It’s normal for us to worry about how our children are feeding, whether they are overweight, underweight or normal sized, although in the cause of worrying and playing the detective in feeding our kids, we are probably making some mistakes, here are some of such mistakes which we should avoid;
1. Encouraging them to “clean their plate”
It’s not a must that your child finish all the food you put ion their plate, it’s even better you give them little portions and let them ask for more. Meanwhile, healthy young children need to eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full, if your children don’t know this you need to teach them. How? When your kids stop eating, don’t force them to finish their food, and when they say they want to eat, ask them if they are hungry before offering food. This will help avoid overeating.
2. Offering sweet as reward
We parents are fond of saying “Eat your carrot and I’ll buy you ice-cream” Indirectly we are teaching them that vegetables and other healthy foods are less appealing than sweet foods. Why not reward your kids with fruits instead of sweet? Immediately you start rewarding your kids for eating certain foods, they’ll not want to eat such foods without persuasion.
3. Not allowing them to eat sweets at all
Yeah it’s true that these days child obesity is rampant and this may make parents cut off surgary food from their children’s food totally, but that’s too extreme. Finding a balance is all you need, you can limit sweet and sweet drink intake of your kids but don’t stop them from taking it once in a while. And why? When you totally restrict your kids from taking sweets, when they finally get a chance to take it, they’ll overeat them. Read the amount of sugar your child should take per day
4. Allowing your little kids eat like the big kids
Feed your kids according to their age! When serving food, you don’t have to serve the same size of food you served your eldest child to the younger one(s). Also, your younger kids should not be given snacks that are appropriate for their elder ones but not for them simply because the elder one requested for it and they want some too. If you have to give your older children sweets which you don’t want the younger ones to take, give it to them when the others are in another room!
5. Giving too many snacks
Giving your child too much snack in between meals can make your child lose interest in proper food, I mean if they aren’t really hungry, why would they want to eat lunch or dinner? Allow at least two hours between snacks and meal and dion’t give them more than 2 to 3 snacks a day.
6. Allowing them take calorie packed liquid
Giving your little ones sweet drinks like soda (coke, pepsi…) and other unhealthy drinks can stock up your kids with too much sugar than they should get per day, yet this drinks offer no benefit for their body except sugar. And what’s more, after taking in the drinks, your kids will still have to eat since drinks can’t fill them up which means they’d eat up extra calories and and may become obese. Allow only water, non-fat milk in your home, you can also offer diluted (with water) fruit juice from time to time. Be a good role model because you can’t drink and expect your kids not to.
Model healthy eating behaviour for your kids and although I acknowledge that food battles can be tiring, keep introducing healthy new foods to your kids.
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