Putting a Stop to Your Child’s Picky Eating
Despite the fact that it’s great when your child develops a mind of their own, it could also lead to some parenting issues. This is especially true when your child’s eating habits become picky and you struggle to get them to eat their entire meal. Since you’re going to want your kids to eat the healthy food, these eating habits need to be fixed early on. Here are some ways to stop your child’s picky eating:
Dip It
Young children love to immerse their food in tasty dipping sauces, which can be used to your benefit. You’ll want to try finding healthy dipping options however, so that your child isn’t cancelling out their healthy food options. Here are some great options: cottage cheese, fruit preserves, guacamole, peanut butter, pureed fruit and veggies, and greek yogurt.
Toppings
Similar to dipping food into various spread, as mentioned above, adding special toppings to your child’s food will help make them less picky. Find some nutritious toppings they like to broaden your picky eater’s possible menu. Here are some more suggestions for toppings: greek yogurt, cream cheese, melted cheese, guacamole, tomato sauce, applesauce, and peanut butter.
Make a Drink
If you can get some healthy food into your child by making a drink, give it a try! As long as it tastes decent, your child will most likely prefer a shake or juice drink over having to eat a full plate of food. Make a fruit and vegetable smoothie for them to get those vital nutrients to your kid. Better yet, if you have an electric juicing device, you can make the most of your healthy foods by squeezing the essential vitamins and minerals out of them.
Trickery
While it’s not the best practice to trick your children into eating food, sometimes they’re only picky eaters because it’s “all in their head.” Try to slip grated or diced vegetables into some of their favorite foods. You can also try the “Dip It” method of covering healthy foods with some of their favorite sauces in order to make your child more willing to eat it.
Understanding
While your child may be an obvious picky eater, you also have to understand the fact that their stomachs are much smaller than yours. Try to keep serving sizes small so they don’t feel overwhelmed at the dinner table. If your child is ready to quit on their meal, try encouraging them to go for one or two more bites before they’re finished.
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Written by Stephanie Parker from Sleepingbaby.com, inventor of the Zipadee-Zip
The motto for Sleeping Baby, makers of the Zipadee-Zip, is: "Inspiring Dreams One Night at A time," and that, in a nutshell, is how it all started…with one little dream that has since become the Parker family's reality. When Brett and Stephanie Parker's daughter, Charlotte, was born, the feeling that welled up inside of them was indescribable; they never realized until first looking into those baby blues of hers that they were even capable of that kind of love.
When it was time to transition baby from swaddling, the Parkers tried every sleep sack on the market and every swaddle weaning trick they could find for nearly two weeks and nothing worked to get baby Charlotte to fall and stay asleep.
Stephanie became determined to restore sleep and sanity to their household and set out to find a solution that would soothe Charlotte's startle reflex and provide her the cozy womb-like environment she loved so much but still give her the freedom to roll over and wiggle around in her crib safely. Out of sheer desperation and exhaustion, the Zipadee-Zip was born. The first Zipadee-Zip(R) Stephanie put together on her little sewing machine worked like magic!
To date tens of thousands of Zipadee-Zips have been sold and all from word-of-mouth marketing. It is so rewarding for the Parkers to see other parents and babies getting the sleep they both need and deserve!
For more information, visit sleepingbaby.com.
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