Tip 3: Don’t stress because there’s no pressure to eat
Seriously. Kids (especially toddlers) can read stress and they use it to their advantage! It makes mealtimes suck and it’s a vicious cycle. One thing to keep in mind: your role is just to provide the food and your kid decided to eat or not. If he doesn’t eat it, that is ok! I’m not offended. If he says yucks, that is OK too!
Tip 4: Focus on mealtime behavior
We worked hard to get our son to sit at the table. When he is done he has to wait for all of us. He now yells “Im done. I’m waiting” very loud and on repeat. I’ll take it. We focused on things like sitting at the table, no food throwing, no sharing food with the dog. My favorite? If you don’t want to eat it move it to a special spot on your plate and move on.
Tip 5: Eat together
Family meals is all my kid knows! Before my kid was eating solids, I’d hold him at the table. When it was time for him to start solids, we did baby-led weaning and he’d be right there eating with us. With baby led weaning, we gave my son the same food that we were eating.
Tip 6: The Instapot makes lives easier
This thing is great. I put everything in there. We use it at least twice a week. Right now, there are lentils in there. For a whole year my son rejected meat so we are used to lots of vegetarian meals. That habit of beans and lentils is one we’ve kept. It helps us save money too.