My kids are not the best eaters, or maybe I should say they are very selective about what they will eat. Ammon will eat large quantities of yogurt, or just about any kind of fruit. Carter loves peanut butter and can eat a plate full of cooked carrots. And Abbi will eat just about anything, as long as it is on my plate and she is feeding it to herself. But take your run-of-the-mill dinner item and they generally aren't interested in it. Every night it is a fight to get my kids to eat their dinner, and from the minute they sit down they ask me, "how many bites do I have to take?" How many bites?? Well it would be nice if you'd eat the whole darn thing, or at least eat until you are full. This dinner time predicament has proved to be even more of a problem the last five months as I've been trying to do it by myself. Picture me holding Abbi on my lap while she eats my food and I spoon feed vegetables to Ammon (which he immediately gags on and runs to spit them out in the garbage can) meanwhile, I tell Carter he needs to eat his chicken and he replies, "no thanks, Mom" and I have to explain to him that this isn't really a "no thanks" kind of situation. After we survive dinner and I manage to get the dishes done one-handed and the kitchen is finally clean, Carter comes back into the kitchen and says, "mom, I'm hungry" to which I reply, "well, you should have eaten your dinner." I spend the rest of the night hearing about how hungry he is because there is NO WAY I am giving him anything else to eat. Then we repeat it all the next night. Needless to say, I am getting tired of preparing meals that NO ONE eats. Lately, I have decided to try a new strategy. First, I am making more "kid friendly" meals (even if it means that I have to eat Mac and Cheese for dinner) and second, I am trying to disguise the food as something fun. You know what? It is working. Tonight the boys ate my "hot dog men" without even complaining and Carter even told me, "yow the best mom evow." I hope he still thinks that when Colby gets home in a couple of weeks and I start making him eat brocolli again. Until then, I think I'm going to stick with the FUN FOOD.
Hot dog men with cheese heads, ketchup hair and what is supposed to be a pasta tree.
It's amazing that when I tell the boys we're having sloppy joes I hear, "I hate sloppy joes." But tell them we are having "lion face sandwiches" and I got two thumbs up.
Sea creatures. These were such a hit we've had them a couple of times.
Pig cookies. Not that my kids needed any persuasion to eat their cookies, but I made these a while back for a ward party and thought they were fun enough to include in my fun food post.
I am still working on ways to convince my kids to eat vegetables. I checked out deceptively delicious, thinking it would revolutionize the way my kids ate dinner, but I ended up just throwing out frozen bags of pureed cauliflower a couple of weeks later. Any suggestions?
12 comments:
all i can say is that you are the cutest mom ever! i need to copy some of your food. Marlee is my picky eater & she has the worst gag reflex i have ever heard! i get so sick of making all this food as well & she doesn't eat it. love your ideas! BTW though what the heck is the "green" stuff for the sea creatures????
love ya tons!
xoxo
Those are awesome ideas, you are so creative, I will have to remember those ideas. They all looked so cute too!
Heather,
The "green stuff" or seaweed, is Ramen Noodles (prepared with 1/2 cup less water than usual) and green food coloring.
Those are fabulous. My boys would love for you to cook for them. I found that if they have a small (small being very important) snack as soon as we get Adam home from school, they are usually hungry enough to eat what I have made- at least one thing I make they like and the other stuff they have to have at least one "no thank you" bite. Isaac likes food off of Bryan's plate or dry cereal or sandwiches (pb and sometimes grilled cheese if I am lucky).
I feel your pain!! I hope you get tons of great advice so I can benefit from it as well. My only suggestion with vegetables is to keep offering them every night, even if they continue to reject them. One of these days they might surprise you :)
Oh Shauni you are a wonder woman. I can only imagine what your dinner times are like. I'm sure you're exhausted by the time you go to bed. Did you come up with all of these cute foods on your own? I'll be honest, the hot dog men are looking really mouth-watering right about now.
I have no tips on how to get your kids to eat veggies. Hazel is very similar to a trash compactor. She is ALWAYS hungry and has eaten and enjoyed every single thing I've given her. Broccoli, fish, beans, chicken, onions, spinach... It's nice; but at the same time It'd be great to eat without having a vulture hovering over me, crying every time I take a bite without giving her one.
Shauni - these are all so cute!! The sea creatures are my favorite.
I don't have any good advice either. Cee eats almost everything I give him. I am so worried that one day he will realize that he can say no!
Cute! I was talking with my mom about the days when my dad worked afternoons and evenings (Tyler has been traveling a lot lately) and she mentioned that she'd feed us dinner right after school. We ate dinner right when Grace woke up last week and she actually ate. Then we did a snack at dinner time. It doesn't work when Tyler's around, but it did those days he was gone. Please keep photographing and posting your fun food--great ideas!
Awesome food ideas! You should do a book.....getting kids to eat can be tricky. And dinner and bedtime are the worst times of the day when you are alone...at least for me. I think of it as the "witching hour." If you can survive that you can survive anything. Hang in there!
I was laughing so hard at your description of dinner time. You are not alone. My Cumorah has a really good gag reflex. And Rivers just plain refuses to try some things.
I want to come over for dinner, those are fantastic. Megan loved the Sea creature. And I thought the breaded cornucopia would never be topped.
I will have to try your trick on Henry.
You're a genius. I'm trying this.
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