The 13 Best Things I’ve Learned About Feeding Kids

1. The rule of a bifa works … until

Our eldest son voluntarily gave a bite of each new food, and I thought I had solved everything.

Until our second child arrived.

He did not want to take «just a bite», and became a battle of wills, leaving us all miserable and exhausted (and that bite never took).

The same goes for any type of food or advice strategy, included in this blog: what works in the morning with a child may not work with another.

Even two children raised in the same house with the same meals and routines can have very different preferences and habits. Case in question: While I was a fussy dining room, my brother ate almost everything without complaints.

Get more: should your child take only one bite?

2. Don’t worry about small things

Do you know those moments of parenting in which you would like to have an invoice, those that wake you up at 2 am in a puddle of repentance? (Right? Only me?)

One of mine occurred in an Ohio State football match, where I had a crisis about children who wanted soft drinks. The temperatures exploded and ruined what could have been a fun family day. About sugar.

At that time, I was concerned that each bite or sip were breaking, which was somehow condemning my children to a life of disease and sugar addiction if we did not ask for water.

Fortunately, I have lightened a lot over the years and I have found a much healthier mentality around food and balance for my children. And for me.

Get more: How intuitive food can help you make peace with food

3. Serve early salads already

I hit myself for some things, but this is a movement that I am happy to have done: I began to serve early green salads in the life of my children, and now I both eat them and ordered them in restaurants.

I put a great value in this for a couple of reasons:

• They saw salad almost every night at dinner and learned that vegetables, especially green leaves, are not disgusting.
• They learned to eat different types of mixed foods when things were added such as grated carrots or peppers cut into cubes. Eating mixed dishes is a big problem for some children, especially chilling dining rooms.

Get more: how to teach your children to love salad

4. Doing only one meal prepares you for free

As an ancient extremely fhakeing dining room that rarely ate what my dear mother cooked for dinner, did not want to go along the way of the noodles with my own children.

So from the beginning, I just did one Food every night, deconstructing some mixed dishes (such as the photo above) and allowing children to choose not to participate in certain food components, such as a particular sauce or vegetables, if they wanted to.

I made sure there was something at the table they liked, even if it was only rice, and I decided to be well if they occasionally ate that rice for dinner.

In my opinion, if I did not give my children a free card to get out of dinner in the form of PBJ or chicken nuggets, they would have more incentives to eat what I did. And in general, that was the case.

Get more: the dinner time rule that will change your life

5. People’s food options are their own business

I shudder when I read some of my first publications. I was critical and I was in the affairs of other people, especially when it came to PEE-WEE sports side snacks.

I learned in the difficult way that food choices are emotional and personal, especially when it comes to what people feed their children, and that I have no right to tell other people what to do.

Sometimes, those food options affected my own children, such as when they took the cupcakes to football fields after practice.

But there are better ways to promulgate that shame or growl.

Do I still believe in healthy team snacks? Yes. Would you like to have done it in a different way? Also yes.

Get more: how parents can create a healthy team snack plan for children

6. The only constant is change

It is Murphy’s raising law: once you feel that you have finally dominated a phase or stage, everything changes.

But I have discovered that the opposite is also true. Just when you have accepted that your child will never enjoy piano lessons, remember to say thanks or as green beans, they can surprise you.

That is why you should never cancel a meal forever, even if your child has denied it by years. Our youngest son did not eat cucumbers, until he took one from a restaurant salad that I had one night and announced that he wanted to try them. The same for Guacamole. Our eldest son rejected pesto for years before deciding that it was good.

To this day, my mother still looks at my dish and says: «Do you eat that now?»

Get more: your son hates vegetables. Now what?

7. Hungry children are easier to feed

When my children were young, my bag was full of boxes of raisins and cookie containers. Everything that was needed was a collapse induced by hunger in Target, and I never left the house without an arsenal of snacks for my children. Just in case.

But I learned that children who are nibbling all day are never much hungry for meals, which can do them seem much more demanding than they really are.

Of course, snacks can be useful. But it’s okay that children are hungry. It is the natural order of things. Then, before labeling your child as a fussy, consider how hungry it is when it really comes to the table.

Get more: 5 easy mistakes that worsen demanding food

8. Comparison is the thief of joy

The fact that your friend’s son loves quinoa does not mean that yours has to do it. And the fact that this child on Instagram takes sushi and cucumber salad in a Bento box to school for lunch does not make his son’s brown bag lower.

Comparing our child with another person’s is never useful, either as soon as they slept during the night with the university that were accepted. Or what (and how much) eat.

Get more: The type of dining rooms I want my children to be and why boring lunches could be better for some children

9. Those two additional snacks do not matter

They can even get worse.

How long did I waste deciding how many more bites each child needed in their dish before they «could be done»? Too much.

When I stopped microgestion and began to trust that my children ate what they needed, they really did.

Yes, sometimes they jumped from the table after a couple of snacks and announced that they were hungry again as soon as the dishes were clear. But over time, they discovered it, and I could focus on my dish, not on them.

Get more: why pressing children to eat does not work (and what to do in their place)

10. Family dinner improves

The «family dinner» has a lovely ring, but it is not always lovely. Family dinner can be especially difficult when children are very young. They are tired. You are tired. Someone is shedding something. And someone is crying because his slice of pizza is cut into pieces, but they wanted him whole.

My husband and I move forward through some difficult dinners with our children. But we kept our eyes in the prize: surely, children cannot make tantrums about the color of their cup forever and, eventually, they would learn to pour their own milk and sit in their seat for more than two and a half minutes.

So we continued in that and made the family dinner a priority. Over time, it improved a lot. My eldest son even named family dinner his favorite family tradition in a university request (*Solloza!*).

Get more: the truth about family dinner

11. Even bad moods should learn to cook

I tried and tried to take my children to the kitchen. I was ashamed to have had a blog about feeding the children and writing about the importance of teaching children to cook, but my two do not enjoy helping to prepare a meal.

There were brief periods of enthusiasm and moments that were seized with the desire to cook or bake. But in general, they resisted. And instead of pushing, I turned on good podcasts and savored the time only in the kitchen.

However, now my university son is preparing to live alone, and I am giving him an intensive course on how to cook chicken breasts. I wish I would have made cooking a non -negotiable. (Fortunately, Hellofresh food kits are helping me take my youngest son to the kitchen more frequently).

Get more: easy and healthy meal preparation for university children

12. Serve the foods you don’t like

Another false step of our part. My husband and I are recovering fellbides and among us, we have a handful of foods that we still don’t like, such as tomatoes and eggplants.

So I didn’t incorporate those foods in our meals. And as a result, our children either eat those foods. *Sad Trombon Cue

I know there is still time. It is never too late to learn that I like a new meal. But it would have been easier if we had done it from the beginning.

Get more: it was a fussy dining room. This is what I want you to know.

13. A happy dinner is more important than everything else

No matter how many cauliflower snacks they took or who had the elbows on the table (like my son above!).

It matters if their children feel safe and accepted at the table, not persecuted and punished for what they eat, or, rather, they do not eat.

So, as much as I can, keep the pleasant dinner (ISH). Ask silly questions. Play small games. Know what will improve.

Because time goes fast. And before you realize, you will miss having those elbows on the table too.

Get more: start of conversation for family food that makes children talk