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

We give a little bit of everything and don't make a fuss about it. He's a good little eater.

I've always been of the school of thought that nothing is off limits, just that sugary, or slaty or fatty or whatever stuff eaten occasionally, alongside a healthy and normal diet is fine. The problem comes when you only offer sugary yoghurt, or something.

I try to offer savoury items as snacks so my DDs aren’t eating sweet things all the time. When we bake together, it tends to be savoury items or things with no extra sugar, e.g. carrot muffins, cheese scones or banana bread with no added sugar.

Give them plain yoghurt/ fromage frais
and add a dash of honey or some fruit. Don't buy it full of sugar or thickeners from the supermarket ( sorry op 😐)

We just drink water and milk in our house. And always just water at mealtimes. They don't complain as it's just normal here. I grew up with a lazy family and unlimited fizzy shit .
So it's not allowed here.

Weaning:
What are your tips for weaning your child onto healthy food?
start on baby rice for the first week, and introduce pureed vegetables, be patient, if the food is spat out, try again a couple of weeks later, tastebuds are delicate and change.

Do you find that your child prefers sweeter foods or more varied flavours?

Sweeter foods are definitely a favourite, but I offer lots of flavours.

Doing the weekly food shop:
Do you find it easy to find healthy snacks for your child?

Yes, but only after scouring the shelves, and reading the labels carefully.
Do you find nutrients labels on foods in supermarkets are clear? - no

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

Cottage pie with lots of vegetables within the pie

What are your favourite healthy swaps?

Jacket potatoes for sweet potatoes

I try to eat healthily myself because she always wants what I have. But at 20 weeks pregnant with HG all I seem to eat is sugar so it's not going well...

If my children are being fussy I just leave things like cucumber, raisins, cheese, boiled eggs etc out on the table and they eat them as they play.

Fruit and veg snacks always available - cut up attractively for nibbling :)

For little ones, finger food is more fun to eat. I often used to put a dollop of houmous in an egg cup and put carrot sticks in for 'hair'. Making food look more exciting sometimes helps. Having a fruit bowl available at all times has encouraged my DC to eat more fruit. As in my childhood in the 70's, sweet time was only at 3pm, never before lunch and this rule applies to my DC now.

I’ve always given my children healthy snacks as infants- for years my two youngest thought that little boxes of raisins were a massive treat! Now they’re a little older I let them make their own decisions on snacks with a little healthy guidance and fortunately for me the often reach for fruits and yoghurts.

I love Little Yeos and potsnof yoghurts and children’s healthy snacks.

My favourite ever snacks, however, are the fruit purée pouches (a lot of the children’s food producers do these). My eldest son has profound medical and complex special needs and these are the perfect go to snack if we’re out and about. They can even be frozen for a cold slushy treat on a hot day!

love this thread- getting lots of tips.

we try to be as healthy as possible-offering fruit and beg where possible- sometimes they end up on floor sometimes they dont. lol

Starts with weaning - make your own food with real ingredients rather than using jars of completely mulched junk. This way, they get to taste actual food and the transition to mashed and chopped food is much easier. I took a no nonsense approach with both of mine and everyone comments on how well they eat. Both of mine get very frustrated when we eat out and children menu's are just full of rubbish & chips. They want to go out for a meal as we do - enjoy proper food!
They only have dessert a couple of times a week - as a treat. Other than that, it's fruit.
I don't deprive them of anything - when we go out they are allowed what they want to drink. But at home, it's water and milk.

Biggest tip is leading by example, make sure you are eating plenty of fruit and veg, it's easy to forget about your own diet while focusing on theirs

Add a very small amount of a new fruit or vegetable to the plate and don't comment if it's not touched, but make it clear how pleased you are if they try something new, even if they decide they don't like it. I also allow them to discreetly spit it in to a tissue, but no big yuck etc displays, which makes them more likely to try something and I've only had one time something was spat out

Making mealtimes a time for all to sit together, if at all possible. Eat the same food- and lead by example.

Include a mixture of sweet and savoury. Also to include different textures. I think a balance of all things is key. A treat a day is fine.

My children were fussy eaters when younger. We got an allotment from the council and started to grow our own fruit and vegetables. The children really enjoyed choosing what they wanted to grow, planting, caring for and awaiting their plants to be ready. So much so that sometimes they ate all the peas at the allotment and on the way home.
My children love their vegetables now and they can tell the difference between fresh home grown fruits and vegetables and shop bought ones

We try not to make food an issue. We always offer vegetables when eating and ignore any fuss. We do have puddings and we do have treat food but all in moderation.

We limit sweet things where they won't eat savoury so they don't refuse meals in favour of dessert. We keep a close eye on salt.

plenty of excise get some yoga classes in

We make a point of no 'special food' for DC, just smaller portions of what we're having. I cook everything from scratch and don't want to make multiple meals per night. If you try it and don't like it, you don't have to eat it, but I am not cooking again. So you can have an extra portion of veg if you don't want to eat all your chicken or fish, or fruit afterwards, to fill up.

I also encourage them to get involved in food shopping, cooking and cleaning up after in an age-appropriate way, using numeracy, literacy, gross and fine motor skills, recall and memory skills etc. I do find that they're more inclined to want to try to eat something new or that they're not sure about if they know the amount of effort that goes into getting it onto their plates.

My child loves colour. Her favourite colour is yellow and she adores yellow peppers and carrots because they are bright and colourful. Tomatoes are 'too squidgy' though

I don’t mean to be rude but I hate these sponsored threads.

I don’t buy little yeos. The fruit flavoured ones are sweetened and so give my child a taste for sweet things at a young age. Secondly, they are an appalling waste of single use plastic, even if it is recyclable.

The children tend to eat what we are having. DD is weaning at the moment and we are doing baby led weaning. As a family we don't eat red meat and try to have low sugar diets. That doe sometimes make it difficult when out as most convenience foods are packed with hidden sugar but I try to be prepared with fruit (healthy sugar) or packs of rice cakes etc.

My DC are nearly grown ups now, so I'm at the more reflective end of things.

My tips would be to offer a variety of foods, try things, don't be surprised when they reject certain foods and don't get hung about it. NEVER make food an issue. Try not to use sweet foods as 'treats' or rewards but don't make them completely out of bounds either. Keep eating a variety of healthy foods yourself and have them available for your DC.

DS was a PITA at certain stages and would refuse all food stuffs that weren't brown, beige or whitish. It was tedious and painful but I didn't make a fuss trying to force him to eat things and I kept on putting out all the good things & eventually he got bored of brown, beige and whitish. He is nearly 20 now and is not only a very varied eater but is a great cook too. I love it when he's home from Uni as I get to try all sorts of new things. DD was less fussy as a small child, but she also loves trying new things. Neither of them have weight issues.