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

My top to is to not follow every meal with something sweet. It is not necessary and sets up bad habits.

my tip for weaning would be to don't rush, stay calm, it's a learning curve for you and baby, the introduction of new textures and tastes is a big step for little palettes. I used pureed sweet potato, mashed banana with formula, and very small amounts until baby starts to enjoy food and stops to wonder what this strange substance is in their mouth.

Weaning tips I would give to mums of toddlers would be to try new foods, avoid strong flavours (citrus, and parsnips) and do not use stock cubes to make foods more 'liquid' the salt levels are too high. I offered toast with butter, slices of yellow pepper and I ate the same and showed the chewing motion helping my DS to copy the technique, we had a couple of gags but they soon learned, and went on to carrot sticks, and apple which was cut up. Its an intimate process, and observation and patience is needed.

Weaning: get them eating the same foods we do, it encouraged all of us to eat really healthily

Food shop: we shop online, this stops any temptation to impulse buy junk.

Family meal times: we have one child with ASD (and associated sensory issues with food)and one with severe allergies that have caused severe food phobias. My approach is to have a spread of healthy food always available. The two children that eat anything will tuck into it all, and the other two are slowly becoming more adventurous. I make sure the basic meal is healthy and something they can all eat, and then there are extra veg etc that they can select if they want it.

We are vegan - it's really that simple. Dairy is horrifically bad for you. Cut that and meat out, limit other junk, and you are good. We are not purists - my children are allowed treats like vegan cakes and vegan ice cream occasionally - but they were weaned on vegetables and fruit, and continue to eat vegetables and fruit.

I've been quite lucky with mine, fortunately they liked most things, just not more bitter veg such as kale. We'd still get them to eat a bit, but just to have it on the same spoon/fork as something they like, eg carrot or mash.

My children are now 11 and 7 and have very different eating habits.

When they were babies it was easy to get them to eat healthily as they had good appetites and would eat whatever I gave them, but when they were toddlers they started to "go off" fruit and vegetables so I had to be more sneaky!

One of the tricks was mashing broccoli and carrots into their sweet potato (my 7 year old daughter still has this now on her roast dinners).

My son stayed fussy for a while until he started to have school dinners where he tried food he would never try for me at home.

As he got older he became very sporty and aware that he has to eat healthily to be competitive. Yes he loves fast food and pizzas but he knows these are a treat and most of his meals consist of lean meat, veg and rice or a jacket potato.

My daughter is a bit more difficult to feed nutritiously as she is a very fussy eater. She would live on chicken nuggets, hot dog sausages, pasta and rice.

She is becoming sporty too and aware that she should be eating healthy so she will eat a plain meal of chicken breast, rice and veg (although her dramatic performance when eating the broccoli is worthy of a Oscar!).

Letting her cook with me helps too, if she has chopped the carrots she is more likely to eat them.

Another thing she has started doing (her idea) is writing a menu for her dinner. She picks one protein item, one carb and 3 vegetables.

They have a sweet treat after dinner which can be a yoghurt or small chocolate bar like a Kinder. They also have a Macdonalds or Burger King, 2 or three times a month and I let them have sweets etc at parties or on days out as denying them completely could effect their relationship with food.

Even though they are aware of what is good/bad for you, they do ask for treats such as crisps and chocolate, especially when we are sat watching TV together in the evenings. They declare "I'm hungry ", but when I suggest they have some fruit they make excuses. (I get it to be honest, I often need that Kit Kat instead of an apple so why wouldn't they!)

I have therefore started making sugar free jelly with raspberries, mandarins or grapes for these occasions or if we are out of jelly, they will have a handful of sultanas.

We talk openly about food and nutrition and the children are aware of what each food group does for your body. I have always put the focus on what healthy/unhealthy foods do for the inside of our bodies rather than making an issue of the outside signs of unhealthy eating such an weight problems.

I offer berries instead of fruit. Seems to work!

I would suggest starting as you mean to go on. For DC that meant that we specifically asked that they didn't have puddings at nursery and were offered fruit or yogurt instead. Milk or water to drink. Snacks were veg, fruit, breadsticks, cheese cubes etc. We didn't really do things like nuggets, smiley faces, cheap sausages etc. that all seem to feature on children's menus.

It's harder now that DC are older but fizzy drinks, sweets, biscuits, crisps are all allowed but not unlimited. DC will ask for 'treats' (and are rarely refused) but know that these are as part of a generally healthy diet. They will often have pudding as part of school dinners but are just as likely to choose the fruit/yogurt option.

We're not perfect but hope that by discussing different food choices now and not banning anything we are helping DC to be able to make healthier choices as they get older.

We try to model good eating at home with no foods being labelled good or bad. Its more about trying to eat a variety.

With the older DC when shopping I try to encourage them to try new things, particularly fruit and veg. We also browse cook books to try new meals and are positive about giving things a go.

When it comes to weaning, if a child is breastfed- substituting normal milk for breast milk can help with the transition whilst also introducing new healthy foods, for example using BM in porridge or blending BM with bananas to make purée.

Always put veg on her plate, no matter what the dinner.

Pudding isn't an everyday thing, usually only weekends.

I am currently in the middle of weaning baby number 5, it is so much easier this time round. I offer him everything and he will give it a go. He is a great eater so that really helps :) He seems to love finger food and will eat whatever the bigger ones eat - even spicy food!!!
We always try to have a lot of fruit in the house and encourage the children to eat a couple of pieces a day!
I also do not but sugared cereals - the kids aren't happy but tough haha!

