5 Positive Feeding Strategies: Making the Most of Mealtimes

Mealtimes can be an exciting time for your child to try new foods, interact socially, and bond with family but also occasionally can be a source of stress. Mealtimes may involve balancing busy schedules, navigating picky preferences, and trying to encourage a healthy and balanced diet. Here are five ways to support positive feeding practices! 

1. Establish a Mealtime Routine: Mealtimes can be a wonderful opportunity to catch up with family after a busy day. Establishing a routine helps offer a consistent and reliable chance for family time.
• Most children should have 3 meals and 2-3 snacks a day, spaced out by 2-3 hours per meal. When they graze and have small portions of snacks throughout the day, they are less likely to be hungry at mealtime.  If your child does not eat their entire meal, that’s okay! You can bring it back out at the next snack or meal.
• Have pre-set guidelines for when and where the meal takes place as well as expected behavior.
• Try to have at least one meal with your child per day. Setting family mealtimes also helps support social and emotional development and also provides an opportunity to model mealtime practices that are important to your family.
2. Set the Scene for Success: Eating is one of our most complex tasks! Meals can quickly become a chore or source of stress for caregivers and children; therefore, we want to make sure we help support your child for success. Here are some ways to prevent challenges from occurring.
• Make sure your child is seated in a supportive chair at a table.
• Caregivers should try to reduce mealtime distractions. This may include turning off the television and/or moving toys to another room.
• Meals should be no longer than 30 minutes. It can be helpful to set a timer so that once the timer goes off, the meal ends. This reduces the chances of the meal ending due to your child’s behavior.
• Offer foods from different food groups at meals. Try to incorporate one “safe food” your child prefers, while including a variety of foods on their plate. Be patient: it can take 15-20 times to try a new food before getting used to it.
• Expose your child to the fun and creative aspects that go into meal preparation like helping with grocery shopping, washing fruits or vegetables, or sprinkling cheese on pizza as well as sensory exploration of foods like finger painting or sorting food by color.
3. Avoid Battling over Food:
• Try not to negotiate over what is offered at the meal. This often results in power struggles and your being inconsistent during meals may send the message that you don’t mean what you say.
• Avoid forcing foods or using dessert or other food as a bribe for “cleaning their plate.” This may result in your child eating portions that are more than they need to grow and be healthy, over-eating, eating too fast, or difficulty understanding feeling full. Instead, try to set a goal number of bites that you know is doable for your child, and use other types of rewards besides food.
4. Increase Motivation
• You can help your child be more motivated to eat something that is hard for them, by offering them a reward for trying it. You should explain this to your child before you offer the food and only give the reward only after they eat the bite of food.
• Praise your child for eating something they were hesitant to eat. This is a great way to motivate them. For example, “Nice job trying a bite of the chicken!”
5. Patience: Last of all, remain patient! Mealtimes are a work in progress and change does not happen overnight. Consistency is key in establishing a mealtime routine.