Food and Eating | Marriage Confessions Food and Eating

We rearranged the kitchen this weekend. Gracie helped.

It was actually a very sporadic decision. Bean was once again not eating his dinner on Saturday night. This time I was getting really frustrated because it was all his favorite things, and he wouldn’t touch any of them even though he’d been saying he was hungry for 20 minutes while I made it. I thought about it and I just knew that if I put that plate on the living room table and let him stand up to eat (like he sometimes does with snacks), he would eat it in no time. Maybe, I thought, it’s the location that bothers hims.

Everyday at school Bean eats all his food. His teachers say he’s an excellent eater, in fact. And yet when he’s at our table, he will barely touch anything. I know he’s a toddler and that toddlers don’t necessarily eat much at dinner time, but Bean eats nothing all afternoon or evening. And he’s a tiny guy who is starting to actually lose weight. So I have been really concerned about his lack of interest in mealtimes (or food in general). Desperate to try something to get him interested in his meals, I wondered if maybe he would eat better at a table more similar to what he has at school. So, Chris went up to Bean’s room and brought down a little table and chairs set my Grandma gave him for his first birthday. It’s been in his room for him to color at and play on, but we thought maybe he’d actually enjoy a little table that’s just his size.

We ended up having to move our entire kitchen around to fit this tiny table. We moved the kitchen table back against the far wall, which is fine since we aren’t seating four at dinner yet. We moved the high chair out of the kitchen and promoted Gracie to Bean’s booster seat. She’s been in heaven this weekend in her new chair. She just squeals as she eats now. We moved the bookshelf out from the corner and under the window, and made a little place for Bean’s table that’s close to where we are eating, but out of the way.

So far, it’s been a big hit for Bean. He is so excited to sit at his own table now. The rule is that if he’s eating (even just a little bit), then he can stay at his table. But if he’s not eating, then he has to come sit at the table with me, Chris, and Gracie. He cleaned his plate the first night, which made me really happy. And on the plates since then, he has made a good effort, which is more than he has been doing.

I think the name of the toddler meal game must be to keep things interesting. Bean ate really good for a while when I started playing with the presentation of the food he ate, and then he got bored with that and stopped eating. And he did really good for a while when I rolled all his fruits and veggies up into wheat tortillas with toothpicks in them and called them “toothpick sandwiches,” but then he got bored with that and stopped eating again. He did pretty good when we played, “The Game” together at meals, but he got bored with and stopped eating that time, too. The last successful bout of eating we had was when I mixed everything into bowls of all-natural, unsweetened applesauce, but he eventually got bored with that and stopped eating again.

I think the trick is to keep things fun and new at mealtimes. I’d much rather just put a plate of food in front of him and stand over him until he eats it all, but I don’t have that amount of time in my day and I don’t think he’d eat anything anyway. So, I’m okay with having to tap dance a little bit to get him to eat something. I’d rather jump through hoops and have him eat something than stand there frustrated while he eats nothing.

Anybody else out there have some tricks up their sleeve to encourage eating in their toddlers?

16 comments | posted in About Beanie, Food and Eating, Parenting Ideas, The Romper Room | tags: parenting, toddlers, toddlers and food

Gracie has been using a sippy cup for about a month now, and that’s been going really great. She’s completely off the bottle (in fact, we sold all of our bottles at our yard sale last weekend, so there’s no turning back now!), and she’s doing great. Now, we’re letting her get used to other utensils at mealtimes. She loves waving around spoons. She thinks they are hammers. But when she’s not beating things with them, she actually tries to use them. She’ll poke her food in an attempt to scoop some up on her spoon, but she’s still not sure how to keep the food on her spoon when she shoves it in her mouth. But, she’s getting the hang of it.

This week we started giving her her food in a real bowl. Some days, she eats right out of it and doesn’t even blink. But, then there are other days…

Maybe we’ll wait a little bit longer on the plate…

10 comments | posted in About Gracie, Food and Eating, Gracie Girl, The Romper Room | tags: babies

When Bean was a wee lad, he did not like processed baby food at all. Try though we might, we could not get him to eat anything out of a jar. I was working full-time and I was not at all excited about having to make homemade baby food. Turns out, though, making your own baby food is super easy! You can read all about the process I used with Bean here, but basically I’d take a couple hours on Sunday afternoons to make enough food to get us through the next week. It couldn’t have been simpler, and it was so incredibly healthy for him.

