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Okay, that headline should be “Toddler Feeding Hacks that Actually Work Better” because I need to level set that I am not a magician and kids are tricky! But I have been thinking a lot about how my third kid completely changed my perspective on feeding toddlers. He, unlike his sisters before him, was so much harder to feed because he wasn’t as motivated by the pure taste of food.
With the girls, it hadn’t really mattered how I served or plated a meal—they ate it if they liked it! Which meant that just when I thought I knew what I was doing with feeding kids, I had to learn a whole new approach.
I remember trying out techniques I read about from a few feeding therapists, which essentially was learning how to be little more thoughtful with how I offered food and how I expected him to eat it.
It was quite the learning curve—but amazingly, it also wasn’t actually that much more work.
And it didn’t mean that I started cooking him separate meals or that I was “catering” to him. It didn’t mean that I was jumping through hoops or turning all of his food into funny shapes or critters. And I still wouldn’t call the way he ate as a toddler “picky”. He was simply a different kid who needed a different approach.
Most of what I learned to do was engaging him with the meal and the food so he felt more invested in the experience—and had more agency. And a few years later, these are the small things we do at meals that still help him find interest in a meal when his initial reaction is a big fat NO THANK YOU.
Amazingly, none of these even have anything to do with recipes or specific foods!
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