10 Top Tips on Toddler Eating

10 tips on how to help your toddler have a healthy relationship with food
 
1 Trust your child
We need to trust our children to know when they are hungry and when they are not. It's important we allow them to listen to their body signals.
Portion sizes for toddlers are much less than we think. And they take on all the nutrients they need over the course of a week rather than each day. All you have to do it make sure you are offering a variety of healthy food.
 
2 Keep the emotion out of it.
It is really important not to praise a child for eating. This can set up food as a reward or a comfort when unhappy, which may lead to comfort eating later in life. It is also important not to punish children for not eating. Creating negative associations with food is likely to increase any strugles you have with your child's eating habits. If you feel the need to comment then simply say what you see. ‘You've eaten all your peas’.
 
3 Offer ‘safe’ foods with every meal
Toddlers reduce the variety of food they will eat from around 18 months until 5 years of age. This is a biological mechanism which is designed to keep them safe. They only eat foods they have regularly eaten or can recognise. When providing your toddler with a meal you are not sure they will like, offer them some ‘safe’ foods alongside it so there is  always something they are happy to eat available.. Don't stop offering them foods because they don't eat them, they have to see and experience a food many times before they add it to their safe category. 

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4 Develop your nutrition awareness
Did you know that peas have protein? And vitamin C, and vitamin B, and vitamin A, and iron, and fibre, and magnesium and carbohydrates. Knowing what nutrients your child is actually getting from the foods they like, means you can worry less about the foods they don't like. Make a list of their favourite foods and research what nutrients they are getting. And it's ok if they eat the same foods every week or day. They don't get as bored with meals as we do.
 
5 Involve them in the prep/ cooking
Children are more likely to eat meals if they know what has gone into making it and they feel involved in the process. They also often want to eat the food as you are prepping and so this is another opportunity to increase their healthy food intake.
 
6 Don't make some foods better than others (sweet pudding after meal)
By only offering sweet treats after the savoury and only if they have eaten a certain amount of food you may be making the sweet treat seem more appealing and therefore suggesting the negativity of the savoury food offered. If a pudding is offered, make it equal to the main, whether served at the same time, or offered regardless of the main being finished.
 
7 Rethink snacks
Rethink what you offer for snacks. Snacks are another opportunity to add nutrients.  Make them healthy and larger, so your children have five similar size meals instead of three, with two snacks. Children's stomachs are smaller and they can't eat as much, so tend to need to eat more often than adults.
 
8 Don't have foods in the house they can't have 
If you have foods in your house that your child is likely to ask for lots that you feel they shouldn't have, remove them from the house. Only eating them when out, or once in a while and not having them readily available will reduce the likelihood of your child choosing them over healthier options, and it will reduce a lot of stress and tension between you too.
 
9 Encourage independence
This allows them to be in control of their body's needs and respond to them appropriately. Create somewhere for the snacks (for that day) to be accessible, they can then take themselves to eat when they feel hungry without asking. Place a water jug, bottle or dispenser on a low table for constant access. Putting the food in a serving dish at a meal time and allowing everyone to serve themselves gives children some control over their meals and may increase he range of foods they are willing to try.
 
10 Eat with them
If you are wanting your child to eat certain foods they need to see this modelled. It important to try to eat meals together as a family. They see it's a time for eating, they see the foods you eat and build them into their safe foods category, they can also see how others eat with cutlery and observe mealtime etiquette, and will begin to copy this too.

Kristy Munday​- Raising Myself and ToddlerCalm Cambourne

I'm Kristy, Mummy to Lana and wife to James, and we live just outside Cambridge. I am passionate about becoming compassionate in all aspects of my life, to children to adults, to the environment and to animals. I also love being outside in nature (when it's not too rainy, cold or hot), watching a movie, reading a book and generally sitting doing nothing. I am here to help support parents in the most challenging times, and help them to parent the way they want to, confidently, compassionately and consciously.

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