…and other things we say to get our kids to eat!

After swim class on Sundays, Miss Papa and I go to lunch at a nearby national burrito chain.  It’s a fun tradition that we enjoy, and I can generally get her to eat a good amount of her cheese quesadilla and rice.  Miss Papa likes looking out the window at the cars and trolleys passing by and I like watching sports on the numerous TVs.  We both like people watching from the booth at the back that we always grab.  This past Sunday was a bit different, though, because sitting nearby was a mom who I could totally identify with.  She had a daughter – probably 3 or 3.5 – and a 6 month old son.  The Mom was doing a great job at balancing everything, but she could not get her daughter to eat.  She was using every trick in the book, and ones that I recognized as if I was looking in a mirror:

• Bribery (“Want to go to the indoor playground? Then eat your quesadilla”)
• Countdowns (“You have 5 seconds to take a bite”)
• Countups (“Have 5 bites then we can go to the indoor playground”)
• Threats (“If you don’t eat, then we’re going home”)
• Force feeding: holding the food in front of daughter’s mouth for varying lengths of time

At the same time she had her son on her lap giving him his lunch under a Hooter Hider.  (OK, I can’t identify with THAT part…) But mealtime was  a challenge for this mom and I felt like a comrade in the collective eating struggle.   How many of us have also tried those methods?  And how often do they work?

For me, rarely.  Yet, I keep trying them over and over.  Maybe it’s because I see people doing it on TV? Or because my parents did it with me and I subconsciously remember?  Who knows.

So what did this episode teach me?  Well, I probably didn’t learn anything new, but it reminded me once again that kids are on their own schedules we can’t force things on them, be it food, fun or whatever.

We may have stumbled on a new trick to add to the arsenal this week: Putting a Rainbow in Your Belly.  Based on the idea that we need a variety of foods for a healthy diet, and Mrs. Papa sees this idea of “eating a rainbow” often in her ladies health magazines, we tried it out on Miss Papa.  She immediately caught on to the idea of the rainbow colors of her food and that her belly would have a preference for rainbows over the same pasta/mac n’ cheese colors over and over again.  It’s worked for the the past few days, and that for us is a small miracle!

Here are some other eating resources and ideas that have been helpful to us:

• Hungry Monkey – a fun book with some very sweet papa/daughter cooking stories
• Jamie Oliver’s Recipes – fresh and easy, and we really love his Food Revolution campaign to improve health and prevent obesity
• Children’s Hospital of Boston Growth and Nutrition Program – helped our family in a major way, and they have some useful links on this page
• Dr. Sears’ Suggestions for Picky Eaters – fun and easy ideas
• Change of Scenery – we’ve found that sometimes eating in a different location, even in a different chair or booster seat helps to get our daughter more excited to eat.

We’d love to hear what strategies other parents use.  Please send us your thoughts and ideas in the comments!

-Mr. Papa

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