Do you offer food in "courses" or give it all at once?

My kiddos still eat separately from us...they have breakfast and lunch with the nanny, and then an early dinner when we get home from work. I am looking down the road to have us all eat dinner together, but with their current 6:30ish bedtime, I imagine I will have to push their schedule a bit to make it work.

What I really wanted to know is how your mealtime is structured (and forgive me if I have spent too much effort over-thinking this!!). Do you make them a separate plate of food and offer it all at once? I still make one large plate of food for both babies kids that I feed from. I generally offer new items first, then protein, then vegetables, then bread/carbs followed by fruit. Because I hate cleaning messes (floors, walls, etc.), I have been pretty hesitant to let them do a lot of messy self-feeding. They eat from pre-loaded forks or spoons, and I don't let them have too many items on their tray...especially when peas/green beans/tofu start flying across the room.

We have had been pretty lucky with our good eaters...though the last few days been been a little rocky. I am just waiting for the resistance to really set in. Neither one really wanted to eat tonight. In a bit of crazy desperation, I gave them both a small bowl of spaghetti on their tray (and kept telling myself to remain calm!). They poked at it for awhile and then DD started trying to eat in earnest! Before this, she was angry if I even tried to offer her a bite...I do make a point not to force food on them. I gave them even more food in their bowls (broccoli which was previously been tossed on the floor) and they were both trying to eat it.

So...how do you do mealtimes at this age? Do you give them everything at the start of the meal? Do they eat from bowls/plates? How about utensils?

Thanks (from an over-concerned momma who wants to head-off the mealtime battles that are approaching!)

 

When they were little I did give them food in "courses". First I gave them the food they would least like till progressively working towards what they would like most.


As a parent to four, I say if you can figure out how to ward off picky eaters, let me know - I want to read your book!

 

My short answer-
we always give everything at once and utensils at every meal (although at that age it wasnt unusual for them to be used as drum sticks or hair combs )

We didnt start dishes until around 18 months. We also started taking away their trays when the food throwing began. Try new things up to your tolerance level and see how it works!

 

It depends on what I'm serving them and how hungry they are. If they are starving, I might give them something to tide them over while I finish making their main entree...so in that instance I'm giving them courses...but I aim to make everything and then give it to them all at once.

 

We introduced plates a couple weeks ago. Sometimes they do well with them and either eat their food with their forks or [usually] their hands. Ditto to PP [MamaKim] we used to feed ours in 'courses' but now we give it all to them. I like to think that when they make messes that's them learning what works and what doesn't. Of course throwing food is not acceptable, but if they miss or tip the utensil the wrong direction and food goes everywhere I don't mind.

Kids = Messy times

 

they usually get veggies first for a couple of minutes followed by the rest of their meal. we pull them up to the table & just put everything straight on the table for them. it's the lazy-mom-method-of-feeding. :laughing: sometime around 10 months i got sick of feeding them & decided i was going to encourage finger foods as much as possible! the few times i've tried giving a bowl or plate it's just ended up on the floor with their entire meal so i'm going to wait until they're a bit older for that. i have started giving them spoons at every meal - even if there's nothing really spoonable to eat. i figure it's just good for them to play with. the mess can be a bit cringe worthy at times, but i figure that's just part of life for now. they've markedly improved in the last month or so though in regards to how big the mess is at meal times. sometimes i don't even have to sweep after a meal now! :blink:

 

I always gave anything at once. Giving veggies first never worked out for us, they would just whine if they were hungry and wait for the better stuff. It's one of the reasons they get everything at once too, often they don't eat much of their meat/veggies and I don't want them to learn that they get fruit if they don't finish their meal...

We don't do plates yet but we started with forks a few months ago. Spoons so far have been a disaster (they don't let us feed them).

 

When mine just turned one, we would do things in courses and they handled that fine. Now that they are older, we do offer food on plates and we will give them a whole meal at the same time. We started practicing with utensils at 15 months, now they are pretty good with the fork when they want to use it. Spoons, however, they just cling on to :wacko:

 

I usually give everything together except the stuff i know they love (my little bread dunked in yogurt addicts) because if I give that first, they just eat it and then sign more over and over. If I start with the bulk of the meal, they're usually hungry enough to just munch away on it.

Mine are best with forks, especially if i help them put food on it. they try and sometimes succeed, but a lot of the time they hand the fork to me to load and then shovel it in. When I give anything that I need to spoon feed (I try not to do that often!), I give them each a spoon, too, and we play the "dip, dip" game. They sit there saying "deep, deep" and holding out their spoons while I shovel the food into their mouths at the same time. So as I feed one, they get their turn to dip. Then they feed themselves while I feed their sibling. Does that make sense? I only do that because not much makes it onto the spoon and into the mouth, but they are getting really good at the concept of feeding themselves with a spoon. They know which end to dip and to put it in their mouth...they just don't always hold it straight enough not to drip it all off onto their tray anyway, lol.

We use plates sometimes, but I have to stay very close by. They'll eat off ot it for a while, and then pick it up and give it to me. If I dump the food onto the try, they'll finish eating ardon: I haven't figured that one out yet...so most of the time the food goes right on the tray. I've been trying to eat with them more often now so I pull the high chairs up to the table and sit in a chair and eat something, too, even if it's just a snack if DH isn't home yet for dinner. If he gets home on time, we all eat together.

 

I just give them everything at once and let them have at it. The one thing I do differently now is that I give them small porrtions. And if they want more of something they usually sign at me, or point. OR, I'll notice DS dropping his veggies onthe floor (this is a sign that he wants more meat). LOL He's a true boy!!!!

 

In order for us to all eat together (and have a peaceful meal)we feed them in courses. We start with the veggies and meat--that part is spoon fed to them because I have to hide the peas and carrots in applesauce and meat in a fruit puree. Once those are done my husband and I serve up our meal while the girls finish with their cheese, fruit, bread and milk. They eat dinner at ~5:15 so we do have an early dinner around here.

Recently I started giving them spoons to play with, one gets the concept but she's not actually putting any food in her mouth yet

 

I think once the boys hit a year-we started with the utensils and plates/bowls. I know I was rather shocked at how well they did from the beginning. We haven't looked back-and now at almost 2 years old-they are really good with the utensils. The throwing of plates/bowls was a short phase, and was mostly when they were in their highchairs. They now generally eat in booster seats at the table and 99% of the time, the dishes stay on the table.

The order in which they get food changes based upon what I want to deal with-lol. But I generally give them everything all at once. It's just easier. If it's something I know they really like, I try to hold out on it. But-I try to give them a variety of different foods at once and see what they eat. For instance-for lunch today, I gave some pasta, stuffed eggplant, 2 crackers, a slice of cheese, raisins, half a slice of turkey and half a slice of ham. And then-once they slowed down on eating that, I cut up some kiwi and gave them that. Now-they ate ALL of the pasta, the cheese and some of the eggplant. Sounds like a lot of food-but not really. This way-I gave them many choices to choose from. And-it helps clean out my fridge and cupboards!

Try the utensils-you never know-they may surprise you! And use them with thicker foods-yogurt, etc. I got some deeper type of spoons. Not sure who makes them-but they are great for soups/cereal and milk, etc.