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ParentingAll Ages5 Comments
This month is dedicated to Eating Battles. This is the second week of your questions being answered (last week was food battles at the dinner table).
These hands on experts have given their professional and personal answers to help lessen your eating battles that you submitted.
The Hands On Experts:
- Mom Expert: Jill of A Mom with a Lesson Plan
- Parenting Expert: Erin of The Intentional Parent
- Teaching Expert: Deborah of Teach Preschool
- Lifestyle Expert: Sarah of Füdoo Boards
That’s right. We added Sarah of Füdoo Boards on as a full-time expert, and sponsor, for the entire RKIT series! She doesn’t just know food – she knows how to live a healthy lifestyle – their slogan: Eat! Drink! Move! Think! (more than just food).
I’m also super excited that this week in the series all four experts are sharing an answer. And it happens to be to MY eating question (they didn’t know who asked the questions)! Yay! But also because it introduces the last expert, Erin of The Intentional Parent!
Your Eating Battles:
Dinner Table Battles : How do you deal with food battles at the dinner table
- Going Out to Eat : What tips and advice can you give to make eating out go more smoothly with a preschooler and a baby?
- Picky Eaters :
- My Toddler (almost 2) will not eat any meat he is getting protein at the moment through lentils, cheeses, fish and egg. At each meal we offer meat, minced, sliced, roasted etc… but it is either thrown to the dog, put in his mouth chewed and then spat out or ignored completely. Is this normal behavior? Or any ideas on getting him to eat meat?
- My youngest refuses to eat cheese or anything with cheese on it or try anything with cheese on it. I think I could deal with this if I knew WHY. It happened about a year ago and he hasn’t touched anything with cheese since.
- Healthy Snacks :I want to give my son a healthy snack after his nap, but don’t want to turn it into meal. What is a good thing to give him?
(Do you have a question that wasn’t listed? Submit your Raising Kids is Tough questions!)
The experts each chose a couple questions to give their input on, some questions have answers from multiple experts, while others may only have one expert’s advice.
Eating Battles, week 2:
What tips and advice can you give to make eating out go more smoothly with a preschooler and a baby? asked by Me!
This week’s advice and helpful tips come from all four experts:
- Parenting Expert: Erin of The Intentional Parent
- Food Expert: Sarah of Füdoo Boards
- Mom Expert: Jill of A Mom with a Lesson Plan
- Teaching Expert: Deborah of Teach Preschool
Parenting Expert (Erin from The Intentional Parent) :
- Choose your restaurant wisely. If your kids are young, or new to eating out, take them somewhere that is family friendly.Here are some tips for a smoother experience eating out:As the mom of two very, shall I say… active children who are 14 months apart, I can quite vividly recall breaking out in a cold sweat at the thought of going to a restaurant. With a little planning though, it really isn’t too bad, and really can be an enjoyable experience for everyone.
- Consider the time of day you are going out to eat. If you go at a time when your children are hungry or tired, things are likely to not go well. Also bare in mind that restaurants have busy times. If you go out in the middle of the dinner rush, you are likely to deal with a long wait for your food, an inattentive server, and an overall chaotic atmosphere (I don’t know about you, but my kids never did well with that!)
- Diversion. Bring a few toys with you such as matchbox cars or crayons and paper. Small snacks such as goldfish or cheerios also work well to diffuse potential boredom.
- Ask your server to bring the children’s meals out as soon as they are ready, or with the appetizers. This will allow you to assist the kids in eating and then enjoy your own food while they are hopefully fed and content. Also for some reason, the kids meals never seem to take as long to prepare.
- Set expectations. Go over expectations ahead of time with your preschooler. Talk about how to act in a restaurant. Have your child come up with a few rules (then it feels more interactive and less like lecturing!)
And finally, check your own expectations. Kids are going to act like kids, and it’s okay. All of us parents have been there. You probably wont have a perfectly peaceful dining experience for a while, but it will get a little bit better each time you do it.
— Erin, The Intentional Parent
Teaching Expert (Deborah from Teach Preschool) :
— Deborah, Teach Preschool |
Mom Expert (Jill from A Mom with a Lesson Plan) :Remember how I said our kids bounce in their seats? Going out to eat is um…a challenge. Did I say challenge I meant to say adventure. A few months ago I made a Waiting Bag to bring with us on trips out to dinner. It has made all the difference. We are once again enjoying eating out! I made two versions of the Waiting Bag (one sewn and one no sew). I wanted the bag to be easy to carry so I made sure it would fit in my purse (and glove box). Inside the bag there are 4 activities. They are all quiet, engaging and encourage creativity. You can see them all in my WAITING lesson plan.Tips (For eating out):
— Jill, A Mom with a Lesson Plan |
Food Expert (Sarah from Füdoo Boards) :I remember when my children were this age. Even though I enjoyed date night meals a little more, I didn’t mind eating out with the kids, as long as we could pick the restaurant and knew we could make a quick exit if needed. Hopefully some of these tips will help you.
— Sarah, Fudoo Boards |
These four experts are very generous for giving their time to answer these questions on hands on : as we grow. Please check out their websites. Thank you experts for your extensive knowledge!
Next Monday, I’m combining two questions since they’re very similar. Both questions about picky eaters, anti-cheese and anti-meat eaters. Do you have a picky eater? You’ll want to read the experts’ advice!
And thank you to all the readers who have submitted questions! Head over and submit your question – next month’s topic will be all about those unwanted behaviors that probably embarrass you and how to nix them, or maybe they’re just normal! (All topics are welcome, we’ll get to your question in the future!)
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Jackie H. says
Wow, those are great tips. We've had some meltdowns during eating out times… generally when we are with large groups. I think it's harder to accomodate your kid when you are with a lot of people. I like the ideas of bringing extra things and not even expecting your child to eat– I think the tricky part is communicating to the grandparents that your child might not eat and it's ok. One set of grandparents of my kids want to fight with my kids about eating. I could care less if they eat when we go out. really like all the diff. viewpoints here too.
Mama Pea Pod says
All great advice! We actually eat out fairly often with our baby and preschooler, and though it doesn't always go perfectly smoothly (i.e., on holidays when they are eating out for every meal), it's not usually a big problem. Sarah's tip about skipping dessert and coffee is very important, though!
Another tip is to go to restaurants that have buffet-style meals, as there isn't usually any wait time there and if they don't like something you can easily get them something else. One family favourite of ours is one of those Japanese restaurants with the conveyor belt of tiny dishes: No waiting, easy to get something different, and tiny portions – pefect for kids!