Alongside intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, social responsibility, and self esteem, my husband and I believe that it is our responsibility to teach our children about physical well-being.

Unfortunately, our daughters’ school isn’t helping. Although they have daily physical education, they’re teaching the kids all about junk food. Cookies and slushies are available to purchase at lunch time. No carrots. No sliced apples or bananas. After school, there are cupcakes and cookies on sale, tempting the kids right before they exit the school and are handed over to their parents. On Halloween, each child was asked to bring a bag of candy for the school trick-or-treat event. Every classmate’s birthday heralds cupcakes with neon icing.

The other day, J volunteered to accompany me to the grocery store while M stayed home with Daddy. As I reached for the box of Cheerios M had requested, J asked whether she could choose her own cereal.

“Sure,” I told her, “But you have to choose one that has 6 grams or fewer of sugar per serving. Any more than that makes it a treat cereal instead of a breakfast cereal.”

I showed J the nutrition facts on the side of cereal box I was holding, pointing out where the sugar grams were. She picked one brightly coloured sugary cereal after another, rejecting each one for having too much sugar. I suggested that she’d have better luck if she looked at some granola boxes. She finally settled on Kashi Honey Sunshine.

“Mommy,” J asked me, “can I teach M how to look at sugar next time when she comes shopping with us?”

She had her chance tonight at dinner, when M asked for a third serving of Welch’s sparkling grape juice. My husband told her that he thought she’d had enough sugar for the day, and offered her water instead. J showed M how to read the label and exclaimed, “38 sugars! That’s a whole bunch.”

“That’s true,” I told her. “This juice is a treat. We drink it for the flavour, not because it’s feeding our bodies. It’s fine to have a treat every so often, but it’s very important to make sure that we get all the different things our bodies need. We need protein to be strong, and fiber not to have hurty poops. Our body needs some fat to stay healthy, but not too much.”

For the rest of meal, the girls pored over the nutrition label on the juice bottle, asking about the different nutrients. My favourite was J’s reading of calcium as “Colosseum.” There was something quite lovely about the image of ancient architecture bolstering our bones.

I taught myself about healthy eating in my early 20s. Both my parents developed high blood pressure in their 30s, and I didn’t want to go down that path. Rich, fatty Bengali curries with massive quantities of rice must have contributed to their cardiovascular issues and my father’s subsequent Type II diabetes.

It certainly helps that both my husband and I love to cook. It’s hard to put too much junk in our bodies when we’re aware of every ingredient we eat. We don’t tend to count calories, and we’re not averse to eating out, but we try to be responsible, while allowing ourselves our treats. I’m fond of chocolate, and my husband of red wine.

I hadn’t planned to teach our girls to read nutrition labels at 5. I imagined that the model we set at home would show them how to make good food decisions. Peer pressure, though, is a strong force, and M told us today that she had bought 6 cookies at lunch to share with her friends. We don’t want the girls to feel like they need to diet or deny themselves the occasional sweet treat. However, we do want them to understand that while eating is a social and pleasurable activity, nutrition is the primary role of food. Food for taste alone is an extra, and to be taken in moderation.

Are you surprised to hear that junk food is being sold in elementary schools? What would you do if you discovered this in the school your children were to attend?

Of course I want our children to have a healthy diet in the here and now, but it’s far more important to me that they be equipped to make good food choices even when I’m not around. I’ve taken three basic approaches that have worked for us:

1. Educating our daughters on what makes up a balanced diet, and how different foods contribute to their healthy growth.
2. Including them in food purchase and preparation decisions and activities.
3. Demonstrating that listening to their bodies is valuable and taking a non-combative approach to food.

I keep meaning to copy a friend’s brilliant idea of displaying the USDA food guidelines—the old pyramid, or the new plate—on the refrigerator.

