Eating, Sleeping, and Playing are some of the basic skills which should come naturally to anyone. At least they came effortlessly for our older generations. Mankind is developing exponentially, seeking a holiday in space and exploring to live on another planet. This fast-paced world run by digitalization is, unfortunately, taking a toll on these basic human skills, especially for our children. How many of us have surfed the web looking for ideas to put our child to sleep, make our kids like eating or get our child to play outdoors?
Yes, all these issues are becoming more common than we would ever imagine. We can blame our lifestyle or the gadgets or the unbelievable stress endured in our work. However, the damage has already been done. It’s high time, we make an effort to bring back the naturality of these skills in our kids and our future generation.
Our children should play well, eat healthily and sleep peacefully on their own. All these should no longer be mysterious issues that have to be addressed by the parents.
This is the third post in the blog series ‘Healthy Eating for Kids’. Previously we discussed, Why kids dislike food or protest eating? If you have not read the last article, please have a look at it. Once you identify the issue which could be potentially causing your child’s dislike for eating, you can get into the next step of helping your kid to like eating which we will be discussing in this post.
Is it Hard to Make Kids Like Eating?
If your children despise meal times, don’t be anxious. You can still bring the love for food and make your kids like eating. Believe me, it no longer needs to be a herculean task. In this article, let us see a few ideas to make your children eat willingly and happily.
9 Ideas to Make Your Kids Like Eating
These are not effortful or fancy ideas which could consume your time or money. They are very ordinary practices which we might have forgotten to give importance to, amidst our hectic schedules. So, I will be simply nudging you to follow these lucid ideas. These could eventually stimulate your kids to like eating.
1. Understand your Child’s Health Conditions
The first and foremost thing you could take care of is to address any health issues of your child which could be hindering his or her willingness to eat. We discussed some of these reasons in our previous article.
If your child has difficulty swallowing or chewing or is still struggling with the transition from liquids to semisolids or solids, you can take the process slowly, coordinate and help the child to develop these skills.
In case your child has teething issues which has created an aversion towards eating, you can try to soothe the paining gums.
If a fever, cough or cold episode is bothering your child, all you can do is wait. Once the illness goes away, your child should slowly regain the desire to eat and start showing interest in food.
If you notice signs of low appetite, you can take steps to address the root cause and improve your child’s appetite.
2. Set up a Feeding Routine
You can create a feeding routine and try to follow it to a T. For instance, you can design a three-course meal along with two snacks and milk (once or twice a day). Space out these meal and snack times throughout the day with a minimum of a two-hour gap between any two feeding sessions.
Neither let the child take nor offer any “in-between bites”. Even if the child insists that he or she is hungry, it’s better to divert the situation. Avoid feeding until the next meal time. Otherwise, it will mess up the schedule and eventually, the child will get either overfed or underfed.
If you can stick to the schedule and follow the same timings every day, your child’s body will be accustomed to the feeding routine. And your child will also eat willingly after feeling hungry.
3. Set up a Sleeping Routine
A sleepy child will not eat well and a hungry child will not sleep well. Sleep and Eating habits go hand in hand.
So, the above-said feeding routine will work only if your child has a good sleeping routine. So you can make sure that your child sleeps and wakes up on time. Getting adequate hours of nap and night sleep according to your kid’s age is essential.
4. Trigger and Let your Child Feel and Acknowledge Hunger Cues
A child will be more willing to eat when his or her body shows signs of hunger rather than when the parents want their child to eat.
The ultimate aim of following a sleep and feeding routine is to trigger hunger. You can help your child listen to the body and react. When your child’s body gets tuned to a routine, the hunger cues will be triggered exactly at the same time every day.
You can also help the child to understand the hunger cues like “Is your stomach growling? Do you feel weak, dizzy or lack energy?” etc,. Now your child will learn to recognise his or her need for food, eat willingly and acknowledge the satisfaction that occurs after eating.
