When do children really start to eat the same as you?

[Em32]

Getting a bit bored of doing special meals for my ds who is 2 in February. His diet isn't bad but I'd like to include him in family meals a bit more (although this is tricky as I don't eat meat) - any suggestions for what goes down well? When do they start eating properly with the rest of the family - at least most of the time? Dd is going to need weaning in the next couple of months so don't want to be doing ridiculous amounts of cooking.

Quite, HMC. we find many of our family meals look rather like "meat, potatoes and 2 veg" traditional meals. which, as we are veggie, is a bit silly really. bland, slightly boring (and quick to cook in a hurry) food.

Actually, some of the few foods Sam will eat include olives, salmon / seafood (I do a great seafood curry) pesto and proper mozzarella.
Mind you, he's weird like that.

Maybe part of the compromise though is having the time to cook things like that. In fact I only rarely cook mash (fairly archetypal kid's food) because it is so much easier to just chop up potatoes, throw on tray, sprinkle over olive oil and herbs and chuck in oven.

I think actually our biggest compromise is that sometimes we would have supermarket quiche, chips and beans and we only do that now when I have a hangover - so very infrequently indeed. Maybe once a month we have a supermarket curry meal or a Chinese take away and the kids share it.

What about fish? If the family eat it of course. I find it's far faster and easier (especially some of Asda's flavoured ones) than most ready meals

NQC - this is not the average experience though!

Totally agree with you HMC - -we cook spicey and exotic food for ourselves , which ds1 wouldn't touch - -ds2 is more adventurous.

Sunday lunch is about the only meal that the whole family enjoys as is.

Tonight I'm cooking beef in beer (Delia) in fact it's on the hob now - and ds2 will share this but ds1 wouldn't touch it

I think you are right though hmc that if you eat as a family there is a certain degree of compromise. However in our case it is DH and I that don't eat fish and the kids would probably eat your salmon meal.

I think it depends on your child palate.

Ds 21 mths and like other posters here, has been eating poper meals since 9 mths.
I stopped pureeing at 6 mths. Stpped mashing at 8 mths.
At 9 mths he was eating exactly the same as us.

At 9 mths he ate fish and chips, curry, chilli - both quite mild - but that is how dh & I like it too - salami, frankfurters, pepperoni, anchovies.

I make a lot of shep pie, lasagne , pasta etc.

There is nothing the boy won't eat !!!

Go for it em32 !
Try ds with everyhting - I'm sure he'll soon tell you if he doesn't like something.
That will make your time spent cooking & preping alot alot less - hooorah !!

I also remember Prof wotsisname from Child of Our Time ruminating that babies and small children are programmed to prefer bland food, because in evolutionary terms, strong flavours could have disguised food which was 'off'. He even did an experiment with babies to show this. Anyone else remember this?

Now you've tantalised us with that you've got to tell us what you were going to say!

go on oliveoil, say it...

no, I was going to be mean and peevish and snide so will refrain and go and do some work and try and improve my character.

xx

Yes oliveoil, say what you really mean, or else, what's the point ?

yeah, go on OO, spit it out (har har)

NQC, when does the window of non-fussiness close, on average? DS is 12m and eats what we eat (unless it's chilli - I don't think it's particularly good for tiny guts), although we have to tailor our food to him quite a bit. He's happy to try stuff if he sees us eating it first. I really hope this isn't going to end!

Both mine are fussy but in different ways. Ds1 (4 in Jan) likes blandish food (bread/pasta), and wants either natural yogurt or ketchup with everything. His favourite thing is Philadelphia and cucumber sandwiches.

Ds2 (2 in March) likes spicier food and is not at all keen on bread or pasta.

But I don't cook special meals for either. They generally do eat a little of what's on offer.

I did fib a little bit when describing what DS1 would eat - he will not (generally) eat mash. Because I don't like potatoes, particularly without the skins, he never gets served them, so he doesn't eat them.

He used to go to a childcare co-op, where different parents cooked on different days, and as a result, got exposed to at least 10 different people's cooking. I wish there was a way to replicate that experience in his current life.

I don't feel personally that I have compromised to enable us to eat MOST of the time with the kids. We probably have something super spicy once a week and DP and I would eat that seperately because it would be too much for the children. I also like to have a couple of 'adult' meals a week wher DP and I can chat and have a glass of wine in peace!

But for the rest of the time my children cope with quite strong flavours - they eat milder curries, olives, anchovies, marmite, parnips, parmesan and blue cheeses for eg. I don't agree that children automatically favour bland foods but I do think that giving them exclusively bland foods when they are weaning and will have very open minds and palates means they will be less likely to be able to cope with stronger flavours later on.

CarolinaMoon, I'm not sure when the window closes, or starts to close (I'm sure it's not an absolute thing, and of course, every child is different). I think it's somewhere between one and two, but I can't find any of my reference books that would go into this. (I think Spock would. I'm pretty sure The Food Kids Eat or whatever it's called does. And I know Mother Nature covers this in detail.)

I will keep an eye open, and let you know. Their appetites certainly start shinking around the one-year mark, as their growth slows down.

I don't compromise to fit in with my childrens palate at all - except that sometimes I do like the ease of ready prepared junk which I wouldn't give them - not because they wouldn't eat it, but because I don't want them having too much crap. I compromise far more to fit in with my husbands hatred of green veg. My kids love spicy stuff, and dd's fave meal is pasta and pesto. the other night we all ate chicken breast stuffed with goats cheese and sundried tomatoes wrapped in parma ham - the only concession I made to my children was to serve theirs cut into small pieces rather than sliced and artfuly arranged.

Oh to be all able to eat the same food [sigh]

Well in our house DS who is AS/ASD will only eat certain things on certain days and DD is on a wheat/dairy/egg/tomatos/citrusfruit free diet

So meal times are very long and quite stressful in our house, i would LOVE us all to be able to eat the same things, hopefully dd will outgrow her allergies and when she does i,ll be picking everyones brains for what you feed ALL your families at tea times