Even though we don’t have the picture up, we have always talked about meals in terms of needing a protein, a fruit or veggie, and a starch. We’ve also talked about the need for dairy, but since the girls drink milk morning and night, I haven’t required that they include dairy in every meal. I try to keep my explanations of why food choices are important accurate, but simple. We need protein for strong muscles. Fruits and vegetables help our bodies fight germs, and help us with healthy skin, hair, eyes and nails. We need carbohydrates from energy. Milk products help our bones be strong. Our body needs some fat so that it can get all the goodness out of other foods, but too much can be unhealthy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with sweet or fatty foods, but they are just for flavour, rather than nutrition. I’ve rarely turned down the girls’ requests for sweets, because they ask for very reasonable portions: a cookie or a single piece of chocolate.

Our whole family enjoys food: eating it, preparing and cooking it, even playing with it. If only mine wasn’t the Great Black Thumb, we might enjoy growing it. The kitchen is the heart of our home; I’m old-school like that. It should come as no surprise that our daughters have always been welcome in the kitchen.

My husband may have shortened my life by a year or two by placing our infants in their bouncy seats on the kitchen counter while he cooked. In retrospect, though, I’m glad we’ve always had them with us. Once they could sit, I’d pull the girls’ highchairs into the kitchen, and give them each a plastic bowl and spoon to bang while I made our meals. When I had cleanup time on my hands, they would help me stir. If I needed to get my hands dirty, J and M could splash their hands in the bubble-filled kitchen sink.

As they approached age 2.5, M and J could be trusted not to put everything in their mouths, so their kitchen repertoire broadened significantly. They could help me measure out ingredients, even plan meals. I’d let them choose between fish and chicken, for example, or rice and couscous. Another great option was chef’s salad. I’d chop up lunchmeat and cheese, boil some eggs, grill some croutons, and present a selection of vegetables. As long as they included some of each food group, they were good. It’s easy to do the same with sandwiches, too. We baked cookies and muffins, too, but that was more of a game.

Now, at 5, J and M often help me plan our weekly grocery list. M recently observed that lasagne is a balanced meal in itself. J refused dessert at lunch yesterday because she was full. She knew there would be another ice cream opportunity soon enough. The girls came home from daycare recently telling me that they had been given soda at school. (Let me tell you that we’re not going back to that center.) They were as horrified as I was, but confessed that the cola was “sweet and yummy.” I told them that soda was a sweet treat, and they could have some when I did, a couple of times a month. There was no argument.

When the girls are full, we let them leave the table. If they’re not hungry, they don’t have to eat. They know that they won’t get anything until the next snack or meal. My husband and I both fight the urge to nag at them to eat more or clear their plates. I think it’s a natural parental impulse. We just have to keep reminding ourself that we want our daughters to stay as healthy, happy and whole as they are now.

How do you include your children in the kitchen?

What is your favourite trick for tempting a picky child at mealtime?

I was quietly ecstatic when my kids first took to solid food. Fish, spinach, fennel—they loved them all. I thought they were set for a lifetime of adventurous eating. I hadn’t read far enough into child development books, though.

At around age 2, kids tend to get pickier in their eating habits. It makes sense. The hunter-gatherer argument is a compelling one. 2-year-olds stop putting anything and everything in their mouths, including many foods, because that is the age they would start straying farther from their mothers in hunter-gatherer societies. This pickiness is a survival instinct that lasts until they are old enough to make mature choices regarding what is safe to eat.

Whether their pickiness is explainable or not, picky eaters present an enormous challenge to parents. When M was at her pickiest, she could go two days on nothing but milk if nothing struck her fancy. I worried that she would starve. She’s only recently begun enjoying food again.

Please share how you deal (or would deal) with picky eaters.

P and G, September 2004

When I was pregnant with my twins, I remember reading something that warned parents of multiples against thinking their babies needed them any less because of having been born a multiple. I was bummed when I read that.

We did our best to parent our twins as we had our oldest. I nursed them, they were fed on demand, we co-slept, we tried to hold them when they cried. 

Their first few words were Mama, Dada, ball, and baby. The twin who woke first from a nap tried to rouse his brother, calling, “Bebeh! Bebeh!” They summoned each other this way to examine new toys or things they shouldn’t get into. When G had croup and I took him to the ER, he saw his reflection in a window and thought it was his brother. He got excited and started calling out to him — “BEBEH!!!” They started calling each other by name when their little sister was born.

