Food glorious food

One of the most difficult aspects of parenting for me is feeding my children. I've read all the weaning advice, I know what they should eat, but getting them to eat it is a different matter. I don't want mealtimes to become a battlefield. I've seen House of Tiny Tearaways. In fact I watched it before I had children and tutted at the terrible parents. Now I have two children of my own I can completely understand how they got to the point of desperation. It all starts with a bending of the rules here, and a backing down there. Bad habits are so easy to make.

Luckily I also saw a documentary called 'My child won't eat'. The advice was to let them eat what they want. The most important thing is that they get enough calories. You could see that these children were healthy. One of them would only eat yoghurt, another lived on Wotsits and chocolate. Clearly these were extreme cases, but it made me relax my attitude to feeding.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself - but don't we all do that as parents? I beat myself up most days for being a crap mum. Sometimes I forget to change a nappy, sometimes I get distracted by the computer, but I try to make up for it in other ways. Obviously your children want to spend time with you, so I spend hours reading every book in the house or playing peek-a-boo or making up songs.

The other thing I do to show them love is to feed them, it's a natural maternal instinct to nurture your loved ones. This is where the feeding problems can start. Rejection is so hard to take, rejection of food can be equated to rejection of love. I am learning not to take offence when I've spent half an hour cooking a meal that gets thrown on the floor. More importantly I try very hard not to show annoyance. I try to keep in mind that the behaviour is naughty not the child, and act accordingly. I clear up the mess and offer an alternative.

I thought it may be useful to share what my 21 month old toddler eats. When I wrote it down I realised that it's not that bad. I hope! A good day is one where he eats all of what he's given, a bad day is one where he doesn't! On a bad day I keep offering different foods until he will eat something, while keeping an eye on my poor carpet. 

What he eats on a good day:

7am - Milk

9am - Super porridge made with milk

11am -Rice cakes

1pm - Tuna & sweetcorn sandwich and a yoghurt

3pm - Banana

5pm - Cheese & tomato pizza, more sweetcorn, a pear and a breadstick

7pm - Milk

What he eats on a bad day:

7am - No milk

9am - Two spoonfuls of super porridge, a fromage frais, Cheerios

11am -Some of my toast, strawberries

1pm -  One bite of a cheese sandwich, strawberries, breadsticks, branflakes

3pm - Half a rusk, an animal biscuit, strawberries (you see a pattern here?)!

5pm - Two sausages, two peas, no broccoli, no potato, a plum, a custard dessert

7pm - Milk

I would love your comments on this. What do your children eat on a good day? Do you have bad days?