TTT - Food Fights Begone

I'm not sure if anyone out there is getting anything from these Toddler Tips Tuesday posts, but as I've mentioned before this blogs serves as a virtual baby book/diary for me, so at least in the future I can look back on these posts and know what was going on with Lukas at any given point in time.  So when #2 comes along and is making me question my parenting skills I can pull up this blog and recall what it was that I did to help get us all through whatever stage the little man was wading through.

Well food and feeding the little guy continues to be a source of stress for me.  I first wrote about his love of mac n cheese (and nothing else) here about two months ago.  We still have some of the same issues - he refuses to eat certain foods that he loved the prior day for no apparent reason.  He's also picked up some new issues, which usually involve lots of crying and Mr. Cob and I looking at each other in confusion and having no idea what the problem is.

Well about two weeks ago Mr. Cob realized and solved one of the problems.  We were serving Lukas' food on plastic kid-friendly plates and he apparently wanted to eat off of our nice everyday (highly breakable) china.  He wouldn't even look at the broccoli on the blue plastic plate but would scarf it and everything else on the china plate down in a few gulps.  We then realized he also wanted to use grown up silverware and would kick and refuse to eat until we gave it to him.  I think he saw momma and dadda eating and wanted to eat just like us.  So if your kiddo is being a pill at dinner time, try switching out his eating utensils and dishes.  It just might do the trick!

Our pediatrician also gave us another tip at Lukas' 18 month appointment last week.  She said to try to eat dinner together as a family.  He'll be more likely to eat if he sees us sitting and eating with him.  We are not always good at eating together, but I have noticed that the days we sit with Lukas for dinner, he will actually eat more food.  Our doc also told us to stop making him special meals and to give him whatever it is that we are eating.  Make sure there is one thing you know he will eat on his plate (say cheese or bread) but otherwise just give him what we are eating and eventually he'll learn that he has to eat what is in front of him.  I am guilty of offering him twenty different choices at night in an effort to get him to eat something, anything.  But I've vowed to stop and know that he won't go hungry.

Combining all these tidbits, I was shocked to see my vegetarian kid eat chicken off a fork tonight at dinner! So hopefully you'll be able to use some of these tips to help de-stress dinnertime at your house!  Do you have any dinnertime tips that work for your toddler?  Any tips for me?