Sometimes when one gets in trouble, he’ll sit in time out crying for his brother. The other day, I scolded G for being too rough with our kitten. He ran to P, who then came to confront me for “being so mean to Diffin.”

P and G, January 2010

They fight and hurt each other’s feelings sometimes, but the bond between them is more than I ever dreamed it would be. And while there is no substitute for a parent’s love… I’m not always sure my boys would agree. 

***

P: Diffin, what are you gonna be when you grow up?
G: I am gonna work in your restaurant with you!
P: But you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.
G: I will, so then I won’t have to be away from you.

- Overheard 02/01/10 

When Jen isn’t creepily photographing her children in their sleep, she blogs at Diagnosis: Urine.

My kids are smoothie addicts.

It’s all my mom’s fault. She’s the one who introduced the smoothie into our lives. And indulged the kids’ every-morning request when we stayed at her house for the holidays (and last summer, and the winter before that).

Truth be told, it’s probably my very favorite toddler addiction.  To them: majorly awesome frozen sweet treat.  To me: fruit and calcium.  And it couldn’t be any easier.

The specifics, as we make them at my house, in case you’ve never made a smoothie yourself:

• 4 (ish) strawberries, fresh or frozen
• 1/4 cup (ish) frozen blueberries
• 1 ripe banana
• 1/3 cup (ish) yogurt, any flavor or plain
• 1/3 cup (ish) milk

Clearly, you can see I’m not scientific about this, I just dump stuff in the blender.  If I’m using fresh strawberries, I’ll often throw in a couple of ice cubes to keep things nice and cold.  Switch it up and throw different kinds of fruit (fresh or frozen) in there. Or, as we did at my mother-in-law’s house when I was improvising, a little scoop of mango ice cream.  You can’t go wrong, and aside from the occasional ice cream, you can’t argue with its nutritional value.

So, as long as my blender pitcher is dishwasher-safe, my kids can have a smoothie any day of the week.

P.S.  If grandpa is there when you’re making smoothies one day, and tells the kids to “hold their ears” because it’s loud, your son may do this every time you make one:

Fun summer activities make us too busy and tired to cook

While  I used to enjoy some cooking, I find it difficult these days to dredge up the energy to prepare something exciting. The recipe below is our favorite, super quick and easy, solution to the dinner dilemma. I posted in a year or so ago, but it’s good enough for a repeat.

Slow cooker chicken tacos

4 frozen chicken breasts

16-24 oz jar of salsa

1 packet of taco seasoning

2 15 oz cans of beans, any type

1 Tablespoon sour cream (optional)

Tortillas

Put first four ingredients in the crock-pot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.  Before serving shred the chicken inside the crockpot, the chicken is so tender it just falls apart.  Stir in 1 tablespoon of sour cream and voila… it’s done! Put in a bit of shredded cheese, some chopped tomato and lettuce and you have the tastiest meal ever.

How about the rest of you? What’s your favorite quick meal solution? Share, please! (Abigail’s new favorite phrase, uttered whenever someone else is eating. Especially when her brother has more cake/ice cream/treats left on his plate since he didn’t gobble it up as quickly as she did).

This post is taken from a blog I write about introducing solid foods to my children – Solid Food Adventures.

*****

I’m continually hearing in the media and reading in parenting books and magazines that family dinnertime is one of those important routines that influences children well in to adulthood.  My husband and I both agree that sharing a meal as a family is something we value and something we want to include in our lives, yet moving from the theoretical to reality can prove challenging….

Breakfast at our house is usually eaten in shifts.  If I get up early to have some time for myself, like today, then I eat by myself, often in front of the computer.  When my son (age 2.5 years) gets up I’ll serve his breakfast and then work in the kitchen doing dishes, or making something else for me to eat, or I’ll feed babies (4.5 months old twin girls) in the living room. If it is a day he is going to the dayhome, I’ll serve him and then try to get babies in carseats while he eats.  As soon as he finishes we head out the door. I eat breakfast after dropping him off.  The babies get fed then too.

