The child does not eat well: what to do

A healthy child with sufficient physical activity eats as much as he needs and read https://ipcgeneralcouncil.org/what-skills-do-children-need-to-develop/. Therefore, it is not necessary to force him to eat under any circumstances. But it is in your power to make meals desirable.

What should parents do if their child is not eating well? There are several ways that can help.

Set an example

boy and vegetables

Your child will not eat what he did not see on your plate. This is at the level of instincts: to repeat after adults, because the other may be inedible or tasteless. Whether you like it or not, eating habits are formed based on the diet of parents, and not on the basis of stories about what is good and what is bad. Moreover, the baby is able to hear and understand your arguments about the usefulness of products not earlier than 5 years. Until this age, food for him is either tasty or not.

Therefore, parents should reconsider the family menu, make it healthy and tasty for both the child and the adult and read https://argoprep.com/blog/project-based-learning-pbl-examples/.

Eliminate extra snacks
Normally, if a child eats 3 times a day, 2 small snacks are enough for him 1.5 hours before the main meal. Also, snacks should be varied and tasty, not consist of sweets and be light enough not to interrupt the appetite. Based on the portion of breakfast, lunch and dinner, you can generally remove snacks, but you should still focus on the child. If 2 hours after eating, he clearly loses activity, it is better to offer a snack or add calories.

Cook and eat together
Nothing stimulates the appetite like a person chewing next to you. Ask your baby if he’s hungry and he’ll say no. But as soon as you crunch a juicy apple, you will immediately be asked to share it. Do not try to negotiate or convince – show in practice: go shopping together, tell where this or that vegetable grows and what is prepared from it. Be interested in the opinion of the child when choosing products and offer to fill the cart in the supermarket. At home, ask for help with cooking: clean, mix, pour out – and the baby will be more motivated as a result to try what he made himself.

The child does not eat well if others do not show him an example: mom quickly drank tea after read https://argoprep.com/blog/educators/fake-news-examples-for-students-and-how-to-find-the-facts/, dad had breakfast at work, and they put a huge plate in front of the baby and demand something from him. Eat together, introduce the baby to the adult table and you will see that his food interest grows and develops. Serve food of different shapes and colors: cucumber straws, tomatoes in circles, potatoes in balls – the baby will like this approach to serving and he will wait with great interest what mom will come up with this time.

Encourage independence
Adult feeding is one of the common reasons why a child eats little between the ages of one and two. Let your child show their abilities. Closer to 12 months, the child is ready to hold a spoon in his hands and cope with it. Of course, he will eat much longer, and half of the food will go to the walls and floor, but in this way the baby learns to interact with different products.

For a child, self-feeding is something new. You need to get used to food, find out, try how it still manifests itself.