Name: Saheli
We often hear parents complaining that their kid eating less, or do not eat veggies or fruits.
When a baby grows to become a kid, he now has started understanding things better, is developing his own opinions and strong likes and dislikes. So also, at this stage, he has a wider exposure to the world and his parents are the ideal ones for him. This is also the time parents stop treating him like a baby and respect his likes/dislikes.
He is going through a lot of physical and mental changes. If possible, parents should try to remember their childhood and what they liked/disliked then, to understand their kid' s behavior.
A particular behavior of the kid is just a reflection of what he is learning, or how he is learning to behave and react, or just that he is imitating his parents.
There can be a range of reasons for why a certain kid eats well and why another doesn’t. What’s required is to know the cause, and take the right steps.
There are some basic things that are first needed to set, and can indirectly impact a child’s reflection of emotions through food or behavior or something else. Once that’s done, the next steps are to address problems that can directly impact his liking towards food.
We may believe that some kids have basic liking towards food and others might just hate it, still we can keep trying.
1 - LOVE:
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Love, affection and more importantly, its expression:
Needless to say to love the child. But it’s important to express it as some parents, especially the fathers, do not express to the extent a child needs. Hug, touch, pats, kisses can do wonders.
Keep a friendly environment at home. Parents - do not argue when kids are watching you.
Also, let the child know that he is being loved. When u love him, bring gifts, tell him it is because u care for him. Kids sometimes take gifts for granted and don’t know they are being gifted because parents love them.
Father and mother both share the responsibility of the kid. It’s not that the mother should always feed the kid or do the daughter’s hair. Father' s should also do it, and it is a great opportunity to bind with the kid. The kid will love it and remember for ever. Having food with father will be a new experience, so the kid will look forward to it.
2 - SCHEDULE:
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Develop a daily schedule with regular eating times and maintain it. Time for getting up, going to school, morning milk, lunch.. to dinner, to bed, everything. This way the child can expect what is coming.
Some kids don’t eat food because by the time they realize they are hungry, they are also tired and sleepy and don’t know what to do, so they cry. Parents, at such times, are worried as they know kid is hungry so force the kid to eat. Forcing something the kid doesn’t want to do will only develop hatred for food.
A schedule will help maintain right timings.
You can actually make a weekly diet plan what to feed the kid so u r sure all the vital nutrition is going to him.
The Food Square for guidance:
I picked this up from Tarladalal site. The Food Square below, though is put up for babies, but I think will help us understand the basic food groups and their combinations that form a balanced diet that is the basis of supplementary feeding.
All the components of the Food Square are important for the nourishment. However, it is not necessary to provide for all these either in the same meal or at the same time.
1) The Staple : Cereals (e.g. Wheat, Rice etc.) Millets (e.g. Jowar, Bajra etc.) Roots and Tubers (Potato, Carrot etc.)
2) Protein Supplements: Legumes (e.g. Matki, Cow pea etc.) Dals (e.g. Masoor dal, Toovar dal etc.) Nuts (e.g. Walnut, Almond etc.) Dairy Products (e.g. milk, cheese, cyourds, paneer)
3) Vitamin and Mineral Supplements : Eg Fruits, veg
4) Energy supplements : Sugar and Jaggerey, Fats and Oils (e.g. butter, oil, vanaspati)
3 - HEALTH:
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Regular check-ups with doc are recommended. Kids with low iron may have a loss of appetite. There may be other problems like worms, etc which can cause loss of appetite and be diagnosed only by the doc. Also, a doc is the best person to tell you diet for the kid.
There are ayurvedic appetite-enhancer tonics available in market. Check with your doc if you can give them to the kid. One such has really helped my kid.
4 - TRAINING THE KID-
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Training t starts when he is a baby for eating himself : Train your kid to learn feeding himself as early as 6m. When he is able to sit with support, put him in a high-chair and give finger foods along with toys. Gradually, as the baby grows, train the baby to eat by himself. In India we have always had the manpower to feed the baby so we do not have this trend, but in countries like USA, the kids start eating by themselves very early.
You would rarely see a 3yr old kid being fed by mother.
If you have not done this, never mind, remember that if you plan to have another baby. Read ahead.
- BE HIS LEADER:
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Remove junk food from home. Just stop buying the junk snacks and cool drinks. Don’t keep them in fridge. Show him u eat healthy, so he will also develop the same habits.
- TALK TO THE KID, HE AIN’T A BABY ANYMORE:
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Time and again, communicate with the kid - talk to the kid like an elder, he can understand. Tell him he is a big boy now so feeding himself is his responsibility and not parents. Remind him that parents eat by themselves, so should he, if he thinks he is a big boy. Talk with love and respect, praise his trials in front of guests etc, this will encourage him.