Lunch is also eaten in shifts. My son usually eats fairly early and goes down for his nap. Then I feed babies and then eat by myself, or eat by myself and then feed babies.  This allows me a little more flexibility in what I eat for lunch.  We often only have enough leftovers for one lunch so my son and I don’t always eat the same thing.

At supper, we all try to sit down together.  We usually serve my son first.  He starts eating while we finish serving our meals.  By the time we get settled, he is often ready for seconds.  If the babies cooperate, then we all get to sit down for a few minutes together.  If the babies are awake, we put them close to the table to include them.  But, dinner is usually interrupted by the babies who need to fed or want attention.  I often eat with a baby on my knee or I’m rushing through so I can feed them. Daddy and I are often done before my son, and it is really easy to get up and leave him to finish while we start the dishes, pack lunch for tomorrow, change the laundry, settle a baby, etc.  Mealtime often ends with my son sitting alone at the table while I feed a baby and Daddy prepares lunch for tomorrow. I don’t like leaving dirty dishes on the table, but the days when Daddy and my son start bathtime right after dinner and the dishes get left until later seem to better reinforce the essentials of a family dinner.

I imagine the confusion will only grow when we add two babies in booster seats to our family dinnertable.  I imagine we’ll feed them first, and then sit down to our meal until they are old enough to feed themselves finger food. It will mean more interuptions, more serving others while my food gets cold, and more wipping dirty hands and faces, but it will also mean our family is growing together and sharing a meal. Sticking with it even when it is challenging will make it that much harder to loose that time together.

***

Our girls have been eating solid foods for about a month now, and they are sitting up with us three meals a day. Preparing, eating and cleaning up after a meal can literally take hours.  How do you ensure your family sits down for meals together as often as possible?

So,  perhaps you’re thinking—this doesn’t have a lot to do with food? Then, let me get to the point. During each group, there is a snack time. Snack time takes place at the table (without sippy cups–eep!) and the kids are offered two types of snacks. The teachers show the kids both snacks and ask, “Do you want applesauce, cracker or both”. My kids? They always want “both”. Of course they do, as they love eating out. When we started group, they also enjoyed eating most foods at home too. However, since then, they have developed into typical toddlers. A bit finicky. A bit tantrum-y. Very indecisive. So challenging.

In the last month, mealtimes have become a headache. They are requesting certain foods, then refusing to eat them. Foods they used to love get a (screamed), “No!!! No!!! No!!!” along with a violent head shake, in case Mommy is a bit slow and didn’t realize that they didn’t want that food choice. I get frustrated. They get frustrated. It’s not pretty. And I really am not an idiot. I don’t prepare six types of food for them. I don’t let them have cookies for dinner. But, it’s still frustrating. And when they’re hungry and grouchy, I get pretty grouchy myself, fairly quickly.

So, one day this week I decided to take the EI approach. I offered two choices (pasta & pear). The kiddos? They wanted, “Both”. And got really excited about it. Hmm. Since then, this has been what happens at every meal. They have eaten foods I haven’t seen them eat for months—turkey meatloaf (somehow feeling a bit wrong since we were JUST watching the wild turkeys out the window), pasta with tomato sauce, kidney beans, black beans, red pepper, cornbread….it’s all excited when they get to pick both. They’re eating much healthier and more balanced meals. And there’s almost no yelling. Maybe those Early Intervention teachers know what they’re doing. Hmm….perhaps I am a bit slow after all, since it’s taken me months to think to try this approach at home.

Anyway, I thought I’d offer up this technique in case others with toddlers were experiencing the same joy around mealtimes that I was. Oh, and a bonus? My two slow-to-speak kids? They can now say “both” very clearly.

Abigail’s all ready to help Daddy cook!

