Meal time for my toddler is a struggle. Breakfast, lunch, dinner… all included! They are all struggles in my house. My daughter is also a picky eater when she wants to be, so that makes for finding the right type of food a challenge as well. My husband and I struggle to get my daughter to sit down and eat her food with us at the table unless we are eating something she really likes (Spaghetti, pizza, chicken nuggets, steak). We usually try to give her a few choices for her food. Lunch is the worst.
I started to look to see if other moms were having issues with meal times with their toddlers. I found that other moms were having issues with presenting meals to their children and getting them to eat it as well. This made me feel slightly better, but still didn’t solve my overall problem.
How to make meal time easier for parents and kids?
Here are some tips.
1. Find a fun plate to put your child’s food on.
I found this plate from a company called EZPZ. Their products consist of many different shapes of really fun plates for kids. It is essentially an all-in-one place mat that clings to the table so it makes it very difficult for a child to move their plate and spill everything all over the floor.
Along with helping parents create less mess, it also sets up nice areas where you can place food in them, like the picture on my left, I was able to place a strawberry in each little flower petal!
Having a plate that is made of fun designs that you can place food in, makes meal time more fun and it makes eating a more exciting. My daughter loved to pull the strawberries out of each of the little petals and eat them.
2. Find something they like and use it at the table.
This is amazing because she loves when I put all the food in the happy faces eyes and then putting the food in the mouth. Bringing in a fun plate can change the mood of meal time because we always talk about how much she will need to eat in order to uncover the eyes and mouth. She loves this game. It makes eating fun and she can see her results. Click here for the happy mat.
3. Find easy foods that you can make for your kids. I struggle with trying to find foods that are healthy and that my daughter will eat. Here is a great list of foods that are easy to make and tasty and here is a great book with recipes for quick snacks and meals.
Meal time does not always need to be a struggle. Make sure you are making it fun and not punishing. This is huge because you can turn your child away from wanting to sit down and eat. Making it fun and having yummy tasting food can be a game changer in many situations.
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