Fussy Eaters
I’ve just been watching them talking about fussy eaters on TV and to be honest it baffles me. I don’t know whether I’m unusual in this but I’ve never worried about what my children eat. To me eating is simple and always will be, I have a few simple rules in this house which I stick to and it makes meal times stress free for everybody.
1. I cook one meal and one meal only. I don’t have enough time in the day to be cooking separate meals for everybody. Our meals are healthy, nutritious and tasty.
2. Everybody eats together, sitting down as a family allows everyone to be involved in conversations about our day. Mealtimes are full of laughter and conversation.
3. There is no pressure on anybody to eat everything on their plate, if either of the children don’t eat then that’s fine. They won’t starve to death and they won’t get given something else. Dinner is what’s on their plate and if they don’t want it they can leave it.
4. It’s only ever a few hours to the next meal and I strongly believe if a child is hungry they will eat, if you fill them up on unhealthy snacks between meals then they will turn their noses up at their meals. I still give snacks if they really seem hungry but fruit tends to be the main snack in our household. Both of the kids love raisins and eat them as though they are sweets.
5. We don’t really do desserts, this is mainly because our main meals are really filling but I do have yoghurts in the fridge and if both kids have eaten all their food and are still looking for more they get a yoghurt.
And that’s it! I did baby led weaning with both MissB and MasterB and it worked great, from day one they have been sitting at the table with us, eating the same as us. They have grown up on a diet of tasty food rather than bland puréed mush. My kids love spicy curries. Garlic, ginger and chillies get added to most of my meals and I’ve never adjusted it for the kids. I rarely use salt in cooking (black pepper yes but salt no) and that is the one thing I think I would really have needed to watch but as our diet is low salt anyway it’s been easy.
MissB at two loves a nice jalfrezi, olives, balsamic vinegar and anything interesting. If food is tasteless she tends to leave it. MasterB at one will eat absolutely everything I put in front of him. I can’t ever see myself changing our families eating habits, it works, my children love food and we never have any battles at meal time. Am I really unusual in my attitude to food?










I think this is an issue where you can’t really claim a right or a wrong way. For example we had a dreadful experience with BLW when our daughter got a tiny piece of brocolli lodged in her throat. Terrifying. Never again. I also think it’s wrong to brand all purees as bland mush. All of mine are home-made and strong flavours have always gone down well. I’ve never had any real problem with the kids moving on to solids so I think it’s really whatever works for you. Some kids are just fussy, and in my experience they can go off certain things when they get older. From your pics your kids look a lot younger than mine so I’m impressed you are able to chat about their days over dinner! Mine volunteer next to nothing about what they did at school but that seems to be the norm.