Top tips for fussy eaters

Tips for Fussy eaters

1. Don’t be afraid to keep trying new foods over and over again – I have heard that children need to try a new food 10 times before they might actually like it, so don’t be afraid to keep going! It can be unbelievably frustrating throwing away food they haven’t eaten but adding one floret of broccoli to their plate each night or adding a couple of segments of orange to their lunch plate can really pay off in the long run.
2. Get Kids involved in cooking and preparing their food - One of our new weekend favourite things to do is to make our own pizzas, my children love this! Currently my 6-year-old is just having pizza dough with tomato sauce on (who on earth doesn’t even have cheese on their pizza???) whereas my 4 years old puts lots of cheese, meat and olives on hers. Letting them have a bit more control about what they eat and how much they have will help them feel much happier about eating and will then lead to them being more open to trying new foods. My children also love serving their own dinners, so we try to put their dinner in serving dishes that they can help themselves to. This is great fun for them and again, they get to take control about what they have on their plate. We can’t do this every day as my 6-year-old would just have a plate full of carbs and nothing else, but it’s great for variety!
3. Make fruit smoothies at home - Smoothies have always been one of my go to ways to get extra fruit and veg into my children. All you need is a base of milk and bananas and you can pretty much add anything else in you like! I have even been able to add small amounts of kale and spinach into a smoothie! For those of you who have picky eaters who struggle to gain weight adding peanut butter into a banana smoothie is a great trick too.
4. Turn trying new foods into a fun game – At school my sons’ class recently played a game where some of the children were blindfolded and their partner had to feed them something and they had to guess what it was. It’s easy to turn your nose up at something when you can see it, but when you can only rely on taste you may find your child is surprised by some new foods they like.
5. Eat as a family - This age old bit of advice  It is so easy to fall into the habit of feeding your children the same meals over and over again, as you know they will eat them. Us grown-ups are more likely to try and have a bit more variety, so by eating as a family your children are likely to be exposed to a greater variety of foods and when they see you eating them they will be more inclined to try them.
6. Grow your own fruit and vegetables -  Now Is the perfect time of year to start planting seeds so you can grow your own fruits and vegetables! My children love planting seeds, watering the plants (and anything else they can spray a hose pipe at!) and watching them grow. It gives us all a sense of achievement to have grown something and children are much more likely to try something if they have been part of the growing process.
7. Watch your language – This is a really hard one, but I really try to avoid using the word ‘treat’ or restricting puddings if they haven’t eaten all of their dinner. By using language like treat or using food for praise, we instantly make that food much much more desirable. Equally, if we put all the emphasis on making sure they eat all the fruits and vegetables, we instantly make this food undesirable. So, mind your language and try to make all food equal. With sugary foods this can be really hard and I do talk to my children a lot about looking after their teeth, so we can’t have too much sugary foods, but this does also apply to too much fruit, fruit juices or things like honey so doesn’t just talk about the processed sweet stuff.
8. Introduce food in exciting ways – Banana bread, strawberries dipped in chocolate or cucumber with a cream cheese dip. Get creative and make sure you have fun.
9. Hide it! – When all else fails, hide it! I always make up my own vegetable stock by boiling up lots of vegetables (I will chuck anything in, carrots, parsnips, spinach, kale, broccoli, courgette etc) then blending it all down. I then freeze it in ice cube trays and whenever I am making something like a cottage pie, spaghetti bolognaise or stew I will add in as many cubes as I can get away with!

I really hope some of those tips will help you and I would love to hear if anyone else has any other tips.

Photo by Jimmy Dean on Unsplash