Another way to trigger hunger is to reduce the activities which keep your child idle. Instead, you can increase physical activities like outdoor play, swimming or playing an active sport.
5. Let your Child be the Judge of his or her Needs
Mindful eating will encourage your child to understand the satiety cues (the sense of satisfaction) and eat wisely.
You can teach your kid to watch the colour, sense the smell and texture of the food, feel the food in the mouth, chew and eat slowly. Though eating slowly is important, finishing a meal before half an hour is equally necessary.
Also never force your child to complete the plate. This could suppress the hunger and disrupt the next meal. Your child will begin to tag eating as an unpleasant chore. Let your kid decide how much he or she needs and when to stop eating. By eating mindfully, your child will be able to make these judgements perfectly.
You should also take care of a few other things for your child to succeed in this. If you serve more than what your child could finish, he or she may feel overwhelmed, and end up leaving the plate incomplete. This could give a negative feeling towards eating.
Instead, fill your child’s plate with the correct amount of serving. Now, your kid will be able to finish the plate without anyone having to force it. Your child will also have a sense of accomplishment. You can also teach your child to ask for a second serving if there is a need. In this way, you can be assured that your child has taken the needed amount of food.
6. Let your child crave food
When you make some new dish at home you will be tempted to immediately load it in a plate and offer it to your child. At times you may even force the kid to eat it. But this will not boost your child’s interest in food.
Instead, you could give a pep talk about the dish you are going to make. This could trigger your kid’s curiosity. Or you could involve your child in the preparation so that he or she will be thrilled to taste it. Or at least you could make the dish and keep it on the dining table (during snack or meal time) where it is visible and inviting. Your child might end up naturally going for it.
The concept is to let the child crave food and not offer it without activating the interest. Another misstep you could be taking is offering too many choices. When your child gets everything in abundance and even without asking for it, there will be certainly no attraction towards food no matter how delicious it could be.
7. Eat together
Though everyone in the family may have different priorities and schedules try to pull out at least one family meal every day. Avoid distractions like TV, mobile etc., and work towards making the meal time a fun one. Engage, interact and relish the meal with your kid.
8. Give Reasonable Choices
Encouraging to try new food is essential, but you cannot force your child to like everything. You should accept and respect your child’s likes and dislikes. This doesn’t mean that you have to cook meals separately every day as per your kid’s wish. But you can give some reasonable choices within what has been cooked for the family.
For instance, if your child dislikes one vegetable you could let him or her choose and have the other available vegetable. Or you could be stern saying that two fruits should be taken every day. But you could be lenient and let your kid decide which fruits to have. Or you could let your child choose his or her favourites (within the healthy options) and include them on the weekend menus.
In this way, with a sense of being in command, and with the ability to make decisions, your child will be willing to eat happily. Try giving this safely controlled freedom.
9. Make Attractive Meals
This fast and fancy food world has made our homemade food look dull, tasteless and unattractive. But you can change the perception of your child with a little effort. You can get attractive plates, lunch boxes and cutleries in different shapes and colours.
You can make healthy meals look more appealing. When you are making a new dish for your child don’t forget that the first impression is the best. Sparkle your creativity and surprise your child with tempting, scrumptious healthy meals.
All these are some very simple things that you can implement without spoiling or stressing your child. Kids like eating, it is a natural tendency. All we have to do is kindle their interests, help to manage their little minds and create a stress-free environment.
Do you have more ideas to make mealtime a pleasant one? We would love to hear from you. Please share it in the comments section.
If this post was helpful, please feel free to share it with your friends and family who may benefit from it.
Posts in the series – Healthy Eating for Kids
- 5 Ideas To Make Kids Like Healthy Foods Easily
- Top 11 Reasons Why Kids Dislike Food or Refuse to Eat
- Meal Times are No More Harder – 9 Ideas to Make Your Kids Like Eating
Pin this for Later
Image Credits: Free Stock photos by Vecteezy