Does it always happen to you that you cook very nutritious healthy food for your kid & he says NO to it? Does your toddler denies eating veggies every time? Do you always wonder – How do I get kids to eat healthy food?
You are not alone momma. In this struggle of making your kid eat a healthy well-balanced diet, we all are with you. We all have been through the same phase.
I would always make healthy one pot meals for my child with rice, lentils and veggies since he was 7-8 months old. He ate what I offered until he turned 1.5 years old. He would even eat okra, bottle guard happily. I was happy that my child was eating healthily from a very early age. Here is the below pic of him eating lentils with his hand. Ignore the mess please.
But suddenly the dynamics changed. He was saying no to everything. He just wanted to eat plain rice and bread with cheese. No vegetables, no lentil curries, no chicken. He was experimenting with his newfound independence. The more we forced the more he turned away. The good thing was that he ate almost all fruits & we would offer him 2 servings of fruits daily along with 3 main meals. He ate whatever plain food (rice/flatbread) he would like at main meals, though we kept him offering everything. Even his pediatrician refused to assist us saying it’s a phase & he is totally healthy.
Now my baby is 3.5 years old. He eats all family food except for a few veggies. Here are a few tips that can help you to encourage your child eat healthy.
1. You as a family should eat healthy food.
Stock your fridge and pantry with healthy and nutritious food items. Make sure you and your partner are eating fruits, vegetables & healthy snacks every time. Avoid getting junk food into the house. If you have very strong urge to eat something not very nutritious, do not eat it in front of child.
Currently, your child might be refusing to eat veggies and fruits. But in long run this tip would help. He will be attracted to what his parents are eating. He will ask you upfront for a bite of food what you are eating.
Me and my husband love eating Dates. One day when I was eating Dates at snack time, my son came to me and asked for one piece. He liked it and ate more. After that incident, Dates have become his new favorite snack. Earlier, I had tried hard several times to make him eat Dates. But he came along when he felt like.
2. Eat together
Family that eats together, stays together. I have seen many families feeding their young children first and then eating their meal. You should definitely try eating meals together. It will help your kids learn to sit down at one place and eat meal independently with their hand. Encourage them to try eating veggies with other family members.
If there are older kids in the family, your younger children would want to copy them. They will eat all the food that the older ones are eating.
Children tend to compare their plate of food with other family members. If it’s different from others, they might reject it and ask for what you are eating. This way, slowly they will be eating family food with all the vegetables/lentils/fish/meat.
(Make sure not to offer food with sugar/salt to children younger than 1 year)
3. Offer what they love
- Your child does not eat vegetables, but he likes fruits? Offer them a variety of fruits. Keep encouraging to eat vegetables too.
- Your child hates to drink milk but loves Yogurt. Server them Yogurt, cheese, or cottage cheese in the way they like. At least, their calcium intake will increase. Make plain Milk interesting by adding dry fruits powder or dates puree. They may start liking it.
- My son hated chicken but loved eating fish. Fish is a high protein food and great source of nutrients/minerals. Even though half of our family dint like fish, we made sure to cook it for him. Now he eats both chicken as well as fish with great liking.
- Most children tend to like vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, peas, and cauliflower. Serve them the veggies they like and keep offering the ones they don’t like during family mealtime.
4. Make food interesting
- Color: Children prefer colorful things. You can try colorful vegetables/fruits e.g., purple cabbage, red/yellow bell peppers, red beetroots, Yellow Mango, Red beetroot etc.
- Serve them food in the colorful plate which they like and watch it get finished happily (At least for few days till the plate is new😊)
- Shape: Show your creativity by decorating their food plate with different shapes. Cut fruits in different shapes and then serve. You can use cookie cutters as aid. If your child loves dinosaurs, serve them dinosaur shaped watermelon. Nowadays you can get almost every shape online. Order the shapes your kid likes & use it to make their food plate interesting.
- Cups/Drinking Straw – Colorful cups, straws can help you get a glass of milk finished within a few minutes.
- Add interesting side dishes- Sometimes side dishes make main course interesting. Add homemade crisps, ‘Indian papads’ to their meal plate. Remember to add in small quantity. Establish a rule- First 1-piece crisp and then 1 piece veggie. This way they will get taste of vegetables and would slowly get acquainted to it.
5. Never tell them
Another useful tip in making your children eating veggies is to not tell them the food had vegetables. Prepare food in some creative ways that hides existence of vegetables.
- Pasta– Pasta made with tomato puree instead of store-bought tomato sauce. You can add Cauliflower puree into White sauce Pasta.
- Vegetable Rice – Make Pulao rice with finely chopped vegetables. They might just ignore the existence of small vegetable pieces and eat it. Once it becomes habit, you don’t have to worry about fine chopping.
- Parathas – Indian flatbreads called parathas can be made with variety of vegetables like spinach, fenugreek, potato, cabbage, beetroot, cauliflower, peas etc. And the good news is that most children love parathas. Serve parathas with the dip they like, and paratha will be finished in minutes.
- Dip/sauce – Give them healthy dips like yogurt, cheesy dip, avocado guacamole, homemade tomato sauce, coconut chutney etc. Let them play with dips if they want to. Slowly they will start eating their food with dip/sauce.
- Smoothies – Who wouldn’t want mix fruit smoothie on hot summer day or how about watermelon smoothie?
6. Do not force feed
The more you force them to eat, the more they will run away from food. Encourage them, appreciate them but never force them. Force feeding will establish negative association with food. They will start hating mealtimes. We do not want that to happen. Mealtimes should be joyous happy family times.
Sometimes their appetite may change with the season. My son eats & sleeps well in winter. But in summers he hates it if I keep pushing to eat food. When he gets hungry, he comes by himself asking for food. Do not force them to eat something they don’t want to.
They may not eat some food now but after constant encouragement they are surely going to try it.
Hope all the above tips will help you with the daily eating struggle!
Here is a link to some nutritious simple snack ideas for you and your littles ones. –
Smart Snacking for Kids – 7 Nutritious Snack Ideas – Happy Mom Happy Family
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