EXPLAIN -
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Make the kid understand why it is important to eat different types of foods. Show him colorful food charts, tell him about vitamins minerals proteins and what contains what. Explain at his level. Eg. tell him calcium is white so all white things contain calcium (and many times its true) .. so milk is best source of calcium.
Not eating papaya? Tell him it contains Vit A which is good for eyes.
Red colored things like Carrot, beetroots - Tell blood is red so these things make more blood.
Talk about Popeye who eats Spinach.
Take him to doc (settle with doc in advance to tell him about importance of foods and how junk food id bad)
TRAIN THE KID TO EAT BY HIMSELF ---
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When you give food to the kid, give small portions. Kids get frightened to see a plate full to eat! Let him choose how much he wants to eat and don’t force if he doesn’t finish that. Praise for whatever he has had himself. As he develops trust in you, gradually increase the quantity.
If he just refuses to eat, tell him calmly that he needs to eat and that he won’t get food till night. For sure, the kid won’t believe you. Don’t force the kid to eat and let him be hungry for few initial times. When he gets hungry, he will look for munching or ask you for food. Then remind him and say that now he will not get food. Maintain it. Let him be hungry and feed the hunger for a while. When you see he is realizing, give him to eat. (Try this when you have checked with the doc that kid is fine, there are no problems like iron deficiency or worms.)
Do this for few days. Change your actions as per kid’s response. But never ever force, scold, hurt the kid.
5 - PRESENTATION MATTERS A LOT FOR KIDS
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Eating same boring food in same boring plates and bowls! Please Ma, gimme a break!
1) Buy some colorful and different shaped plates, glasses, spoons, bowls, those that have your kid’s favorite heroes and keep them out of sight of the kid. Take out one new set and serve in this. When kid gets bored of this, take out new and hide old one. Keep recycling.
2) Don’t put coriander or take off onions if kid doesn’t like.
3) Be innovative. Serve regular things but present beautifully. You don’t need to do much to achieve this, just use some creativity. For eg, serve roti sometimes as paratha, sometimes poori, make diff shapes like triangle, square etc. Particularly, use shapes your kid is learning. You can use the moulds that come in clay-dough toys for shapes. Keep them handy always so that u don’t need to invest time.
Learn making things in different ways. For eg, if kid doesn’t like raw sprouts, there are ways. Learn cooking \" usal\" , its available on tarladalal site.
Add kid' s favorites to the boring items. Eg if your kid likes cheese, then make a paratha by mixing spinach puree in atta and add cheese. Tell him its green cheese paratha.
Sprinkle/mix grated cheese on salads, sprouts etc and serve in his favorite bowl.
Try variations. You know what a wide range of items the markets contain today. Keep trying new ones if you are sure they are not harmful. But remember homemade fresh food is best always.
6 - RESPECT KID’S CHOICES, DEVELOP TRUST:
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Make a list of things your kid likes/dislikes to eat. For those that he likes, you can give variations of it by adding things that he dislikes to it, so as to ensure the nutrition is going in. For eg, adding spinach to egg-omelets.
Make him understand u r doing this and so respecting his likes, and thus he should also respect yours and eat what u serve, and so has to finish the food next time even if it’s not as per his liking.
If you see that kid has been eating well for pat some meals, for one meal let him really eat what he wants. Even if it is potato chips and chocolates, let him enjoy. Offer a pack of juice Giving them freedom once a while will develop trust and respect for you.
7 - GIVE HIM SPACE AND COMFORT ---
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Don’t restrict too much or nag him for eating. Balance it out.
Especially when the kid has had a bad time for something else (even fight with a friend), don’t scold him now for food too.
Say you and your kid have had a hard time during lunch, make sure dinner is easy for him. You don’t want him to believe mom is just nagging and start hating you for that.
Let the kid have a chocolate of pack of potato chips once a while. Take the kid yourself to the shop and let him pick it up.
8 - DEVELOPING THE \" TASTE\" :
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If your family eats the food with an expression of liking it, your kid will learn it unknowingly. If there is anybody in the family speaking about \" I don’t like spinach, I don’t like mangoes\" , your kid is likely to get biased and develop similar tastes.
I don’t like fizzy drinks nor does my hubby like them. When my kid was growing up I had the fear she might start liking it. For initial times, I had the drink with her and I gave very bad expressions after sipping a few. As a new-drinker my child was also getting the cola-burps, so she too did not appreciate it. Today at 5 yrs, my kid never asks me for colas or fizzy drinks.
