Five ways to fight the ‘fussy eaters’ battle

FIVES WAYS TO FIGHT THE ‘FUSSY EATERS’ BATTLE

I had never experienced the hassle of a fussily eating child with my daughter, she ate everything put in front of her from Chilli Con Carne to a mild curry from an early age and I was so pleased at what an easy little girl she was to feed,  so when my son was born and started on solids I was baffled when he refused to eat so many of the foods that his sister relished.

His fussiness didn’t get any better as he got older and I started to find it very disheartening when he refused to eat the meals I cooked. It wasn’t long before I came up with some ideas to try and make meal times slightly more bearable and I developed a few tricks that seemed to have some quite positive results. Below are five of my tried and tested tips to encourage a fussy eater to enjoy their meal without the fuss and aggravation.

Make food fun

Kids are naturally curious and respond well to things that are a little bit different or unusual, from my experience I have found that making meals more fun has definitely helped with my son’s fussy eating habits.

There are endless ways that you could turn a meal into something exciting and exotic but probably some of the most simple ideas are funny faces, perhaps with vegetable features and mashed potato or pasta hair, enchanted gardens with veggie patches, gravy ponds and magical meat rock formations or mashed potato volcanoes, with vegetable vegetation around the base and perhaps either ketchup or gravy lava. 

Create a story

Something else I have found that proves very popular is a storyline to go with the meal they are eating. We all know Popeye ate spinach to make him strong and Bugs Bunny was partial to carrots so, with a little creative licence, take you child’s favourite TV or film character and weave a little story about the food they love to eat, maybe it gives them super powers or helps them see in the dark or perhaps it makes them more intelligent. It’s not completely untrue, we all know vegetables give us the much needed vitamins for healthy development and fish contains omega 3 which is particularly good for the brain.

Let them help

Kids love to have responsibility and like to know that they are contributing something important and helpful. They are also more likely to eat a meal that they have prepared from beginning to end, seeing the full process and all the ingredients.

Why not let them prepare a simple meal, under close supervision, and see what happens. Children are proud of their achievements so tell them how delicious their creation looks, even if it looks a bit suspect, and then just sit back and watch them devour their culinary creation. 

Let them choose

Allowing your child to choose the ingredients that go into the evening meal can make a tremendous difference as to whether they eat it or just push it around their plate.

Again, responsibility and trust go a long way in making a child feel important and grown up and letting them choose the family’s dinner is quite a privilege. 

Colour themed.

If your child has a favourite racing team, football strip or colourful TV character you could try colour co-ordinating their meal to match. This isn’t going to be easy if their favourite football strip or character are bright and unusual colours but vegetables come in a wide variety of colours and meats and gravy  can add the more neutral tones so it shouldn’t be too hard to create something similar to your child’s passion. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect, your child will be able to use their imagination to bring your representation to life and, the fact that it was created just for them will please your little ones no end. I hope these tips prove helpful, there is no guarantee that they will work every time but they may help to lighten the load on an over worked mum every so often.