Any tips for expanding the diet?

Mine eat ok. Each dinner, they will eat at least one of the items on the plate. Henry this is normally the veggie, Jacob, the meat or carb (he will eat corn if I serve it). I would like to get them to the point where they eat a little of everything and have a well rounded meal. Any tips or should I just give it time? Henry ate steak tonight which shocked me. Other meals are not as hard. For breakfast they eat everything, for lunch, they eat what we serve but dinner (and yes, I know it is the meal where they eat the least), they seem to pick and choose.

 

It sounds to me like they are doing good eating wise. Personally, I would keep up what you are doing. I always find with my two that I can count on two good meals a day and one meal where they pick and choose what to eat.

 

As long as they are getting a well-rounded diet over the course of the day, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Keep offering the various options at dinner, but think more in the scope of the whole day, and maybe offer more the things for breakfast or lunch that they don't tend to eat for dinner.

 

If you have not heard it yet you will from others, your pediatrician, etc. Try not to focus down to the meal or the day even. It is what they take in balanced out through the whole week. And, to make you crazier, dinner is usually the least successful - but you said that so you already know. ...part of the reason is because we want those tummies fed before bedtime so they will sleep well and not wake up hungry. But they never do. Feeding is the most challenging thing I think. Just keep offering and sometimes it will be great and sometimes it will suck. However, and this is just my opinion, I think you might make yourself crazy if you try to make sure they finish a portion of everything on the plate. If you are determined, you could try offering one thing at a time and bring out the next "course" after they have finished. If you offer it all up at once they are most likely going to have a favorite and eat it and want more of only that, even if they love everything else a different day.

I recently purchased one of the Annabelle Karmel food books. You might enjoy making some of those items. Sometimes she mixes a lot of foods together (I am thinking of veggie fritters) and then cooks it to mask what is inside. Some of it is simple and some take a little prep, like grating veggies, etc. Still, might be worth trying if you want to work in multiple food groups on the sly. Good luck to you - I can say at 22 mos they eat a little better but they never want everything on their plate, and I don't have the patience for the several course meal.

 

I don't want them to finish. I don't even require that of the 6 year old yet. I want them to try everything and eat some of it. And as I am typing that, I realize I am crazy. I just want to work on getting them to that point where they try some of everything.

 

Have you tried giving them the foods you don't think they will eat first? My son is a fruit eater. If I want him to try other types of food on his plate, I have to give those to him first. I save the fruit for the end of the meal so that isn't the only thing he eats.

 

Oh man, so do I!! I would love it if they would even just take a bite of everything I offered, but they just don't and I'm not willing to fight about it.

I think you hit on something when you said that they eat well at breakfast and lunch, but get pickier at dinner. If this is the case, then I would offer new things at meals when they are more receptive, and lower your expectations at dinner. :good: Another thing I've noticed is that if I offer my guys a taste of something I'm cooking *before* the meal (when they're super hungry) they will often try it! I don't know if it's the novelty of eating "on the hoof" as it were, or the fact that they're starving, but I can often at least get them to taste new things. This doesn't always translate into eating it at the meal, but I figure it's good to get their taste buds used to new and different tastes.

 

This is what I do. My kids have no problems with fruits, veggies and carbs (most days) but meat is a struggle so I try to serve it first when they are hungriest. Dinner is still hit or miss with my 3 year old and is starting to be that way with the girls. If I served PB&J or chicken fingers every night though we wouldn't have a problem, lol.

I read somewhere recently that toddlers get 85-90% of the calories they need for the day through breakfast, lunch and snacks. I know my kids are good eaters in the morning and at lunch but dinner is mostly for show, there are often nights Dannik won't eat anything. Hearing that stat helped me relax about dinner a bit.

 

Also I realized I was making too large of portion sizes. The size of their fist is really only 3bites or so. Funny what will work with each kiddo-segmented plates helped us immensely also. Looks more interesting to them I guess. I pride my craziness...heh heh.