9 - MAKE EATING TIME A FUN TIME NOT A RUN TIME:
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And this lesson starts very early. Mothers who have had tough time feeding the babies and have fed the babies forcefully, their babies are likely to grow up with hatred for that \" eating process\" . If not when a baby, it can also happen when the kid is growing up and developing tastes and mothers force them. Such kids try to find escape routes like stomach ache or sleep.
For babies, some good ideas are baby gyms, toys especially at eating times, music with dance and expressions from mom, stories, etc.
For kids, the best thing I have found is diversion. Let me say, a positive diversion. Use stories, incidents, teachings, books, anything like that, at meal times. When I run out of stories and do not have anything at the top of my mind, I start telling my kid what all I did in morning with \" you know what happened ..\" .. and she listens interestingly.
Having meal with entire family on dining table is the best thing. If not, the person/mother should have food with the kid, be it from 1 plate or 2.
I always loved to eat from my mother’s plate. As a kid, I would find her way of eating interesting --- like a morsel of roti daal and chatni, other with pickle, third with curd, etc. I would try to imitate her and thus eat by myself.
While eating with my mom in same plate, she used to share the plate areas. In my area, she would keep morsels by the name of different characters in the story she is telling me. So for the Cinderella story, there would be different sized morsels in my plate --- a fat one, a thin one, one with aloo-sabji wd be Cinderella as I liked that sabji ... so on and so forth. I needed to eat them by myself. Then she would ask me to finish the stepmother first !
- Competition
Some people believe and some do not believe the idea of competition. You make the kid compete with something, say a TV program, another kid, another person, and whosoever finishes first, will get a prize.
- Bribing:
Though this is not a healthy practice, this can be used at times. It’s simple. \" If you finish your plate, I will give you the chocolate\" .
- Fear :
The child needs to understand that if he misbehaves, he will get a scolding or punishment. He needs to understand that parents will pamper till a limit. Scold pr punish the child as you feel right when you see him going beyond limits.
Never hit/hurt/slap the child. Never yell or scream at him. Never be violent. Never.
You can have punishments like mom and dad not talking to him for a little while, or not letting him see his favorite cartoon.
10 - PSYCHOLOGY
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Kids don’t like plates too full. Give then little but may be 2-3 servings.
Combine items that he likes and dislikes and offer. Kids generally look at the plate and say \" Out of these I will finish aloo-sabji and roti, not daal\" . Manipulate. Say its ok, say you will not scold on that but he needs to finish half the daal at least. If he resists, add an interesting item to his plate, say papad or curd or a sweet that he likes. Now say, if you finish half the daal, I will give you halwa/kheer as well.
Don’t force too much. Especially if you see the child is reluctant, stop arguing with him. Its only going to make the child resist ore, or loose to your temper, but will learn that eating time is not fun time and \" mummy is a bad girl\" .
Don’t always deny if kid asks you to feed him. Though it may mean most times that he is escaping to eat by himself, it also means at times that he needs your attention and love, and your feeding him gives him the feeling of security as well.
And if you have a second baby, you might find the elder one throwing more tantrums. The kid is watching you always feed the baby. He does understand that baby can’t eat by himself but he wants the assurance and security that mom loves him too. Feed him at such times, at least a few morsels if not all.
Give the responsibility to father at times. This will help you in two ways. The kid will like it, dad will like it. Secondly, fathers are generally cool and get the task done without much hassle. You will learn how you can make the child eat without losing temper.
A child sees mom-n-dad as a together/combo/package always. If you are having management issues because of a small baby and elder child, dad feeding the child or managing kid while he eats is a great option. He wont have the insecurity feeling if dad is with him during dinner.
- Involve the kid:
Let the kid pick up groceries, vegetables and fruits of his choice when you go to market. Let him pick them, pay for them as well as carry home. When you reach home, tell others what a wonderful job he did today (if you have no one home, make a fake phone call and pretend!)
Let the kid even help in cooking, be it boy or girl. Praise on helping, especially tell it to people that he helped. Kids loved to eat food cooked by them. Let him help in making diff shaped rotis, putting masalas or salt to daal or sabjis, cutting paneer or cheese with blunt knife, peeling boiled potatoes, etc. when u serve it to people, say it was cooked by the kid.
Let the girl kid use her toy-utensils for eating or cooking.
Kids just love to eat what they bought/cooked.
11 - EATING HEALTHY SNACKS:
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Mostly, when kids see something to eat easily \" accessible\" , they start eating. On your dining table or on the kid’s table, or wherever the kid can see and access easily, keep jars of HEALTHY tit-bits. Pieces of jaggery, peanuts, dry fruits and nuts, honey, mathris made from healthy attas, Chikkis/RiceCrispies of jaggery/peanuts/sesame, laddoos, dhoklas. Use decorative jars so that they look good on the table and the kid finds attractive too.
