Share your tips for getting your children eating healthily with Little Yeos

[EllieMumsnet]

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Trying to get your children to eat healthily is a battle that many parents will inevitably face; from weaning onto solid foods, to dinner times through to pack lunches and beyond. There is a lot of information and recipes out there on what the best methods/techniques are to get your child to start eating healthily and how to incorporate nutritious food into their meals. With that being said Little Yeos would love to know any recommendations, recipes, techniques or experiences of getting your child to eat healthily.

Here’s what Little Yeos have to say: We’d love to hear your top tips for children’s healthy eating. Here are some examples to get you started:

Weaning:
What are your tips for weaning your child onto healthy food?
Do you find that your child prefers sweeter foods or more varied flavours?

Doing the weekly food shop:
Do you find it easy to find healthy snacks for your child?
Do you find nutrients labels on foods in supermarkets are clear?

Meal times:
Do you have any favourite healthy tips or recipes that work for your family?
What are your favourite healthy swaps?

Whatever your recommendations, thoughts or experiences when it comes to getting your child to eat healthily, share them on the thread below and you’ll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

Everything in moderation.

Lead by example, so don't expect your DC not to crave sweet snacks if you yourself constantly have biscuits, sweets, chocolate in your hand!

Limit the amount of unhealthy snacks you have in the house.

Avoid making "children's meals" - the DC can usually eat what the adults are eating, and don't need to have nuggets, fish fingers etc as meal replacements.

Get them involved in cooking! My 9 year old can cook pretty much anything with supervision and eats a wide variety.

My eldest is autistic and hates trying new things. So once a month we have a game where we put out different foods and everyone has to try. The kids love making the adults try "yucky" food and often find they like something.

We have started eating less meat and soya mince has been a success in our house. We cook from scratch, always eat sitting round the table and my daughter is generally a good healthy eater but does love her puddings. As long as she eats a varied and balanced diet, I think that’s ok.

Nothing is banned as i believe everything is fine in moderation. We all eat together regularly, my children were weaned at the table whilst everyone else ate rather than eating separately. They are allowed their likes and dislikes but i dont make separate meals i adapt what meal we have to suit each child. Such as pasta in sauce for one is plain pasta with dipping sauce for another.

Allowing them to be involved in deciding whats for tea and letting them pick on certain days is always good.
Vegetables are just put on plates and they can decide to try them no pressure - they all now have their favourite vegetables.
My mealtime motto seems to be leave what you dont like. I only plate small amounts for the littler ones so not we dont have too much waste they can always have more if they want.
Pudding is not a reward and is not withheld if they dont eat their main.
Mostly mealtimes are a battle i choose not to fight as they can become far too stressful if you start trying to force children to eat. Mealtimes are not always perfect but they are less stressful.

Set a good example so eat as a family and involve the children in the cooking. Don't buy junk food so there isn't that option available.

I don't buy fruit yogurts. There is a huge variety of flavours in just plain yogurt. If you want 'fruit yogurt', add fruit. Or compote. Or even jam.

Absolutely no need for all the crap added to fruit yogurt.

Sorry Yeo (though your plain yogurts are lovely).

And there's absolutely no need for 'weaning' yogurts or 'baby' yogurts.

Yogurt is yogurt - until manufacturers start adulterating it with unnecessary crap.

My fussy boy likes it when I make a face out of salad/vegetables/whatever- he gets a lot of pleasure out of eating it bit by bit!

My little boy 18 months and from he was 6 months and started getting spook feeds I always made sure he was giving healthy food I never give him baby jars always make meat potatoes veg or fish and rice he gets fruit carrot sticks and the Yeo valley yogurt or cheese sticks

It's all about balance. No one food is 'bad' or 'healthy'. Eat a balanced diet, create food habits such as eating together at the table.

I cook from scratch, make sure we are eating at least 5 portions of fruit and veg per day and try to use the traffic light system system when choosing packaged foods such as cereal. It's really hard as a parent as so many companies are jumping on the 'healthy' band wagon to advertise/sell their products when ultimately they aren't healthy at all.

Try to avoid anything processed.
Suggestions: Instead of bought chips just cut potatoes into wedges.
Start a habit of only drinking water - goes for cafes and restaurants too (will save quite a bit over the years)
Try to make rather than buy pizzas. Get hold of a stand mixer if you can, then just add water to a dough mix, make the sauce easily by pureeing a tin of tomatoes with chopped onion(try frozen) and basil. Control what's in them easily and quick to make once you've done it a few times. Most kids love pizza!