Weaning:

What are your tips for weaning your child onto healthy food? - gentle flavours, small amounts, don't offer before 6 months

Do you find that your child prefers sweeter foods or more varied flavours? I offered carrot and sweet potato puree, then went on to mashed nectarine, banana and peach with a little fromage frais, which worked well

Doing the weekly food shop:
Do you find it easy to find healthy snacks for your child? Some supermarkets yet - but do not like the tempting chocolate which is stored at the checkout area

Do you find nutrients labels on foods in supermarkets are clear? No they are too small - there needs to be a better colour coding for children's palettes

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

sweet potato mash shepherds pie (fine mince boiled with a chopped red pepper, can of tomatoes, finely chopped onion(

What are your favourite healthy swaps?

beef mince for quorn mince - they cannot tell the difference, and it's easy to digest.

I have made many food swaps, we particularly love small bell peppers with soft cheese dips. But I WISH supermarkets would stop having sweets crisps and pop at the checkout. When I weaned my DS and DD it was different both times with DS taking to puree much quicker at 6 months, than DS who was 8 months before finally accepting a denser food.

My daughter is almost 3 and we make sure we all sit at the table to eat together for every meal, and she eats the same as us. As a consequence of this she eats a really broad range of foods and some of her favourite things are probably considered quite odd for a toddler (olives, chorizo,walnuts, artichokes...!). Of course she also likes and asks for snacks and sweet things but we tend to not have too many unhealthy snacks in the house - and we certainly don't go down the "kids menu" route of fishfingers & chips every night. There's nothing wrong with that in moderation but I wouldn't feel good if I ate that every night so the same applies to her!
She eats well at nursery so sometimes she just wants yoghurt at dinner time and a few things off our plates and that's fine by me as I know she's had plenty of veg and fruit during the day. It's all about balance though!

Don't give up offering food if your LO refuses it a few times, it can take many many attempts before they will even try it. And some of the foods my toddler didn't want anywhere near his tray are now favourites!

• don’t offer things in the first place. I know that it can be really difficult having a fussy eater eg. A child who will only eat chicken nuggets & chips - but I also think if they hadn’t been given it in the first place it wouldn’t have got to that position.

• don’t make a big deal of it

• model eating a healthy and varied diet

• their tastes change all the time, don’t assume if they haven’t liked something once that’s it!

We all eat the same food and always have done - I realise I'm fortunate that my kids aren't horribly fussy, but I think it also helps that they know that if they don't eat what's in front of them there's no alternative (unless the curry turned out spicier than planned in which case they can fill up on toast!) Our diets could no doubt be healthier (we could always eat more veg although I try and make sure there's a good amount in every dinner), but they're not awful. The kids do get processed/junk food sometimes but usually if we're out or as a treat.

I have only quite recently become a sensible healthy eater myself and I think I made my daughter like the sugary foods and junk food by offering to her in the first place and having it in the house because that's what I lived on.
I feel really bad about it but it's never too late to change and that's what I've done.
I cook everything from scratch and by joining a slimming club, I've learned a lot about how to make healthier choices by simply swapping ingredients or cooking them differently. It's been a lot easier with my dc's than I thought. The older child prefers it and dd is eating it all. Success!
My daughter loves pasta and curries so I've added more vegetables in to the sauces and just sneaked stuff in more, mainly

With weaning I offered vegetables before the sweet fruit stuff, waited until my son loved those then introduced sweeter stuff. Mostly though, I don't buy rubbish food, and I don't offer it either. Snacks are tomatoes, pepper, hummus and pitta, and fruit. Meal times are fish and veg or meat and veg, don't give processed foods at all. He loves homemade curries, basically veg and tinned tomatoes with lots of different seasonings. Basically everything me and DP eat, I can't afford processed stuff so eat a lot of tinned tomatoes/chickpeas/curries etc.

My approach has been to offer my DDs as much variety as possible of healthy food, eat as a family. Never allow someone to say they don't like something if they haven't tried it. The main one though is to cook from scratch: bulk cook family meals (I work 4 days a week, so am not blessed with lots of time, but it can be found): bulk cook meals and put in the freezer, your slow cooker will become your best friend. Also, allow treats, sometimes, after meals. Ban them and they become the forbidden fruit. Oh, and reduce the amount of snacks and chocolate in the house, because you your teenagers will always find it.

Speaking as a sugar addict (although working on this) - it's so important to be aware of how much sugar is added to processed foods - honestly, foods that you wouldn't even think have sugar in - like mayonnaise!
It pains me to say it - but, as others have said, the only way to be absolutely certain what you & your family are eating is to make all meals from scratch.
My son has a massive sweet tooth & I really worry about it. We have lots of healthy options at home - plenty of fruit & veg (which he loves, thank goodness!) but he will always be hunting for something sweet.
I'm loathe to try & ban it altogether as I think this will just make him want it more & then gorge on it when it is available.
We love shopping together & he loves picking the fruit & veg. I find it easy to know what to buy & what to avoid, but those sugary treats are always whispering my name!

If they dont have sugar they dont crave it.

I bake low sugar treats like scones and sweet potato flapjacks.

I hide veg in their spaghetti sauces by whizzing it up first.

My children only allowed fruit for a snack after school, we go to the supermarket together on a sunday (usually) and they get to pick the fruit for the week, getting them involved a bit encourages them to want to eat it more in my experience.