The problem of “children not liking to eat” has always been a big problem for parents. Poor eating will affect the intake of nutrients, the growth and development of the child, and also affect the child’s resistance and intellectual development. Children’s appetite is affected by a variety of factors, including eating habits, eating environment, eating mood, and physical illness. Today, we start from the parents’ point of view, to see the babies do not love to eat, we do not do the right thing themselves.
Myth No. 1: Watching TV and playing with toys for babies while eating
Many parents like to watch TV when they eat, children will also be subconsciously formed while eating and watching the habit. When the child is concentrating on watching TV, often do not resist eating, parents can feed one bite after another. Some parents, in order to coax their children to eat, will take out all kinds of toys for the child to play with, and when the child is not paying attention to stuff a few mouthfuls.
These methods seem to be useful, but over time, children will become dragging their feet to eat, a mouthful of rice can be contained in the mouth for a long time not swallowed, affecting the digestion and absorption of food.
Myth 2: Chasing after your child to feed him/her
In order to let the child eat that bite more, holding a bowl, chasing the child all over the house scene may have been experienced by many parents. Feeding is like a rally between you and your child, and you are both under a lot of pressure. You will chase your child to feed for an hour or two in order to complete a meal. And the child has been avoiding the task of eating, often before the last meal has been digested, the next meal is coming, so scary. The child’s stomach is always full of food, the stomach is not emptied naturally will not have the feeling of hunger. Therefore, chasing and feeding will not improve your child’s appetite.
Myth 3: Forcing children to eat
When a child doesn’t like to eat, some parents try to solve the problem by reprimanding or even beating them in order to get a quick fix. The child is forced to finish eating, but the food on his plate is no longer a delicacy but a burden to him. The child is in a helpless and frightened situation and is not in the mood to chew and swallow slowly to appreciate the taste of food. This is not conducive to the digestion of food, nor is it conducive to developing your child’s interest in eating, and it can even affect the parent-child relationship between you and your child. So, forcing is not a smart way to go.
Myth #4: Buying snacks into your home
Candy, cookies, drinks, chocolates…these sweet-tasting, delicately packaged snacks are usually children’s favorites. It’s okay for parents to buy snacks for their baby bump to eat occasionally, but only if it doesn’t interfere with your child’s normal diet. If your child does not eat well, through snacks to fill the stomach, then you should pay attention, do not buy snacks into the home again. Don’t blame your child for snacking all day, teaching by example is the key, parents don’t snack in front of their children, and it is not recommended to use snacks as a reward.
Myth #5: Not paying attention to food pairing
Children do not like to eat, usually either not hungry, or the food is not good. If the parents themselves have a single diet and do not pay attention to the meat and vegetables, it is also easy to cause the child to picky eating habits. Although we do not advocate the addition of seasonings to improve the taste of food, but through the color of food and improve the shape to improve the appeal of food to children.
Myth 6: Blindly giving children health supplements
Children do not like to eat, many parents think that the body is missing some trace elements, do not know what is missing, think about the supplement is always good. Although the lack of certain nutrients will indeed lead to a decrease in children’s appetite, but clinical experience tells us that only a small number of children really do not like to eat because of the lack of nutrients. Parents should not blindly buy nutrients and supplements on their own, as any nutrient oversupply is bad for children.
Have you also been shot?
See the trick, hurry to see the countermeasures!
Countermeasure one: parents do a good job of eating role models
Parents try not to watch TV or play with cell phones when eating, and talk less about topics unrelated to meals at the table, and can introduce to children the benefits of various foods for the human body. Try not to buy snacks at home, and even less to eat snacks in front of your children. Very often, children are our own shadow, and babies who like to snack often have a parent who likes to snack.
Countermeasure 2: Encourage your child to eat on their own
Instead of chasing after the child all day long to feed, why not prepare the meal on the table and let the child eat by himself. Parents are most worried about putting on the table children do not eat, then how to do? In this regard, do not worry too much, children also know hunger, hungry will naturally eat, do not eat is not yet very hungry.
Children eat best to have a fixed table or dining chair, you can go with your baby to buy his favorite tableware. Give more encouragement and praise to the child’s independent eating performance, although sometimes the scene is very messy, but also as much as possible to let the child enjoy the fun of eating. Don’t clean your child’s mouth, hands and table too often while he or she is eating, and wait for him or her to finish before cleaning up the mess.
Countermeasure 3: Limit eating time appropriately
Give your child a certain amount of time to eat, usually no more than 30 minutes. If the child frequently leaves the dining chair to play during the meal, parents can remind several times, but do not reprimand, when the time is up, you can put away the child’s utensils, and tell the child, if hungry need to wait patiently until the next meal to eat meals, between the two meals do not provide snacks.
Countermeasure 4: Give food a make-up and a name
Both adults and children like colorful and flavorful food, especially children, and the appearance of food is sometimes more attractive than the taste of food. Instead of wasting time on coaxing and feeding children, we should spend more time to give the food a makeup and a good name.
We might as well give our children some autonomy over their meals and let them decide how much to eat. In the “what to eat” thing, as much as possible and the child more communication, each meal try to give the child 1-2 kinds of his favorite kinds of food, and then the child usually do not like to eat the food gradually introduced to his favorite food.
Countermeasure 5: Homemade delicious snacks
We do not recommend that parents buy their children preserves, candy, drinks, puffed food and other heavy and non-nutritious snacks, but without affecting the premise of the main meal, homemade snacks can be delicious and nutritious. It is still a good parent-child activity to make snacks with children, such as homemade yogurt, homemade dried fruit, baking small bread together are good choices.
Countermeasure six: grasp the general direction and adhere to the principles
To judge whether your child is eating well, don’t always take other people’s children’s meals as a reference, your own child’s growth is the gold standard. If the child’s height and weight growth is normal, it proves that the child has acquired enough energy and nutrition to grow. As long as you grasp this general direction, even if your child’s meals are not as good as other people’s, it’s okay. It is not wise to give unhealthy snacks, buy toys to coax them to eat or go to restaurants frequently just to let your child eat.