The Feeding Relationship

The parent’s job

What:

Parents control the money and shopping at this age and make most decisions of what to buy.

The parent controls what food is bought, stored, cooked, and served.

The parent decides where eating and drinking will take place. Eating at the table should be encouraged to minimize the risk of choking while running, walking,or climbing. It’s also a good habit to get into, as non-aware eating can lead to weight issues. When children eat while watching movies, playing video games, or computers, they are not consciously enjoying the food or even paying attention to what they are eating.  Although, I have noticed you can easily slip a plate of raw vegetables and dip under their noses while they are playing video games and the whole plate is gone in minutes. I don’t even think they notice what they just ate!

More Eating Tips

• Food jags are normal, where the child eats nothing but peanut butter and jam sandwiches for three weeks or a longer period of time. That’s okay. As long as it’s a healthy food, don’t worry about their nutritional intake. Most parents who worried about nutrition, found that their toddlers did eat a variety of foods when they kept a log of their food intake over a week or two week period.
•  It takes 15 tries to accept a new food. Have a one bite routine – try one bite (the no-thank-you bite) and see if your child likes it. If they don’t, let them spit it out. Don’t turn the one bite routine into a power struggle. Young children have very sensitive taste buds and they definitely will change overtime.
• Toddlers usually don’t eat much at dinner. They are tired and cranky at the end of the day. Track their lunch and breakfast intake.
• Toddlers usually prefer finger type foods.
• Cut a bathmat in half and use it on the highchair seat so they don’t slide out.
• To save time, don’t use dishes. Put the food right on the tray. Then the plate won’t be thrown.
• Give baby a spoon for each hand and then you can feed him with a separate spoon. It keeps his hands busy.
• Give a butter spreader to help preschoolers cut food.
• Let a toddler practice drinking from a sippy cup in the bathtub.
• Fill toddler glasses only one third full, and make sure all dishes are plastic.
• Cool hot food by dumping in an ice cube.
• Be aware of micro-waving mugs with the attached plastic straws on the outside.
• The liquid in the straw heats first and can cause burns because the toddler drinks it first.
•  Clean highchairs and strollers in the shower. Run water and let the encrusted food soften. Works as well outside in the summer with the hose.
• Dumping, mushing, and throwing food are exploratory behaviors. A little food exploration is part of development. When the food deliberately hits the walls, or the food exploration is testing your patience on a stressful day, it’s a signal that mealtime is over. Remove your child from the eating place.
• If the toddler doesn’t sit still at mealtime, schedule a burn up activity right before mealtime, and they will have used up some energy. Before a restaurant visit, go to a playground. In fact, this works well for any event that requires a certain amount of sit still time: weddings, church, movies, concerts. Be thankful for 10 – 15 minutes, as this is all you might get!
• Let them feed themselves with non-messy foods like peas and bread pieces while you can still feed the messy stuff with the spoon.
• Try serving finger foods with dip or sauce. All children love sauces to swirl.
• Serve mini portions of old favorites: pancakes, muffins, meatballs.
• Let them pour their own juice using the dishwasher door as a counter surface.
• Then you can just close the door after they spill and the mess goes into the dishwasher.
• Serve a tray of carrot sticks, broccoli florets, red pepper, and salad dressing as you are getting dinner ready. Guaranteed it will be gone!
• You can pretend to sprinkle sugar over the cereal and nobody will notice the difference. Just wave your spoon over and your toddler will think you put sugar and salt on their food.
• Young children tend to like their food separated. Avoid casseroles if possible.
• Serve dessert along with the meal. Don’t elevate the status of dessert as more desirable by declaring it the prize for eating the lesser-valued dinner items.
• Purée vegetables to hide in soups and sauces.
• Make sure dessert is healthy. Fruit, yogurt, ice-cream and oatmeal cookies are all very healthy choices and part of a balanced diet.
• Avoid classifying food into “good” and “bad” categories. Use “more nutritious” and “less nutritious” so you get your child into the habit of making better food choice decisions.
• Avoid punishing or rewarding a child with food items.
• Treats are occasional foods. They wouldn’t be called treats if they were served every day. Designate a treat day.
• Avoid bargaining using food. Parents who say, “Eat four more bites of your hamburger and then you can have your toy,” are setting themselves up for power struggles. Children learn very quickly that parents want them to eat, and by refusing, they can get attention and control. Give children attention for positive behavior and control in the form of choices. Don’t make eating a power struggle.
• For fun, serve food on doll or play dishes.
• Preserve the social function of food. A comforting, social, happy atmosphere at meal and snack time and a wide variety of healthy foods is all that’s needed for childhood nutrition.

Judy Arnall is a professional international award-winning Parenting Speaker, and Trainer, Mom of five children, and author of the best-selling, “Discipline Without Distress: 135 tools for raising caring, responsible children without time-out, spanking, punishment or bribery

“ She specializes in “Parenting the Digital Generation” and picky eating habits www.professionalparenting.ca (403) 714-6766 jarnall@shaw.ca