The in the kids' kitchen tip for this week is 5 methods to encourage picky eaters. Do you have a picky eater in your home? We sure do! Little Bee is very challenging to feed because he would rather run and hide than eat. However, he does much better if we show him that eating is fun with lots of laughter and playtime.
Here is my list to encourage picky eaters:
1. Placing pieces of finger foods on toys such as matchbox cars and trains. Then paving a make-believe road from the table to the mouth.
2. Giving the child tongs to eat with instead of a fork or spoon. All of a sudden, the child finds eating enjoyable again!
3. Let the child prepare their own food with child sized kitchen tools. Please see last weeks link up for a list of Montessori Kitchen Tools. Also, visit 6 Practical Life Skills Kitchen Activities.
4. Create food to look like animals and fun objects like a flower. I have a lot of examples of this on my Pinterest board - Heathy Food for Kids. Some of the ideas are so simple you will wonder why you didn't think of that already! 🙂 Believe me... check it out!
5. Freeze food for the child to eat - such as blueberries dipped in yogurt and banana's dipped in chocolate. Sometimes changing the texture of the food makes all the difference for a child. Plus, if a toddler is teething, frozen food tastes so good on their sore gums.
What great tips! I can already tell that my little one isn’t necessarily a picky eater, but has picky eater phases. I’ll definitely be trying these tips.
I love the matchbox cars tip! My kiddo is usually a pretty good eater but sometimes he’s just too distracted… Matchbox cars could make that better. 🙂