Chew on This: Parent-Proven Solutions to Your Most Frustrating Baby, Toddler, Preschooler, and Family Mealtime Challenges

PROBLEM: Everyone keeps giving you conflicting advice about starting your baby on solids. 

• Trust your instincts -- specifically your ability to apply your knowledge of infant nutrition to meet the unique needs of your baby. You'll find it easier to do that, of course, if you feel like you've got a solid handle on what's involved in starting solids. I really like the approach this author takes in this article because she acknowledges that there's no such thing as a "one size fits all solution" that applies to all babies when it comes to starting solids. (This is consistent with the approach I take in my book. I present you with the best, most-up-to-date research and "parent wisdom" and let you decide what will work best for you and your baby.) Related: Babies: Pumping Iron.
• Introduce solids at around six months of age. According to the Children's Nutrition Research Center at the Baylor College of Medicine, this is when most babies are developmentally ready for solids.

PROBLEM: Your toddler keeps changing his mind about what he wants to eat 

• Try to determine what could be making your toddler act this way. Some toddlers change their minds about foods because they like to be the ones in total control when it comes to food, even if that means playing head games with their parents. Others are simply rather fickle. By the time dinner shows up on the table, they don't want it anymore.
• Make it a family rule that the time to change his mind about what he wants to eat is before you start making it. Otherwise, too much food gets wasted.
• Serve meals and snacks that have built-in kid appeal. Serve foods in kid sizes (e.g., mini-muffins and mini-meatballs) and fun shapes and give food creative names.

PROBLEM: Your toddler doesn't want to eat her vegetables or drink her milk. 

Is she getting enough to eat?

• Remind yourself that what you're experiencing is very common. A toddler's appetite isn't nearly as voracious as that of a baby. This is because toddlers grow at a much slower rate than babies.
• Toddlers only need toddler-sized portions: approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of an adult-sized portion of most food groups.
• Most healthy children won't starve themselves. However, there are situations when children can run into trouble, so it's best to have your toddler checked by a doctor if you're seriously concerned. To make the doctor's job easier, keep a food diary for about a week, taking note of everything that your toddler eats. This will give your toddler's doctor a much more accurate idea of what she is -- or isn't -- eating than if you were to track her intake for a single day.

PROBLEM: Your family is stuck in a convenience food rut. 

• Consider the health and financial costs of relying on convenience foods.
• Load up on cookbooks that feature menus that can be whipped up quickly and easily, and that are both healthy and kid-friendly. Here are some recipe sites and online cookbooks to get you started.
• Do some food preparation ahead of time or look for healthy items in the grocery store that can save you time on the food preparation front.
• Make at least one extra meal on the weekends, either by cooking that meal all by itself and popping in the freezer, or by making "doubles" of one of your family's weekend meals (e.g., a double batch of spaghetti sauce or lasagna) so that you can have leftovers during the week.
• Get really organized and do big batch cooking -- either as an individual family or with other families. Turn it into a festive occasion with music and whatever else it takes to make it fun.

PROBLEM: Your toddler wants to eat cereal for dinner. 

• Have some clear rules about which foods are breakfast foods and what foods can be eaten at other times of the day-and then stick to the rules.
• Encourage your toddler to help you pick out healthy breakfast foods at the grocery store -- e.g., his favorite brand of unsweetened cereal.
• Look for foods that have strong kid-appeal and yet that still deliver the goods nutritionally: e.g., fresh berries on cereal or whole-grain waffles.
  
  more articles by Ann Douglas about parenting toddlers

Great Recipe Sites for Hungry Kids and Harried Parents 

• Wholesomebabyfood.com: An excellent source of tips on introducing your baby to basic baby food purees as well as slightly more adventurous cuisine.
• Vegetarian Resource Group: Wholesome Baby Food from Scratch: Great advice on feeding your baby wholesome food.
• Wholesometoddlerfood.com: If you're looking for inspiring menu ideas for feeding toddlers, this is the place to go. Many of the moms I interviewed for my book Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler: The Ultimate No-Worry Approach for Each Age and Stage swear by this site.
• U.S. Department of Agriculture: Childcare Providers Recipe Website: A great source of healthy recipes for meals and snacks for young children. You'll also find plenty of great recipes for batch cooking.
• Allrecipes.com: A terrific source of recipes of every type.
• Mealsmatter.org: Recipes, meal-planning tools, and more.

PROBLEM: You can't get your kids to stay at the dinner table once they're finished eating. 

• Accept the fact that your days of leisurely "wining and dining" are over for now. (You'll be in the "whining and dining" phase for the next little while.)
• Keep your kids engaged in the mealtime conversation rather than trying to carry on a one-on-one conversation with your spouse. They'll be entertained longer that way.
• Teach your kids that they can't get up and down from the dinner table like yoyos. It's disruptive to other people at the dinner table and it could be dangerous when you're dining out in restaurants.
• Make sure your mealtime expectations are age appropriate. Don't expect a two year old to act twice his age just because he's starting to look so grownup. He's still a little kid in a lot of ways.

PROBLEM: Your teenagers think it's ridiculous that they have to come home for dinner -- ever. 

• Researchers at Columbia University and the University of Michigan> have accumulated a lot of data on the benefits of dining as a family -- even when kids are teens.