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Kitchen Tip Tuesday

Posted by Maggie Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:32:00 GMT

I love Tammy’s site and I love Kitchen Tip Tuesday’s, so I thought I’d chime in this time. But since I haven’t been doing anything grand other than getting frozen food from Costco, to keep us from eating out during this seemingly busy/tired season. I thought I’d recycle an old post. I wrote up some guidelines on how we handle meal times for Princess Olive.

1. Once food is put on the table that is what is available for that meal. Sometimes for snack or the two earlier meals I’ll ask her what she would like, but once a decision is made that’s it, no changing your mind. And if I decide, and don’t give her a choice, that’s my right as a parent and she gets no say.

2. I don’t have a bite rule, if it’s something new I’ll try and help her eat it, but if she doesn’t want to eat I won’t force her. As someone who has struggled with their weight all their life I find it difficult to make my child eat if she don’t want to, no need to finish her plate either. I’m trying to make serving sizes closer to what she would eat as not to waste food, but if she eats a few bites of all the food groups I’m happy and John will eat the rest. :) (edit: I do now try to have her eat a few bits of whatever is served, as she’s older now and doesn’t struggle as much, but I won’t make a battle of it)

3. If she does not eat the food she does not get to eat until the next meal. Even if she does eat food she doesn’t get to eat until the next meal. The rare exception to this is if she eats a lot at a meal and then is still hungry a short time later, she may be going through a growth spurt, so she can have extra snacks.

4. If she doesn’t eat dinner she gets one cup of milk before bed, no more than that. She normally gets milk before bed and will sometimes ask for a second cup, if she ate well she may have it. But if she didn’t I want her to see that she is still hungry because she didn’t eat the meal, the one glass of milk is usually enough to make it so her tummy doesn’t hurt from being hungry and she’s able to go to sleep. If it’s during the day though I let her tummy hurt until the next meal. She has never gotten sick from this, never wasted away and usually eats a ton at the next meal. This also does not happen very often. (edit: she also now only gets 2 cups of milk a day, usually one in the morning and one before bed, we go through milk way too quickly and her Pull Up leaks at night if she has too much before bed).

So there is my kitchen tip on how to have good eaters. She’ll eat just about anything, since I don’t cater to “kid food” often. I enjoy “kid food” as well, so we do have it for our meal from time to time, but not separate from what adults are eating.

Check out more kitchen tips at Tammy’s Recipes.