When I tried this, initially my kid did not touch it for 1-2 months. (I am a working person) and lately I am finding the jars getting empty. On asking, the kid said she has been eating them!
Keep healthy drinks in refrigerator thus ensuring good liquid intake for the kid. If you don’t have time to give homemade, use Small packs (carry-packs or one-time packs) of juices, chaach, lassi, flavoured milk, etc. a hungry kid will pick one. You can also keep warm soup.
Keep the fridge clean and neatly arranged and full with healthy eatables.
My kid told me this - When I am in office, and she gets hungry, she opens the fridge and finds interesting to see the different juice packs, soy milk, diff cheese, fruits, snacks etc neatly kept. She keeps picking one by one and eats.
Another good option is the ready-made cereals. They come in different colors, tastes, and kids like to eat them.
Another idea - My kid once tasted a baby’s cereal (Cerelac) and liked it. I let her have it mixed with milk.
I was surprised to see the large variety of simple healthy snacks for kids on cooking sites. When we don’t have time, these can be made surprisingly fast.
Instead of keeping maida-biscuits, chocolates, ready-made foods, junk food, give these healthy things.
Fruits and vegetables : Something hard to make kids eat. Try telling them the advantages of veg and fruits. Don’t force for the things he doesn’t like. Try giving it in diff forms instead. Soups --- grind the veg kid doesn’t like and keep one he likes. Add cheese to enhance his favorite taste. Make vegetable parathas, add them to pulao. Give fruit cream with jelly. Mash banana in milk/malai and sugar. Fruits topped with some icecream/syrup/hot chocolate and some colorful tiny grain like candies etc. Shakes, juices will also help. Make fresh fruit juice and add little veg. Thus kid will get veg juice but taste of fruit.
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Some tips:
- Mix healthy attas to wheat aata. Eg soya aata. Mix attas are available in market to be mixed with regular wheat atta.
- Add spinach/mushroom/cheese to omlettes
- Offer without asking or telling. You see your kid reading book or coloring, just keep a late of fruits next to him. He will start eating.
- Kid doesn’t like milk? Don’t force too much. Try variites like milk shakes (check out lealthy shakes from cooking sites), homemade yogurts, custard, kheers, cheese items, etc. Or try giving variety in everyday milk such as cold coffee, shake, milk with almond oil, with health drink like bournvita, with cereal, milk with honey etc. Keep 6-7 different colorful glasses for each day of the week --- one with in-built straw, other long, third glass mug, etc. Keep varieties of straws and decorative items for drinks like those small umbrellas, sticks with cherry or olives, etc.
These small things should be kept handy in kitchen so that using them is easy and not an overhead.
- Add peanuts to pulao
- Say your kid likes rice, so make pulaos and khichdis. Look for different varieties of the same on cooking sites. There is a khichdi with 7 daals.
Add veggies, daals to it. He will eat rice and you will provide other nutrition.
- Kid likes omelet? Add mushroom cheese spinach tomatoes crushed-peas, etc.
- Want to feed egg but kid dislikes? Try french toast, cut in diff shapes like triangles and decorate with ketchup and serve in beautiful dish. Serve without telling him u r cooking something for him. He will like the surprise!
- Bday parties : exclude colas and junk foods. Serve healthy drinks and healthy foods. Encourage / request other people to exclude unhealthy foods when you see the bday party invitation.
- Vegetables: Did you like to eat them when you were a kid? Especially green leafy vegetables?
Put veggies in pulao, daliya, curry, daal, raita. If your kid really hates them remove them after cooking the dish. Try soups --- clear or thick. Some kids like tomatoe or cucumber slices with lemon juice, pepper, salt sprinkled on it. Try that and such different ideas. Make parathas --- raddish, gajar, gobi, palak, methi .. the list is endless. Add cheese to parathas if ur kid likes.
Make roti/paratha rolls. Cook a thin omlette and while its cooking on the tava, put one roti on it so that omlette cooks sticking to the roti. Now make a roll of this, add some pre-cooked veggies with paneer, ketchup, grated cheese, or pre-cooked sprouts. Garnish with a cheery/olive in a toothprick. Serve with potatochips.
- Buy some big colorful cook-books and keep them on kid’s table or in the loo. The kid is likely to pick up and turn the pages and come to you saying \" this dish looks so good, please make it for me\" .
These are some helpful hints I have gathered from diff places. If other people have more tips and tricks, please fill in here. Will help parents refer to one single post.
pls. give me sum websites links
finger foods and meat alternatives for vegies.
hi
Good job!
agree fully
Thanx
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