With Gracie, we did use regular Gerber baby food and we were all happy with that. It cost a little more, but with two kids running around, I was okay with paying a little for the convenience factor.

But now, Gracie is eating more and more table food. She is about to come off formula altogether here soon, and so table food is becoming a much bigger part of her diet and where she gets her nutrition. Because of that, I’ve gone back to making her food in much the same way that I did for Bean.

ONLY BETTER!

At Christmas, my mother-in-law introduced me to these babies… Ziplock Zip ‘n Steam bags. (I should note here that I am in no way being compensated for this blog post. This is simply an awesome kitchen shortcut I’ve found and I wanted to share.)

Not that steaming food the traditional way in a good ol’ pot with water is rocket science or even all that time consuming. But it did require that I pay a minimal amount of attention to what I was doing so that I didn’t burn the food or scald my pot (both of which happened to me quite often. I tend to get distracted when I cook…). With these Zip ‘n Steam bags, I don’t even have to pay a MINIMAL amount of attention!

Here’s how they work:

First, you chop up whatever fruit or veggie (or even meat, but I haven’t tried that yet) into bite size pieces, according to whatever suits your tot. These are zucchinis, which I went back and quartered after the picture was taken.

Then, you dump it into one of the Zip ‘n Steam bags…

…and add about a tablespoon of water. You can also add spices and such to your food at this time, but I keep things pretty bland for Gracie.

This is the part that I love about these bags. They have a microwave time chart right on the bag, so you don’t have to go digging for the cook time. You just check the bag and it tells you exactly how long to cook whatever it is you’re cooking. It just makes it one step easier for me. I like clear, simply instructions that are always at hand. Because I’m a simpleton and simpletons get confused very easily. Especially around kitchen appliances.

(Side note: Oddly, there aren’t fruit times listed on the bags. I guess not enough people are steaming fruit these days. I’ve done apples and peaches myself, and I did both of those on 2 minutes, if you’re interested.)

Then, you just pop the baggie into the microwave for a couple of minutes and – voila! – steamed veggies that are perfect every time! (Pictured here are diced sweet potatoes and apples.)

Another great thing about these bags is that you can reuse them once or twice. It says on the package not to reuse due to cross contamination, but as long as I’m doing all raw fruits and veggies, I don’t worry about that. Now, if I was doing meat or something particularly pungent, I’d definitely just stick with one use. But with what I use them for, I can get away with two or three uses in one bag.

You could do this each time you needed to fix a meal. My mother-in-law throws in lots of different veggies at once for her dinner sometimes. But for me, it’s easier to do a bunch of steamed food at once, and then store it in containers in our fridge for me to use at individual meals throughout the week. Gracie’s daycare provides her meals all day, so I just have to make enough to get us through dinners during the week.

I prefer to make a little bit of a variety of foods so that Gracie gets a selection of different things each night, even if it’s just the same food but in different combinations. Actually, that sounds kind of silly when I write it out, but that’s how my simpleton mind works. This week, Madame Gracie will be dining on a selection that includes steamed sweet potatoes, apples, zucchini, black beans, and green beans. Other popular favorites have included carrots, broccoli, spinach, squash, and eggplant.

(Side note: I try to keep all of Gracie’s food in the same spot in the fridge so that whoever happens to feed her knows that she can have whatever is on that middle shelf. Well, except the salsa in the background. That’s just there by accident. Actually, I better go move it while I’m thinking about it before Chris adds a little fiesta to Gracie’s sweet ‘taters tonight…)

Along with those things, I usually give her small pieces of whatever meat we are having for dinner. Bean has never been too much of a meat eater, but Gracie likes it. I also keep jarred all natural, unsweetened applesauce (organic, if it’s on sale) and Greek yogurt, which she really likes mixed with steamed or fresh fruit. In addition to those staples, she can eat any of the raw fruits that I keep on hand in our fridge for the rest of the family. Usually these include whatever berries are on sale, grapes, avocados, bananas, peaches, or whatever else looks good at the grocery that week. She really loves those little “Cutie” tangerines right now. They are small, easy to peel, and seedless, so they are great for kids. Bean loves those suckers, too. For Gracie, I cut up her pieces into small chunks.

