Is Your Child Fussy About Food? 6 Tips To Curb Fussy Eating

Do you have a fussy eater in your home? If so, you’ll know the huge amounts of stress that can be caused by seemingly endless arguments at mealtimes, not to mention the wasted time and effort spent preparing meals which end up in the bin, or worse, the floor.

Although frustrating, most children do eventually grow out of being extremely fussy. In the meantime, here are a few tricks you can try:

1: Eat As A Family and Create A Relaxed Environment

Getting angry with your child may turn mealtimes into a stressful occasion which can make the problem worse. Try to turn off the television, praise your child for good manners and trying new food and keep conversation light. Seeing other family members eating and enjoying a range of different foods may help encourage your child to be more adventurous.

2: Encourage Your Child To TRY Everything On Their Plate

Expecting a clean plate at each meal is probably unrealistic. Young children, especially toddlers are often grazers and forcing them to finish everything could set them up for a negative attitude towards food in later years. You can encourage your child to try everything in front of them (if they don’t like it they don’t have to finish it). Praise them for taking a bite or even a lick of an unfamiliar food. One day, they may surprise themselves by liking something new.

3: Limit Snacks and Grazing Between Mealtimes

If your child isn’t eating their meals maybe they aren’t hungry. Filling up on less nutritious snacks before mealtimes can make it even harder to get your child to try healthy food. Likewise, giving your child a sandwich or some chips after they haven’t eaten their meal tells them that if they refuse healthy food they will get something else later.

4: Don’t Focus On The Fussiness

Giving your child a lot of attention for their fussy eating habits could turn food refusal into a way to get attention rather than being about the food itself. Although you want to encourage your child to eat new food, turning it into a performance may have the opposite effect. A good way to approach the situation is to ask your child to try something, if they don’t, say “ok, we’ll try again another time,” and drop the subject.

5: Provide Your Child With Choices

Being given a choice can provide your child with some measure of control over the process. Make sure you give them the choice between two healthy foods (anyone who is asked to choose between chocolate and vegetables is probably not going to pick latter. Making their own choices can encourage independence in children and toddlers and they may be more inclined to eat something they have chosen than something that has been thrust on them.

6: Don’t Give Up

After endless failed attempts to get your child to try new food it can be tempting to give up and offer only what they like at every meal. Children often need to be exposed to new foods multiple times before they become familiar enough to try them. Keep offering a small amount of new food alongside more familiar foods and one day your child may just surprise you!

Source: bellybelly