Sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. All opinions are my own.
Welcome! I want to introduce you to my family. If you have been following along on my social media’s I’m a mom of two amazing kids and a wife based in California. I’m here to talk about a common issue that a lot of parents like myself have faced is picky eating. As a mother of two I understand when it comes to picky eating.So I’m here to bring some relief to you that you are not alone on this journey of our kids not wanting to eat certain food. I will be talking about how we can make eating fun and staying positive when it comes to our kids trying new things.
Before I dig into what works for my family and I. I want to share a personal story about myself. Being raised in a Hispanic home I have learned many things that my parents did while raising my brothers and I. My mom really never gave us an option on food. She would make one meal and everything must be finished. Many times I didn’t like certain foods and I was told to finish it. So being forced to eating certain foods in my opinion is not a good idea. I personally went through that and knowing how I felt getting pressured into eating food I wouldn’t want to do the same to my own kids. Why? That method didn’t work because it only made me dislike veggies. Now that I have my own kids I learned what not to do and what will work for my kids. Every child is different when it comes to eating and trying new things. That’s where we as parents come into play and make it fun for them.
So here is what my journey looked like when my little one started not wanting certain foods. My son was very intrigued and responsive the minute he was able to eat. I introduced him to every single vegetable that you can think of. He would try them all and I was a happy mom. Oh, I thought I wasn’t going to go through that stage that every mom would talk to me about. Boy! I was so wrong. My son hit toddler years and then I started seeing a change with him trying veggies. He would say no mama and throw it on the floor. I never thought he would stop liking all his veggies that rapidly. Well here I was in that situation every mom would talk to me about. What did I do?
I immediately started making calls to family and friends. I got a response to hide the veggies in the food he liked. The only thing is that I wanted to be able to give him his veggies and him eating them. Not hiding them as that will not help the situation either. I wanted him to see a veggie and eat it with no hesitation. So I started making it into a game. I incorporated one of his favorite characters at the table. Made my son his plate and added veggies. Then I made a plate for his favorite character as well. I pretended that the character was eating the veggies and enjoying them. It worked and then slowly I took away the character and he started to eat his veggies and I had no tears. Remember, we all go through the phase of kids not wanting to eat certain veggies or foods and that’s ok. As long as we don’t give up and one day you will have a big, WIN! I know I had those winning days but I also had those hard days. So you are not alone on this journey.
Second baby came along and it was a different scenario.
When my daughter was born I honestly thought I was going to have the same struggles that I went through with my son but oh was I wrong. My daughter seemed to have no problem eating and trying new foods. She got into a stage where she would ask why she had to eat veggies and that’s ok. I would explain to her why and tell her where they came from. Went it came to shopping for groceries I would take both my kids and have them help me pick their favorite veggies as well. They got to be part of the shopping and for them that was entertaining. So when it came to eating they would talk about how much fun they had while shopping for groceries.
We all know that consistency is key with anything that we do in life. So I have learned that having my kids staying consistent when it comes to eating their veggies is very important. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes we have those days where the kids just don’t want veggies but don’t worry we always have tomorrow to try again. Remember the key is to not to pressure our kids to eating veggies. Making it fun and staying consistent.
What I’m doing now with the kids to stay consistent on eating veggies.
- Packing the kids veggies in their school lunch.
- Making a list of veggies they would like to eat throughout the week.
- Talking about why eating veggies are important at least once a week.
- Adding a new veggie that they haven’t had in a while to the top must have.
- Making sure that I always have veggies stocked for easy access.
- Giving rewards if they finish all their veggies for the week.
When it comes to dinner time I always make sure that there are no screens on. One thing that I loved while growing up is that my parents made sure that we had no tv on while eating dinner. We all talked and had a conversations about our day. Sometimes having distractions around us makes our kids not eat everything on their plate because now they lose focus on what’s in front of them. So it’s nice to have no distractions while eating.
Parenting isn’t easy and I know we wished it was but as parents we must stay positive for our kids. An important key is being able to be a role model for our kids. So us eating veggies with them always makes it fun for them too. One thing my daughter loves to have with me is beets because she tells me it looks like she has lipstick on. So while she has red lips she is consuming veggies that will be benefiting her. One day we will look back to all the memories we are making together as a family and remember all the silly moments together while eating new foods.
Remember to have fun and stay positive! Interested in more tips on how to get kids to eat healthy food, check out HER’s Instagram: @healthyeatingresearch
