Dear lovely moms, here I am today to help you with the most interesting and discussed topics among us mothers. It’s FOOD TIME STRUGGLES.
If we remember or pay little attention to our parents or grandparents’ talks we see that this is not just challenging for our generation of mothers but also our yester generations. Does it really have to be like that? Is it that difficult to convince your child to have his/her meal? Does it really have to be such a struggle? Absolutely not! It doesn’t have to be like that. Now let’s go back to our childhood and to the dining table where everything other than meal looked interesting and that stare from our moms? Uff!! I don’t want to go back to that stare :). What about you? ;), so are our children. To help and keep the experience joyful I am here today with the topic.let’s just dive into today’s topic yayayy!
Food time struggles!!
Being a new mom can get even more challenging sometimes, when your little one is not showing much interest in food. This particular challenge may mess with your head and create anxiety, where you may get sleep deprived, irritated and constantly looking out for recipes, and that’s the reason why exactly you are here today. I understand your concerns totally and that’s the reason why I am here today with this topic. Here I have two choices, one giving you delicious recipes like majority blogs do or giving you a trick that helps you like an angel. It’s hard to decide right? Well if I were you I would go for the trick and you want to know why?
Continue reading……
The trick : Market your product with creativity 😉
The power of creativity takes first place over recipes/taste. Now I am not saying that all your efforts of making delicious recipes for your kids are a waste of time. What I am trying to say is that when your kids come to the dining table and see food, the first thing they notice/come into contact with is the visual appearance of food and then the taste. So, clearly taste comes second. Remember those days when you were a kid and watching your favorite movie or a cartoon on a TV??, and suddenly BaMmM… There is this commercial full of mouth watering chocolates, cookies, biscuits and drinks etc. Oops are you missing them now?? ;), I know they seduced all of us way too much than our home food right? Although we didn’t have experience tasting the particular product while watching those commercials, we still felt the yumminess through our eyes and made sure that our parents bought it for us the next time they went to the supermarket.
Have you noticed something here? The packaging and presentation is key for companies to attract their little customers to buy their unhealthy products. Likewise, we parents have to roll up ourselves, put a little effort and creativity to present the food on to their plates in a way that it attracts them and gives them no choice other than saying yes and enjoying it completely :p. Simply what we have to do here is, take the marketing spirit from food companies and implement it to attract our kids to eat healthy, delicious and real foods.
I hope this trick sounds impressive to you, but here comes the next question, how the hell should I impress them?? I don’t have time to show my creativity, I have deadlines and a boss who is mean if I am late to work, I also have a grown up baby that I adopted from my in-laws ;). I hear you and it’s not that difficult as you think. All that you need is crockery (plates, bowls, glasses etc) of different colors, sizes and shapes if you can find some. Also, you can buy spoons, straws, glassware bowls, glasses and some stickers of their favorite characters for example. If you have a toddler at home, you can just simply have stickers of different animals, flowers, fruits etc, this way they not only enjoy food looking at the stickers but also exercise their vocabulary and language.
Now, for those who already have the crockery, but still find it difficult to attract or convince their kids to eat. Here I have a question for you, how well are you playing with the colors? What I mean is, complement the color of your food item with the color of your plate, that’s how it works.
Coming to the liquid’s such as juices, smoothies etc, try and serve them in small glass bottles, colorful cups and baby food jars for example. Try giving them in different jars with different spoons and straws to keep the experience fresh and interesting. I use this trick everyday and trust me, it works like magic.
Last but not the least, let them explore. Allow them to touch, feel, squeeze and enjoy their food rather than expecting them to eat with literally no mess. They are kids and they are learning to navigate through. So, be empathetic, non judgmental and take a pause, there is no need to rush them and make sure that they behave or eat like adults. If you do so, you are messing with their experience of enjoying food. Always remember that kids are curious beings and they enjoy the process rather than the end result.
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