy incentives -- which is something like 2 M&M's. I can make a fun size bag last a couple weeks.

Oh yeah...the kids also enjoy fresh fruit smoothies with no sugar added... with some veggies mixed.

I have a 6 year old who is very picky to the point of having pretty severe anxiety over new foods, and a 2.5 year old who is just plain stubborn. I have always been pretty obsessed with eating healthy and loved vegetables so I think this is my challenge in life, to have picky kids!

For breakfast, we all eat different stuff. They eat cereal (cheerios and/or kix), waffles, yogurt, and/or fruit. I got tired of feeding them crappy Eggo waffles so I started making my own that are much healthier made with oatmeal, milk, and almond butter. they gobble those up. No sugar! Except for the teeny bit of maple syrup. My husband eats Kashi cereal and I eat eggs, nuts, veggies, or a smoothie if I eat breakfast at home at all. Sometimes I am not hungry and wait till I get to work.

For lunch, they are either at home with the babysitter or at school. I make carrot-pumpkin muffins and homemade granola bars to supplement their usual mix of PB&J, goldfish crackers, applesauce (no sugar added), chicken nuggets, taquitos, quesadillas (made with black beans), and pasta with tomato sauce and chicken meatballs (I like the garden veggie or whatever it is brand of pasta that claims to have a serving of veggies. I need to get better about making my own sauce so I can hide more veggies in it as well.)

For snacks, I don't keep "junk" in the house - no chips, cookies (other than animal crackers), ice cream, candy, etc. I am helpless around that stuff! They have crackers, applesauce, fruit, granola bars (homemade) or homemade muffins. I do keep dark chocolate in the house for ME and use that to bribe them sometimes or as a special treat.

For dinner, they eat what we eat, but usually modified. The 6 year old will fortunately eat most kinds of plain cooked/grilled meat like chicken, fish, steak, pork chops. They get whatever veggies I am making on their plates, but they almost never eat it. Sigh. I usually make a starch but then don't eat it myself because I do better when I limit carbs. Rice, couscous, quinoa, or pasta all go well with them. The 2.5 year old gets what we get, usually cut into little pieces. Sometimes she eats it all, sometimes she eats nothing, and then I assume she isn't hungry. I try really hard to not let her fill up on starches and applesauce. Usually once a week I make a big pasta dinner and just serve my portion over veggies. They looooove spaghetti and meatballs! Oh and they both love sweet potato fries so I usually make a big batch of those or buy a big bag at Costco and make that to have on hand as a side dish for them. About once a week I make a big salad for me and my hubby and they get something "easy" and kid focused like english muffin pizzas or chicken nuggets.

They do not like "casserole" type meals, which is a bummer because I love making those. I'm slowly working on making more "saucy" or mixed foods and getting the kids to at least tolerate it on their plate.

For drinks, we generally don't keep juice in the house as the 6 year old doesn't like it and really they don't need it. They drink water, mostly. The 6 year old doesn't like milk much either, but she is in the 95%ile for height so I don't worry about that too much.

When we go out of course it is a free for all. They both love chocolate milkshakes, chips at Mexican restaurants, burgers and french fries. That's when I figure let them be kids.

I usually have a different breakfast and lunch, but that's just because everyone is eating at different times places (for instance on the weekends we'll usually all eat the same thing for all 3 meals).

This is one of my favs to make. I'm still forever tweaking it (for a better meat loaf recipe), but I've worked it down to about 130 cal per cupcake (including potato frosting). But my daughter and her friends really like it. And a little bit of food coloring goes a long way for making it fun.

My 6 year old eats the same foods as i do, if he wants salt, butter, or sauce he can eat add it. He does always get a better dessert than i do though.

My son is 7. He eats a different breakfast and lunch than I do (breakfast is waffles, toast or cereal), lunch is packed or hot from school). Dinner really depends on what I'm making. Most nights he'll eat what I make, but if it's too spicy or something I know he won't like, I'll toss in a pizza (which sometimes my hubby chooses over what I've cooked. :laugh: ) I let him choose his own desert.

On a good note, he's started choosing better - I try to offer him healthier snacks - string cheese, yogurt, carrots with ranch dressing (he calls it "ranching"), cashews (he's even starting to measure the nuts... "mommy, can I have a pound of nuts?" Of course he means ounce, but I'll take it for now! )