by Tara Shafer posted in Parenting

I hate menu planning so very much. There. I said it.
I like to cook when I feel like it, but I don?t like to cook every night. Nor do I like the prospect of finding something that everyone will agree to eat. We all have wildly divergent tastes in food. I love spicy. I don?t eat much meat. The kids and hub hate spicy and enjoy meat.

But creating healthy eating habits in childhood comes down to continuing to provide choices. In no way do I mean to sound judgmental. I have made some serious mistakes in the execution of my food regime. Some I have tried to correct. Others remain a challenge. Here they are so that others may benefit from my errors.

Know that they really will eat when they get hungry. I sort of knew this to be true. I had problems, though, remembering it in the moment and rusting it. So I?d give in to making the chicken nuggets rather than waiting my baby out. I think I know now that had I just waited for my kids to eat, they actually would have eaten what was put in front of them. Forge on through the suddenly picky phase. A friend once told me that children will eat anything until they are about 2 and then -- kaboom -- suddenly they become picky as all get out. The toddler who had bathed in the delicious sweet and spicy of a good chicken tikka masala suddenly refuses to eat it. Wait it out, she advised. They will come back to it.
No sweet snacks. I get that kids need snacks. However, what they don?t need are any sweet snac...