Tag: meals

We’re a peas kinda household. My girl likes her peas. It’s always a struggle to get her to try any other type of vegetable, though carrots, on occasion, pass muster. That’s why it was so shocking to see her gobble down squash the other night. I mean she gobbled it down like a hungry puppy.

Of course, there is a story behind it…we were out in the garden (thanks to the tireless efforts of our landlady’s green thumb) and lo and behold the squash/zucchini plant was blooming. Sophie and I very thoroughly inspected the ripe squash versus the still growing swash. Then, we carefully picked the one very large ripe squash and brought it upstairs.

For dinner I sautéed it with some butter and gave her a small taste, thinking for sure she’d reject it. Yes, I had peas ready to go but they were artfully hidden.

To my utter surprise, she ate and ate and ate the squash up. Along the way she kept saying, “picked it!” with such glee.

It got me to thinking about introducing new foods to toddlers. The San Francisco Chronicle just ran a story on this very topic and, while growing your own food is not an option for most people (myself included) they did have some choice advice.

First of all, stop offering junk food. If given the choice, children will opt for junk food. This, to me, is easier said than done.

Having kids participate in the preparing or choosing of the food they eat is also helpful. At the grocery, instead of rushing through as quickly as possible, try involving your kid in choosing just the right tomato. Talk the her about what a ripe tomato feels and looks like. That way, when you serve it, she’s (at least somewhat) invested in it already.

As for preparation, try having them stir or mix or some other non-lethal job in the kitchen. Even a 2 year old can use a big spoon to mix apples and oats for apple crisp. Yes, it’ll be messy. But yes, you can have them help with clean up, too!

Give them a job for dinner time. If your children are small, have them fold napkins or set the table (maybe no knives or glasses to start). If they are older, have them pour water for everyone or bring the dinner plates to the table.

Lastly, have them take 3 bites. If they still don’t like it in 3 bites, then don’t force it. This seems to work for my family. Hopefully it will help with yours.

photo credit gregor_y

I have an affection for raising our daughter in the Montessori way and have tried, as you may have figured out, to follow the rules but wind up modifying them to fit our needs. I’m certain Maria Montessori would turn over in her grave if she knew we called what we do “Montessori.”

Regardless, this is how it breaks down in our house. We research what the method is, attempt it, and then retro fit the method to our reality. With eating and feeding, these modifications happened quickly with much mess. I pilfered these rules from my Montessori Guru cousin whose blog has excellent info on all things Montessori.

1. No high chairs or propping up in a seat. We tried lap sitting – i.e., Sophie sat in my lap and either I fed her with my free hand that wasn’t holding the food or my husband fed her. While it does work, this method is exhausting for everyone! What with squirming, head shaking, hand waving and general mayhem, the food made it in our little one’s mouth, and all over us, and the table, and the floor.

I stopped to think about what we were teaching our daughter…what I intended to teach our daughter was family dinner time, and this wasn’t it. So, we opted for a high chair that uses our table as the “tray” and Sophie now eats dinner (and lunch and breakfast) at the table, with her own placemat. Teaching her not to throw food overboard on to the floor is an entirely other matter and deserves it’s own post.

2. The container must be see through so the child can see the food. This teaches a child that the food exists outside of them, then through the act of eating, the food goes inside of them. They are just learning about food, so the clarity allows them to see the food as it actually exists, not as purple oatmeal. Also, with all of this talk of BPA contamination, I opted for clear glass tiny bowls and they work perfectly for freezing, microwaving and washing. Also, same goes for water. We uses a small votive glass and it works amazingly well. It can’t hold too much water, so when the glass goes flying, as it inevitably does, it’s really no biggie. I have taken to holding the water for Sophie and letting her use her hands to guide the water in, just to save time with clean-up…again, not a strict adherence to the rule.

3. You offer the food to the baby and the baby either eats or doesn’t eat. No games or tricks. Generally, with patience, this works well. However, Sophie goes through phases of refusing to eat anything unless we eat it. So I found that a few tricks do in fact work and I resort to these when I worry that Sophie will waste away to nothing after 2 days into a food strike.

5. Food is served solo – no mixing. Oatmeal gets one bowl, peas get another. Mac and cheese is served separately from small bites of chicken. I find this one of the hardest to maintain. Sometimes oatmeal won’t cut it, but oatmeal with apples and some cinnamon goes down easy. Also, how am I supposed to get Sophie to eat anything green besides peas if I just serve it to her plain? I don’t eat like that, why should she? Plus, if she will only eat something I’m eating, well, then, you can guess why we break this rule all the time!

Basically we approach feeding the same as we do most things. We figure out the lesson we want to teach and go from there. Keep things simple.