If you're a mom of a young child, you definitely face a big problem. your child refuses to eat many different foods that are important for their health and growing body at this early stage. They pick some foods that are often unhealthy and refuse to eat other important ones for building their body and boosting their energy, which can lead to malnutrition, anemia, and other illnesses that block proper growth. So here are 10 tricks to help you convince your child to eat healthy and beneficial food for their growth.
First trick: Don't pressure them, set realistic expectations
Don't expect your child to love a certain food from the first try. Research shows a child needs to try a specific food 12 times before they add it to their liked foods. You can expose them to the food by letting them help cook it, listening to you talk about it with their dad, smelling it, or even trying to taste and chew it. But never force them to eat a food they don’t want to, or it might turn from a food they like into their most hated food.
Second trick: Change their menu frequently
You should vary their daily menu so they don’t expect or give up on what’s served. Let them join in deciding. Also, repeating the same food, even if healthy, won't give them all the nutrients their body needs. Their body needs variety among useful foods to get the most out of different nutrients and essential elements in them.
The third trick: Don't prepare a separate special meal for them
You might misunderstand this trick. but the idea is that since you’re trying hard to get your child to like a certain food, don’t waste all that effort by making a separate meal just in case they don’t want to try that food. Instead, they can get up from the table and eat a simple snack like yogurt or cheese. Making a separate meal will give them a false sense of security that they don’t have to eat certain foods since you’ll make something special just for them. That should never happen. Also, it will make them feel different from the rest of the family.
The fourth trick: Give your child options of foods you want them to eat
If you want your child to eat certain foods even outside the home and you don’t serve them, stock your kitchen with all those foods and keep changing what’s on their menu often, but only within healthy food options. If none of them is their favorite, by offering them regularly, they will eventually change their mind.
The fifth trick: Separate their behavior problems from their food choices
This means don’t link your child’s crying and yelling at the table to refusing the food served. Instead, it’s a behavioral issue unrelated to the food type. You need to address that problem. If you connect their behavior with the food, you’ll struggle a lot trying to make them like it, and this will happen with other foods too.
The sixth trick: Ask your child to help you prepare lunch
If you ask your child to help with making lunch, it will give them a sense of responsibility and boost their willingness to eat the food they helped prepare from start to finish. You can ask them to fetch ingredients, stir the food, or set the table, for example. But make sure they’re completely safe while in the kitchen with you.
Trick 7: Don’t stop him from eating sweets
Of course, you can't stop your child from eating sweets since it's one of his favorite foods. But you should limit how much he eats because too much can harm him. For example, he can have sweets once after one of the three meals he picks. If you find out he’s eating more without your knowledge, then it's a trust issue, not just food.
Trick 8: Relax and don't stress when your child is eating
You need to calm down when teaching your child how to choose his food. Don’t turn mealtime into a battle between you two. You want him to like the new food you offer and eat it all, but he might not like it yet. He needs more time and learning to prefer these foods. So try to be relaxed and calm when giving him food.
Trick 9: Start with small amounts for your child at first
Your child needs to taste food at first and get used to it before it becomes a favorite. So you can add small amounts of the new food to his plate until his taste buds get used to it. Over time, this will help him prefer this food and even ask you to prepare it for him.
Trick 10: Add the new food gradually
To get the best result with your child trying new foods, you can add a bit of the new type to his favorite plate little by little. This helps him get used to the taste and makes it a regular food for him to like later.