I think being relaxed about food really helps - I was a 'fussy' eater as a child but it was mostly a textural thing with me, so when my oldest looked like he was going to be the same, I asked my mum if any of the techniques she had EVER tried to cajole me into eating things had worked and when she admitted they hadn't, I decided not to bother.

I was lucky that my oldest liked a fairly healthy, albeit limited, range of foods, and the hardest thing was not trying to change it up just because I thought he must be bored! He didn't care, so I served variations of the same few meals over and over again until he was ready to try new things and when he was he was much less inclined to do the thing where they have a face like they're eating poo before it's even come near them then they either taste a single molecule or declare they don't like it just from being in the same room as something new.

My youngest has food intolerances, so we have to do a lot of work to find things he can eat, but he is lucky that he was diagnosed early, s doesn't really remember being able to eat 'normally' and is fairly stoic for a 3 year old when he can't have something...for now!

We don't usually have junk food (crisps, biscuits etc) in the house, my DC know they are a treat.
They know fruit & veg is healthy and they should have at least 5 a day.
They only drink water or milk.
No sugar cereal for breakfast.
Etc etc...
It's all about education and teaching them.young what is healthy v unhealthy and why nutrition is important.

Starting them on homemade, nutritious and varied food as early as possible, because once they develop a taste for the processed stuff it's hard to get away from it!

Also try to keep treats for evenings or weekends.

One meal for everyone, no cooking separate dishes.

I find offering a choice of 2 heathy(ish) options good, because if they choose what they want to eat, they're more likely to eat it!

It works for us right now, but that's not to say it'll work for everyone. Always open to suggestions.

I don’t have things that are off limits really (within reason) if they want ice cream for pudding I give them it I don’t call it a treat. The portion size is reasonable and they don’t get it endlessly. I explain to them what is in the food (sugar, etc) good or bad and what effect it has on the body. In simple terms. This is for my 4yo and 2.5 yo so I keep it simple. I want them to understand about food and not just think things aren’t allowed or the sugary fatty things are treats to get excited about but treats because we don’t have them often because of how they impact on our bodies. It works for us.
This didn’t apply up to 18 months or so when I just limited sugar and processed food entirely.

We're very lucky that dd and ds are pretty good at eating vegetables and love fruit. However now they're older we do find more unhealthy snacks and treat foods sneaking in, which we really need to cut down on. Overall I think cooking as much as you can from scratch and eating as a family are some of the biggest things you can do to help kids eat well. If we're eating something a little different that we're not sure the kids will like we might break it down into components for them and then give them a bit of the main things as well (we do this a lot for things like stir fry and fajitas as well, as they are a bit reluctant to eat the meal all together but will happily eat chicken, some wrap/noddles, some peppers etc.

I do struggle with snacks, as most ones you can buy are very high sugar, even if it's natural sugar. We usually reach for fruit/veggies or cubes of cheese, but I'm always looking for new ideas.

Another things we're finding great is getting the kids involved in growing our own fruit and vegetables. They're so excited by it, and love eating what we grow

Mine would eat crap all day if they could and sometimes it's easier to just say yes. But they also like to snack on cucumber and sugar snap peas. I just don't buy sweets and biscuits so if it's not there, they can't pester for it!

Smoothies for breakfast are a great way to sneak in vitamins and supplements such as flaxseed. You can also put green veg in there with some sweeter fruits and it still tastes good.

What’s wrong with plain yoghurt? I love the plain stuff - flavoured usually has sugar in it.

Best tips I used we let the kids eat the same things as you dont feed them separate food. They like to feel included and copy us.they will learn to eat if everyone has the same. Dont mash up all food to a mush hard to distinguish. Have an array of colour and different texture food that kids can sample smell taste hold look at sensory discovery develops and helps their curiosity with food. Keep giving food they dont like taste changes as they develop, or if they get teeth they'll happily munch now that they can. Dont give a drink eith food it will fill them up and theh wont eat. Dont feed when tired they will be grouchy and refuse food.

Toddler ds’s favourite ‘threat’ at the moment is ‘biscuits’ made from a mashed banana mixed with oats and bakes until golden.

When weaning I was careful to offer a variety of foods and to keep giving something even when he didn’t seem to like it.
He eats a huge variety now but I do think that a big part of it is luck. He also loves to get involved with the cooking.

Always lead by example by eating an extensive range of fruit and vegetables, and never make a fuss when they turn their noses up at something.

Hiding vegetables in pasta sauces works - sometimes!

as my DS gets older and more picky, I find it helps to involve him in the menu planning and the cooking. If he helped cook it, he's much more likely to eat it.