When my babies were young, it was easy to have them eat only healthy foods. We made our own babyfood, and mostly they ate veggies, fruits, rice, oatmeal and some proteins—-chicken, turkey, cheese etc….In fact, I remember once looking at their meals and commenting to my husband that we should all have that healthy a diet. However, I find that as the kids get older—they are now almost two—-healthy eating becomes more of a challenge. Other HDYDI moms have some suggestions for how to do this, I have some and I’d love to hear yours as well.

Cook with your kids
The general consensus is that kids are more likely to eat foods if they’ve helped prepare them. Now while this isn’t necessarily helpful when you’re making chocolate chip cookies, it’s certainly useful for the healthy foods. We–ok, fine, let’s be honest here—my husband does a lot of cooking with the kids, from breakfast foods on the weekends to chili or muffins or pumpkin bread. We started early, probably around a year or so, and let them sit and watch us cook at the counter. Now they are very into dumping cups of flour, sugar or eggs into the bowl and stirring is really a highlight of any cooking project. That and sampling the project as we go….

Sneak healthy foods
LauraC wrote a great post about this recently. I have nothing to add to this!

Education yourself
Do some reading on nutrition and foods for toddlers. It seems to me that recommendations change regularly—fats are good? Bad? What about carbs? I try to read the latest information on this and generally avoid the more processed foods, if possible. I ususally figure that if we made it ourselves, we know what’s in there. We tend to try to use whole wheat pasta and bread, instead of white and offer lots of fruits and veggies. I think each parent draws the line somewhere differently here.

Join a CSA
Here’s a fun way to get a bunch of local produce—and push yourselves to use  A LOT of veggies. There was just a list of local ones in our paper here.  Maybe this is just something we contemplate, but it seems like it could be a fun challenge.

Danny tries cereal and milk for the first time

Have only healthy snacks available
One HDYDI mom said that her toddlers are happy to have a healthy snack—if you give them a choice of snacks! Just make both choices something you’re happy for them to have. Ahh, toddlers.

What are your eating healthy tips? How do you keep your kids away from the junkfood and teach a love of healthy eating?

My 21 month old kiddos are heading quickly towards their twos. And no where can you see it more than in the changes we’ve seen lately around food. They have recently decided they are too old for highchairs, even though we had more boostery ones than many are. This change is fine with me, especially because they’d rather sit on the bar stools at the counter. Super easy for me, and they can sit and watch what I’m doing. And them wanting to eat with adult forks and spoons, also fine with me. I can toss the baby spoons and make more room in my drawer. However, the eating has gotten downright unpredictable. Mysterious, and even a bit annoying at times.

This probably isn’t fair to lump poor Abigail in with Danny in this complaint, since she is overall pretty easy with food and happy to eat whenever, wherever. However, even Abigail has gotten a bit finicky around her food choices. For example:

Foods we do NOT eat:
Meat
Pasta with tomato sauce (unless really hungry)
Any food I have spent a significant (more than 5 minutes) preparing
Many veggies, unless still frozen (see below)

Foods we LOVE:
Carbs. Any kind. The more processed, the better
Fruit: Any kind. Canned. Frozen. Fresh. Dried. Whatever.
Frozen peas. Really. They do NOT enjoy them thawed, only frozen
Lima beans (Ick. I mean, really?!)
Milk
Shredded cheese—not cubed for Danny, only shredded, preferably orange cheddar
Canned olives
Oatmeal
Mac and cheese from a box (the awful bright orange stuff their dad really likes)
Any food being offered as a free sample at Whole Foods

Arg. Seriously. And we are not a big cater to kiddos family. They get a couple of options, they can eat it or not. And, more likely than not, if it’s dinner, Danny will say no thank you. (Or, in reality, yell, yell, yell—we’re still working on single words here, much less polite, well-formed sentences).  They will love something one day, and turn up their noses at it the next. And meat of any kind, forget it! I guess I have budding little vegetarians. Their no-animal eating grandmother will be so proud. Me, I’ll just pull my hair out.

Those of you with toddlers out there—are yours doing this too? I miss my happy go lucky eaters of the baby days.