Less stressful family mealtimes: that's what's on the menu
WHETHER it's a toddler who forces you to rethink the whole concept of "leisurely dining," a preschooler who redefines pickiness, or the day-to-day challenge of getting dinner on the table, this lens offers some parent-proven solutions for dealing with your family's toughest mealtime problems -- all inspired by the research for my most recent book Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler.
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.
Feeding Your Baby
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Making Your Own Baby Food: Yes, It's This Easy
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Making your own baby food not only allows you to make great-tasting food from the freshest and most wholesome foods available: it also allows you to create foods of different textures. This is important because learning to handle foods of increasingl...
Mealtime @ Flickr
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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.
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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.
Family Dinner
Market Lunch
Birthday Pizza
La buena cocinera
Last Meal, for Awhil...
Before the Sauce
After The Sauce
Stuffed Shells with...
Barefoot and Pregnan...
Pickling the Cabbage
Woman's Home Blog Bo...
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
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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.
Mom's Recipe Cards | A Flickr Collection by Phil G
This recipe card collection is a powerful reminder of the role that family mealtimes play in creating family memories. View the collection in its entirety at Mom's Recipes. Note: If you're a fan of vintage cooking and all things retro, you may want to check out Eclectic and Unexpected at Etsy.com (a little shop I've started to share some of the mountain of ephemera I've collected and continue to collect on all things domestic and motherhood related).
Almond Drops
Angel Food Cake
Apple Crisp
Apple Custard Pie
Apple Spice Upside D...
Apple Strips
Apple Strips
Apricot Snack Bars
April's Vegetable So...
Arab Pumpkin Pudding
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.
The Dish
...on mealtimes, feeding kids, and more.
- Mealtime Solutions Blog
- The blog for the book Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler.
- Ann Douglas article archive @ Yahoo! Canada
- Articles on feeding kids, discouraging couch potato system, dealing with common baby and toddler behaviors, and riding the pregnancy and parenting roller coaster -- written by Ann Douglas, your Squidoo lensmaster.
- The Mother of All Blogs
- Ann's blog about pregnancy, parenting, and life as a writer. A bit more sporadic these days, now that she's blogging @ Yahoo! Canada weekly.
- Yahoo! Parenting
- Ann's weekly blog at Yahoo! Parenting. Expect thoughtful and passionate posts about whatever is on Ann's mind (issues that may be on your mind, too, and that may be affecting the quality of life of your family).
Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler
Written by Ann Douglas, author of The Mother of All Pregnancy Books and creator of this lens
Mealtime Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler and Preschooler: The Ultimate No-Worry Approach for Each Age and Stage (Mother of All Solutions)
This is my guide to feeding babies, toddlers, and preschoolers and troubleshooting the insanity that can be family mealtimes. Find out more.
Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food
Jessica Seinfeld's bestselling guide to creating healthy foods kids love.
The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals
The "sneaky" part here involves sneaking healthy foods into foods your kids enjoy. You also want to encourage kids to develop a taste for foods like vegetables on their own, so don't rely on this technique exclusively. And think about whether you'd want someone sneaking things into your food. (I think you may want to enjoy the recipes -- which are great -- but be honest with your kids about what they're eating.)
The Mother of All Toddler Books (Mother of All)
My guide to the toddler years, which explains the concept of toddler-sized portions and the reasons why a toddler's appetite declines so markedly, why toddlers often become fussy eaters, etc.
The Mother of All Parenting Books: The Ultimate Guide to Raising a Happy, Healthy Child from Preschool through the Preteens (Mother of All)
My guide to parenting kids ages 3 - 12. Raising healthy, fit kids is one of the key themes, so you'll find chapters on nutrition, fitness, and promoting positive body image.
Table Talk
I've love to hear what's on your mind -- and what you think of this lens.
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stickytabby
Hi..Great lens you have there!..Talking about babies and all that..Cant wait to have one! I have similar resources you might find interesting. I would appreciate it if you give these a visit - Baby Girls Names | Baby Resources | Baby Information Posted July 25, 2008 |
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herbie66
Welcome to the Pregnancy and Baby Group! Posted June 11, 2008 |
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NatureQuest
5 stars. Great lens! Posted May 25, 2008 |
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jwilley
Great lens! Very useful information... I should have read this a years ago... I would save me a lot of trouble with my kids... Posted May 25, 2008 |
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jzorro
Very interesting and useful lens! Thanks for all the tips and advices. Posted April 14, 2008 |
