I have a 5 and 6 year old boys and I struggle trying to figure out what to feed them. Well, really just the oldest one. He is soooooo picky. The younger one will try anything. So, I have trouble meal planning because I can hear the complaining from kid 1 in my head.
I actually let him help me plan the week's menus this week and frankly, my grocery bill was a lot less because of it. I guess he has cheap tastes.
He picked, pork chops, grilled cheese, burgers, and breakfast for dinner as his choices.
We can't just keep eating these over and over. So, any tips for picky eaters, and for meals that are kid friendly but healthy, and don't require me making a special meal for kids and adults each night at dinner time.
I try to do protein, veggie, fruit, and starch for dinner.
HELP!
What do you feed your kids?
February 11th, 2015 at 05:58 pm
February 11th, 2015 at 06:17 pm 1423678640
My picky eater "kid" is in his 20's and living with us this semester. He was being really grumpy about food until I instituted one night a week that he and his brother cook dinner and then I clean the kitchen up (we swap roles). A couple of nights of that really drove home for him how frustrating it is to put together a meal and then have people complain, and his own complaining nearly ceased.
If I had young kids again I'd start doing that as soon as they were old enough to make a simple recipe. Even if it was just something like sandwiches and apple slices.
February 11th, 2015 at 06:58 pm 1423681102
If you won't try at least two bites of every component, you go to bed early (and hungry). Our mantra (stolen from Daniel Tiger) is "you gotta try new food cause it might taste good."
If you eat at least two bites of everything, you get to stay up and maybe have a healthy snack, but no sweet treat.
Eat the whole meal (or most of it for the 2-year-old) and you get a sweet treat.
No seconds on anything unless you finish everything.
I can't remember the last time either of them had to go to bed early for not at least tasting the food. And a lot of times the 4-year-old will make this comeback near the end of dinner and finish something she doesn't like, when I remind her that she'll have to skip treats otherwise.
(Actually I say it's hard-and-fast, but NT asked if they could have their leftover pizza tonight if they don't like what we're making--kale and mushroom bread pudding. So there are rare exceptions like that. But we lay that out beforehand so they know it's a special occasion. Like having dinner in the living room while watching a movie vs. eating at the dinner table. They know grownups can make exceptions to the rules, but they know it doesn't happen very often, so they don't try to push the boundaries very often.)
February 11th, 2015 at 08:07 pm 1423685261
The second rule was that you couldn't "Ewwww!" anyone else's food. If you said anything like gross, or sick, or yuck, or that is disgusting, you then had to eat the food you were badmouthing. It stopped a ton of complaining. It also prevented the older child from making the younger child think something should automatically be rejected because she didn't like it. My son likes a lot more foods than my daughter who has texture issues and has a hard time with anything with vinegar in it, but if we'd let her bad mouth the foods, he never would have eaten most of what he eats.
February 11th, 2015 at 08:47 pm 1423687621
Our rules are along the line of Ceejay's. I do have (had) one picky eater. I really just wanted to elaborate on the taste rule. In our house, it's that you have to try anything you haven't tried in a while. Kids' tastes change very rapidly. There is so much food my picky son has liked that he didn't like before, I can not imagine him refusing to try a small bite of anything. & he is really open-minded about it. Especially after experiencing liking a food that he once did not like. But we might have had that rule since he was a baby and so I don't know when the last time he would have complained about having to try something. I wanted to add that as an important part of the rules, to keep trying the same foods. Over time, my picky child will eat just about anything. (I call him picky because I know he has an aversion to tastes and textures like I do. My parents' solution was to let me eat nothing but pizza or whatever. I could easily see him being *that kid* without the rules).
February 11th, 2015 at 11:09 pm 1423696151
On occasion, one of the boys has decided that he doesn't like some ingredient - like onions. If it's worth it to him to skip spaghetti or to painstakingly pick each tiny onion piece out, then fine. But interesting, after a time, he just eats (and enjoys) it.
February 11th, 2015 at 11:47 pm 1423698468
February 12th, 2015 at 12:30 am 1423701046
Some of our kid-friendly meals:
- chicken piccata (super yummy!) with rice and a veg (and they can have the chicken plain if they don't want the sauce
- white chicken chile (kids seem to like it way better than red chile)
- very sweet salmon (a great way to get them to eat salmon - with a sticky sweet sauce) - 1 T hoisin, 1 T sugar, 1 T soy sauce with broccoli and brown rice
- mexican eggs is like breakfast for dinner but dressed up (a Nigella Lawson recipe) with a salad
- frittata with spinach and cheese (if they like eggs, the spinach sort of disappears)
February 12th, 2015 at 03:12 am 1423710753
Recently she's started voluntarily mixing some of her separate stuff, so that may be something that she transitions herself out of.
February 12th, 2015 at 08:35 am 1423730147
My Son(5) is the fussy eater, any strong flavours and he's out. he hates vegetables and doesn't like meat.
My daughter(3) will eat anything.
One thing he does like is mashed potato. I mash up other vegetables and cut meat finely and mix it in.
I mix everything I can into his potato salads as well.
Sometimes I just flat out lie. Tell him steak is chicken. mashed carrot is sweet potato.
If all else fails I resort to the tried and tested parenting technique of blackmail. No desert till you finish your plate.
Usually the injustice of his sister enjoying ice cream will quickly over come his discomfort for what ever is on his plate.
February 12th, 2015 at 02:59 pm 1423753157
February 13th, 2015 at 04:38 pm 1423845539
We handled declines by offering only a peanut butter and banana sandwich, no dessert and no 8 pm snack which was typically cereal or fruit. In retrospect I guess it was because both our moms made different meals that catered to different likes and dislikes of our siblings. Too much work!