I'm trying to make up a weekly menu. Does this sound healthy?

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, I have a 6 year old daughter who is over the 100% centile on the chart for height and weight. Her height and weight do match up, but she has a tendency to put on weight if we're not careful. She has a big appetite, so we're trying to keep her food as healthy as pos. She also suffers from long term constipation and doesn't dring enough.

I've had a think about all the things she will eat and have come up with this menu for each week. She is quite limmited as to what she'll eat, but does this sound o.k?

Breakfasts

Branflakes with 1 teaspoon of sugar (she won't eat it without)

Cheerios

yogart and fruit

Shreaded wheet (with sugar)

1 piece of peanut butter on wholemeal toast and apple

scrabmbled egg on 1 piece of wholemeal toast.

snack at 11am (only if she asks for it)

a piece of fruit or a ski yogart.

dry roasted mixed seeds with a splash of soy sauce.

lunches

cheese sandwich with low fat spread and light cheese and some fruit or carrot and cucuber sticks.

prawn and pasta salad, small wholewheet pasta with light mayo, chopped carrot, cucumber, peppers and sweetcorn and prawns.

beens on toast

breadsticks and homous with fruit and yogart.

vedgetable soup (home made) with carrots, sweet potato, parsnips, leeks onions and cabbage. With wholmeal bread and low fat butter.

Chicken wraps with chicken dippers, light mayo and chopped tomato, cucumber and peppers.

Dinners

wholemeal pasta with tomatos and onions and herbs or dolmio sause, with cheese.

Roast chicken with roast vedge and gravey. (She doesn't like potato)

Spagetti bolognaise with quarn mince.

Chicken and rice with choice of sauce.

That's all I can think of that she'll eat. Is it too limmited? She'll eat every variety of fruit, but is more fussy with vedge. That's why she'll get the soup once or twice a week as it's just pure vedge but she doesn't mind because she can't see it.
If you have any suggestions that we could try, or healthy replacements, that would be great. I'm not a brilliant cook, but I'm learning.

Make pasta sauce with veg hidden it. You could make your own pizzas and use the sauce as a topping too.

Does she cook with you?

If she likes things like cucumber, cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks etc it's absolutely fine to give her lots of those as the 'vegetable' bit of meals. Might be worth trying things like baby corn and sugar snaps raw too.

Could you add fruit to her cereal, eg, blueberries - I would really cut the sugar on her cereal totally.

Also no yoghurts for snacks - in fact I'd just ditch the snacks totally.

And I'd have vegetable soup a lot with a small wholemeal roll.

Lose the cheese with the pasta sauce and as Choufleur says - shove lots of veg in it and then puree.

Does she eat fish at all?

Oh and to drink, she'll drink skimmed milk, fruit juce watered down with about 1/3 water, sugar free squash (without aspartaine) She'll occasionally drink water. I'm trying to increase it but because she doesn't drink enough as it is, I'm just happy to get her to drink anything.

She can have a treat once a week eg an ice cream or small bag of sweets or crisps.

If she likes spaghetti, she might also like noodles and they are dead easy to cook. Noodles with vege and tofu might go down well, or noodles with vege and prawns or chicken.

Have you tried cold filtered water from the fridge - my children love this especially if in a nice water bottle.

Would definitely cut down on juice and milk.

I've tried adding fruit to her ceriel insted of sugar and she won't eat it. She'll fish out all the fruit and eat that, then say she wants sugar so she can eat the cerial.

She loves cheese with her pasta. She moaned tonight that she didn't think there was enough cheese in it. (I'm cutting back on the amount)

Good idea about adding vedge to the pasta as well. She'll probubly be o.k with that if I keep it chopped tiny.

She doesn't like fish usually but eats prawns and sometimes tuna in a sandwich. She does take IQ olmega 3 every day to make up for this.

She likes super noodles. I know they're not healthy, but I was trying to think of what I could use as an alternative to flavour them.

She hasn't had these since I noticed there was MG in them.

I think if I set a good exaple and start taking a water bottle around with me, she might want to drink mine and even have her own. (It's worth a try) Cold water is so much nicer too, I agree.

Rice noodles are really easy - just pour boiling water over them. My girls used to like them with edamame/sugar snaps/frozen peas and a bit of soy sauce and honey.

Sounds good. I'm just wondering wether or not to mention that I don't even know what edamame or sugar snaps are. Maybe google is calling.

Mine also like the flavours from soy and chinese 5 spice and also get some chopsticks (childrens ones) to make it fun.

DS1 is fussy but actually prefers spicey food so loves chilli, thai curries etc.

Edamame = soya beans - Birds Eye sell frozen ones.
Sugar snaps - in the vege bit of the supermarket, near the green beans. They are like tiny peas in the pod and you eat them pod and all.

Thank you. Childrens chopstics sound like a gret idea. She'll love that.

Good with the soy dry fried seeds you mentioned earlier sprinkled over too. :)

Thanks Remus, I'll look out for them.

Frozen blueberries make nice little snacks. Can you make your own fishcakes with potato, gradually adding more fish, less mash.

Get her to cook with you, taste things as you are cooking.

Sounds great but ignore snacks if she isn't asking and insist she drinks water before getting a snack as thirst is often mistaken for hunger.
Then play a game or get toy out to distract after the drink.
Why don't you go on a special shopping trip to buy a cup or beaker of her choice in Disney or similar but that the cup is only allowed water in (this worked for me in a flask with a straw with rapunzel on).

I think you only need to watch portion size for her. Does she have a small plate and don't fill it up to the edges.

Enjoy cooking choc brownies together then Freeze them so you don't scoff them all at once.

Thanks everyone, I'll try the drink and destraction rather than a snack. I'm sure she eats more because she doesn't drink enough. It's such a battle, she'll take 1-2 little sips then walk away.

She does sometimes cook with me, but to be honest, I'm usually trying to hide vedge in her food and if she sees it she'll say "I'm not eating that!" She does like making cakes, but doesn't like eating them. We usually send them to people or mummy and daddy eat them.

I think liquid intake is more important than food if she really suffers from constipation, my DD is the same and on the days when she drinks very little it is noticeable that the constipation problems are much worse.

To cut down on cheese for pasta when my two were young I used this method. Buy mature cheese for better flavour and freeze it, using the tiny hole side of the grater, grate some cheese over the pasta when just ready to serve, while cheese is still frozen. The cheese grates tiny but looks a lot more than it is, being mature all the flavour is still there. If you forget to freeze cheese use it straight from fridge but grate lightly, leaning heavy uses more cheese and thicker peices!

Why are people suggesting a six year old cut out cheese and yoghurts, they are an essential source of calcium and I don't think the OP is giving her daughter excessive amounts of dairy in her menu? She should have at least 3 servings a day as far as I am aware.

If fluid intake is an issue and she's picky with veg, I would try to make the veg soup she will eat a regular item on your menu - maybe 4/5 times a week.

As she likes noodles maybe you could try her with some noodle soups. That would get more liquid into her.

Here's a Nigella recipe for a Thai Chicken noodle soup.