Her absolute favorite food, though, are blueberries. I cut them into halves or quarters, depending on the size, and she just goes to town on them. I have to be careful not to give those to her first, or she won’t eat anything else on her tray! I held off on strawberries for a while because they gave Bean a little rash when he was little and first tried them. I gave them to her for the first time last week, but she broke out in a little rash around her mouth that night, so those are on the back burner for another little bit.

Whether you are going all out and making your own baby food from day one, like I did with Bean, or are using your own steamed food to help your baby transition to table food, it really isn’t hard at all. Like with anything else, it just takes a little time, a little creativity, and a few little short cuts to help.

21 comments | posted in Baby Products, Food and Eating, The Romper Room | tags: baby food, baby nutrition

In the past few months, dinnertime with Bean has become increasingly…um…hellish? Disastrous? Unbearable?

D. All of the above.

Bean eats like most toddlers. He has a HUGE breakfast every morning. Usually he has two bowls of cereal, a banana, a piece of toast (sometimes two), and some yogurt. He’s like He-Man in the mornings. At school he normally eats all his morning snack and most of his lunch. His afternoon snack is when he starts winding down and he’s hit or miss as to whether he actually eats any. By dinner, he is not interested in food at all.

Our pediatrician said that as long as he’s eating a balanced diet most of the day, we shouldn’t stress too much about the light dinner. And I get that. But part of eating dinner is the sitting down as a family. That’s something I want Bean to learn is part of our household routine. Also, at daycare he’s getting balanced meals, but they aren’t SUPER healthy every day and dinnertime is how I make sure he gets some fresh veggies and fruit in his day. So, while I don’t require him to eat everything, he does have to sit at the table with us and eat a little bit.

And, therein lies the challenge.

I have been struggling with how to get Bean to eat without ruining dinner with temper tantrums (no small feat, I assure you…). Most of the time, he’s pretty good. I let him bring one toy to the table as long as he eats his dinner while the toy is there. Our dessert rule is that if Bean cleans his WHOLE plate, he gets a cookie. That actually rarely happens. Normally, he pokes at his meal for about half the meal while he talks to me and Chris. When he’s tired of sitting there (usually after 20 minutes), he asks to get down. If he hasn’t eaten enough, I ask him to take two or three bites and then he can get down. If he’s eaten a fair amount, I let him get down and tell him how much we enjoyed having him at the dinner table.

But there are those special nights when nothing works. He won’t eat anything and dinner looks like it’s going to be an epic fail in about 10 seconds. On those nights, we play The Game.

I accidentally came up with The Game one night when I was frustrated with Bean not eating his dinner. He had one of his toys on the table and I took it away from him because he wasn’t eating. When he asked nicely if he could have it back, I told him he could have it if be took one bite of veggies and one bite of chicken. He laughed like that was the greatest game in the whole world. So, I ran out to the living room and grabbed a handful of his favorite toys and put them in a bowl. Then, we started playing The Game.

The Rules:
- Bean can’t see what toys are in the bowl. It adds to the surprise when I pull one out.
- The toys much be pulled out with as much drama as possible. Extra points for silliness.
- The payment for each toy is based on the “value” of the toy to Bean. So, if it’s one of his favorite toys, he has to eat more food.
- The game ends when all the food is gone (which means I sometimes have to do several rounds in the living room collecting more toys) or whenever Bean gets fidgety.
- We only play the game once a week, at the most. It’s the novelty that makes it so fun to Bean.

Tonight I pulled The Game out because Bean hasn’t eaten a solid dinner for three nights now. This time, I had Chris video the beginning so you could see how it goes.

Getting toddlers to eat has to be one of the greatest parenting challenges. On those nights when I’m positive Bean is going to shrivel up and starve if he doesn’t eat dinner, this is my go-to game.

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