After the baby is two or three years old, eating becomes the top priority in the family. Many parents will complain: [My children are too picky about food] [My children do not eat enough].
Parents are very worried, will these problems lead to malnutrition of the baby and affect the normal development of the baby?
What should be done to make picky babies get balanced nutrition? How to send nutritious food into those picky little mouths as much as possible?
Why is it so difficult for babies to eat?
In order to solve the baby’s eating problem, you must first understand: Why does the baby become more and more picky about food and eat less and less?
1. Slow growth
Babies eat a lot in the first year because they develop very fast.
On average, the baby’s weight at the age of 1 is 3 times that at birth. However, from the age of 1 to 2, the normal child’s weight will only increase by 1/3 or less.
At the same time, many young children will go through a normal stage of [getting rid of baby fat], at which time they are more inclined to consume excess body fat to obtain energy.
2. Children are small and appetites are small.
Their stomachs are about the same size as their fists. The next time you put a full plate of food in front of the child, please compare the amount of food with the size of the child’s fist, and then you will know why he is old leftovers.
3. Emotional and motor development
Changes in emotional development and motor development will also bring about changes in diet patterns.
Two or three-year-old babies are always looking in all directions, unable to be quiet, busy exploring the outside world, sitting quietly and eating, which is far less attractive to them than going out to play.
For young children, it is more suitable to eat less and eat more.
4. Eating habits are not fixed.
Children’s eating habits are as unpredictable as their emotions:
- Children may perform well when eating one day and almost stop eating what the next day. Children may be obsessed with certain foods for a certain period of time. For example, they like fresh vegetables today and may not eat them at all tomorrow.
The only thing that is certain about their eating habits is that they are unpredictable.
However, if you add up the nutritional value of everything a child eats in a week, you will be surprised that his diet is actually so balanced.
Instead of worrying about making children eat a balanced diet at every meal, try changing the cycle to one week.
Tips for Smart Mothers
Let’s take a look at what’s tips, which can make the baby more and more picky about his mouth and eat as much healthy food as possible.
Step 1 Divide into small portions
Use ice grids, biscuit moulds or grided trays. Each grid is filled with brightly colored and nutritious food. This is called [Rainbow Lunch]. Remember to leave two grids for nutritious dipping.
When children run around the house, they will stop to eat a little when passing the table and then continue to play. Parents should tell their children to sit at the table when eating and not to run around with their hands full of food or trays.
Or put the tray between you two and eat with him to send a signal to the baby that eating is really interesting.
Step 2 Name your food
Give the food in the tray an image name, such as:
- To cut calf avocados longitudinally into four portions; Broccoli [Tree] Steamed small pieces of broccoli can be soaked in cheese sauce, called [Tree Cheese]; Carrot sticks cooked by carrots [crutches]; Apples [moon] peeled apple slices can be served with a thin layer of peanut butter; Eggs [Canoe] Cut well-done eggs longitudinally into four portions.
Step 3 Dip in some ingredients
Children like to dip in food. In fact, children will definitely like less popular food (such as vegetables) dipped in delicious sauce. Try these dips:
- Mud avocados: with or without spices; Yogurt: pure yogurt or seasoned yogurt with concentrated fruit juice; Fruit and vegetable puree of various finished products; A nutritious salad sauce; Meat sauce; Cheese sauce.
Step 4 Smear some material
Children like to smear, so give them some nutritious [paint] and let them smear it on whole wheat crackers, bread or carrot sticks.
Step 5 Add some material to the top
Cover the food that the child does not know or like with delicious dip.
Step 6: Healthy Beverages
Yogurt and fresh fruit can be mixed together to make a milkshake that can be drunk.
7. Eat high-calorie foods
Take one bite at a time, encourage children to eat less and eat more and choose nutritious foods. For children who eat less, high-calorie foods are more suitable, and eating a little can get a lot of nutrition.
The following are some foods with high calorie and high nutritional density that children are most likely to fall in love with:
- Avocado; All kinds of beans and bean products; Cheese, yogurt; Peanut butter or nut sauce; Any of various eggs; Fish, especially deep sea fish; Chicken.
Step 8 Add some oil
Healthy oils are rich in healthy fats necessary for growth and development, and also have high calories, which can meet the needs of children’s growth, such as sesame oil, olive oil, etc.
For those children who do not seem to eat enough, parents are advised to add a small spoonful of olive oil to their children’s diet every day, such as vegetable salad, or sprinkle some olive oil when making various noodles.
Step 9 Sprinkle some powder
Some nuts are rich in nutrition but easy to cause suffocation, such as cashew nuts, pistachios, almonds, etc. Grind nuts for 10-20 seconds with a grinder, and preschool children will eat safer after treatment.
When children eat, they can add some homemade nut powder to rice porridge, cereal or yogurt.
10. Make-up
Children prefer to eat what they create by themselves.
If the child is at the stage of refusing to eat vegetables, let the child play and make up the vegetables. Spell the vegetables into bright faces, for example, use beans as eyes, tomatoes as ears, and carrots as noses.
Or make whole wheat bread more interesting: give it beans for eyes, carrots for nose, cheese for hair, and ketchup for mouth.
11. Sharing food
Hold a party for the children, invite the older children to eat at home, and entertain everyone with nutritious food.
Let the children see how much their friends like eating, let the pressure from their small partners urge the children to pay attention to eating.
Or try to take advantage of the child’s rebellious mentality:
Prepare a meal, sit down and eat it yourself, pretending that you don’t care whether the child eats or not. He will probably come and eat with you. After all, robbing food can bring more fun to eat.
12. For the sake of nutrition, don’t compromise
In order for picky babies to eat, parents often surrender to junk food.
How many times have you heard a mother say, “I don’t like tonight’s dinner?” Didn’t you have enough dinner? Do you want some potato chips? ]
Although you really want to make eating interesting, there will always be such a stage (around the age of two) when you need to use your parents’ authority: [We will have this for dinner! ]
The sooner you take this method, the better the children’s eating habits will be.
Responsible Editor: Zhang Jingyuan
This article is reproduced from < < Sears Encyclopedia of Healthy Parenting > >, with deletions and modifications.