How To Stop My Child From Being A Picky Eater?
If you want to prevent your child from becoming a picky eater you need these 5 Basic Tips for feeding kids the no hassle way.
What To Do When Your Child Won't Eat?
Having a child who refuses to eat is stressful to say the least.
To begin resolving the problem it is important to pinpoint what is triggering this resistance towards eating new foods.
Is it a sensory issue where your child struggles with unfamiliar textures?
Is your child use to eating a highly processed diet?
What do meal times look like in your home?
Are good eating habits being modeled by others in the family?
There are many reason why a child may develop the habit of being a picky eater.
Once you have established an understanding of the root issue you can begin following these simple tips for guiding your child towards better eating habits.
My Child Won't Eat Anything I Make?
Nothing is worse than taking the time to prepare a meal for your child only to have them refuse to eat it.
Unfortunately, this behavior can become a catalyst for enabling your child to develop unhealthy eating habits.
Let's face it as parents its exhausting and sometimes its just easier to give into to their demands.
So here we are chicken nuggets again...
This is the hardest part of helping a picky eater develop better habits and its the hardest part of breaking the cycle.
How To Help A Child Who Is A Picky Eater?
If you have a picky eater on your hands you need a plan.
A simple plan for how to address this ongoing issue.
Consider meal planning simple family favorite meals that are kid friendly and have wholesome lunch ingredients available for making nutritious options available throughout the day.
Let your child know what the menu plan is for the week or even just that day to let them know what to expect at meal times.
With this simple approach you can begin gaining control over your child's eating habits and begin implementing these following tips to encourage your picky eater to become a real foodie.
What To Do When Your Child Refuses To Eat Dinner?
With these practices in place you will encourage better eating habits and you child will enjoy a variety of nutritious foods to nourish their development.
If you child refuses to eat dinner consider what triggers this behavior?
Is your child overly tired?
Have you offered ingredients you know for a fact they enjoy?
Have you made a wholesome meal that tastes good?
If you have offered a wholesome meal that the family enjoys and your child still refuses to eat then go old school...
send them to bed hungry.
If they can't eat their dinner there are no snacks and its straight to bed.
It will only take consistency with this rule and you will see a great improvement in your child's ability to eat their dinner.
However, be mindful in not forcing your child to ignore their own hunger cues.
Allow your child to have the independence to decided when they are full and serve them portions that are suitable to avoid the clean your plate power struggle.
How To Get Picky Eaters To Try New Foods?
Check out our 5 Top Tips for getting your picky eater to try new foods and actually enjoy it.
#1 Wholesome Foods
Have wholesome foods available for preparing healthy snacks and meals for your child.
Consider creating a snack drawer that contains a balanced variety of snacks.
Limit purchases of processed foods.
The snacks available for your child should mainly be fruits and vegetables that they can pair with a yogurt, crackers, deli meat, or a cheese stick.
Keep it simple with just a few healthy options they can have available.
If your child is obsessed with one food consider slowly fazing it out for now while you introduce new options.
#2 Limit What You Purchase
Remember you decide what to purchase?
By creating a list you can create an environment that makes it easy to make better food choices.
With a super picky eater still have the limited things they enjoy on hand, but your main focus is to help them shift to having an open mindset with it comes to new ingredients.
#3 Deconstructed Meals
The way you present food to anyone is critical, but especially when it comes to feeding a picky eater.
Deconstructing their meals is a great solution that allows your child the independence to pick and choose the ingredients they enjoy most.
Any meal can be deconstructed simply by portioning out ingredients into separate sections.
This is a great way to allow them to have 1 or 2 ingredients they love and then add something new.
Make meals more appealing by serving in cute containers or in a bento box is a great idea to entice your child into trying new ingredients.
Also adjust your expectations depending upon the level of severity of picky eating you are dealing with.
Maybe its a bite one night.
Then a spoonful the next.
It can be slow progress in the beginning, but with time your child will learn to enjoy an assortment of foods.
#4 Involvement
This is a key element in developing better eating habits with a picky eater.
Most often the most pickiest of eaters often also have a disconnection from the food in general.
This is especially true if the child is often eating a highly processed diet of foods that are high in salt, sugar, and carbohydrates.
By helping your child build a better connection to food you will also encourage an open mindset that is more optimistic towards trying new recipes.
You can build your child's connection to food with involvement by simply allowing them to help in the kitchen and even consider building a small garden so your child can learn where their food comes from making them more excited to try new ingredients.
#5 Consistency
As with anything, the key aspect of helping your picky eater to develop better eating habits is simply to be consistent.
Be consistent in your expectations regarding meals.
Be consistent in offering your child wholesome foods and aiding them in developing a better connection to food which is after all one of life's greatest pleasures.
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