Healthy Meals

A child that age can eat every thing that you can eat. At my daycare the 12 mos olds eat what the older kids eat. I have a 6 week rotation menu so if you go to http://www.freewebs.com/tarastoyland and go to the tab that has to do with menus/nutrition then you will find lots of suggestions.
Here is my picky eater plan that may help as well -

There is a great book by William G Wilkoff, MD called Coping with a Picky Eater that every parent or provider of kids should read and have a copy of. http://www.amazon.com/Coping-Picky-Eater-Perplexed-Parent...

This book has what I call the Picky Eater Plan. I have used this plan with kids that literally threw up at the sight of food and within 2 weeks they were eating normal amounts of everything and trying every food.

First you need to get everyone who deals with the child on board. If you are a provider it's ok to make this the rule at your house and not have the parents follow through but you wont' see as good results as what I described up above.

The plan is to limit the quantities of food you give the kid. When I first start with a child I give them literally ONE bite worth of each food I am serving. The book suggests that every time you feed the kids (breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner) you give all 4 food groups. So, for lunch today I would have given the child one tiny piece of strawberry, one spoonful of applesauce, 3 macaroni noodles with cheese on them, and 2 oz of milk. Only after they ate ALL of what was on their plate would you give them anything else. They can have the same amounts for seconds. If they only want more mac and cheese, they only get 3 noodles then they would have to have more of all the other foods in order to get more than that. If they don't eat, fine. If they don't finish, fine. Don't make a big deal out of it, just make them stay at the table until everyone else is done eating. They don't get more food until they are sat at the next meal and they only get what you serve. When I first do this with a child I don't serve sweets at all. So no animal crackers for snack but rather a carrot for snack. Or one of each of those. I don't make it easy for them to gorge on bad foods in other words. Now if they had a meal where they ate great then I might make the snack be a yummy one cause I know they filled up on good foods.

Even at snacks you have to limit quantities of the good stuff or else they will hold out for snack and just eat those snacky foods. I never give a picky eater the reward of a yummy snack unless they had that great lunch prior to it.

It really is that easy.

vindaloo, naan bread,pilau rice,onion bhaji,and a diet coke. Thats ya five a day sorted.

have you tryed mock fish all it is grated veg mix it with 2 eggs 1 cup of plain flour lightly fry in some veg oil. until light golden. I have 4 very picky eaters and thay love it. GOOD LUCK S. P

I have found some great ideas in the book Super Baby Food by Ruth Yarron. I have also learned that sometimes a baby's fussiness over food is not really a fussiness but possibly an allergy to that particular food at that time, you could try to re-introdue what he has been fussy about at a later date. If allergies run in your family it is best to not introduce the most common allergens until at least 2 1/2 years old.

I have four that all have different eating habits and I am always looking for healthy foods and ways to get them to eat them. I sell Usborne books and they recently cam out with a Parents Guide to Healthy Food for Young Children. It has balance guidelines, tons of tips , lots of recipes and great ideas to help your kids be healthy. I just got it and it will be a regularly used book in our home. You can order it at www.CrackOpenABook.com or email me and I would love to help you get this great book.

Acutually, what I found really successful with this problem was not the food itself but my habits around it. Getting my child to 'set' the table (plastic plates!!), child-led fridge cruising/ sandwich assembling and the best thing was ....baking! My kid loved it, even if it was me n' him n' Betty and now I have the habit of laying out the 'ingredients' for each meal. This can be as simple as letting him grate some cheese into his soup or adding a condiment like yogurt to curry or spooning mashed fruit into porrige. My son has sensory/ oral issues and food was a struggle but now it's his joy. I just had to let go of the struggle and give in to the mess and let him have some input. Does that help at all? I read a good book too, I think it was called 'Just one bite' or something like that, let me know and I'll go look if necess.......good luck!

check out thesneakychef.com she's got some great ideas in getting veggies and stuff into foods. It's a thought, it's helped me at times also Jerry Seinfeld's wife has a book at to peek a kids or families interest in getting good things into food. Anything is worth a try with a picky eater. I also sneak veggies into smoothies on my picky eater. A picky eater makes you become very inventive. Consider also putting some things out small amt and if he/she turns it away they say if you do it like 15 times they will finally try it...well ture for some kids not my youngest. However it's a while off yet but I found my picky eater now in kindergarten will eat things because other kids are doing so...interesting huh?...so maybe he/she will try somethings if he/she sees another kids eating it . I also do picinics sometimes a different places and different way to eat the foods peeks an interest. Good luck!

My young ones always liked a spinach souffle over spaghetti noodles. I make it with frozen spinach, monterrey jack cheese, romano cheese, etc. I'm sure you can google a recipe. Good luck!

From toddler time on, my boys (4 and 7 now) have gone through periods of picky eating. I think that happens to lots of kids. We use muffins (with veggies like zucchini and carrots) and smoothies to round out limited diets. We have recipes on our blog that might give you some ideas (including chocolate chip cookies using pumpkin). www.welcomingkitchen.blogspot.com.

You may want to ask your pedicatrician for a script for your child to see a speech therapist. Speech therapist can help with picky eating and can best diagnose why your child is picky and what foods and processes might help. Your child is under three and could be evaluated for free under Early Intervention too and may qualify for services where you only pay a small monthly family fee for services.

http://healinghappens.myshaklee.com/us/en/products.php?sk...