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Tiny Diners
Including Toddlers in Family Dinnertime By Laura Cone
To get the most out of dinnertime, don't scold your toddler when he or she makes a mess. According to Faull, toddlers' need to experiment is greater than their need to please their parents.
"If you are really done with it, if you think this child is just playing with food, it's just making a huge mess, clean them up and get them down, or if you finish your meal bring them on your lap and let them eat from your table," Faull says. "In our culture, quite often, we skip that step of having children sit on our laps to eat. When we were babies, we held them and nursed them. When they are toddlers we need to hold them and serve the solid foods."
After feeding your toddler from your lap, take time to dine yourself. Every parent needs at least five minutes to feed themselves at the table without interruption or disturbances, she says.
Faull, who has three grown children, says some parents worry their toddlers are going to be malnourished because they on't eat a lot of food. Make mealtime a pleasant experience by avoiding games of negotiation and coercion such as playing airplane, she says. "If they are serving up a big adult-size portion for their toddler, they are not going to see much of it go down," says Faull. "And so it's better to put little bits of food on their plate and let them know what they are going to pick up and swallow."
As long as your children are growing, energetic and sleep well, they are probably getting all of the nutrition they need. Faull suggests evaluating how your child eats during the course of three days instead of worrying about what he or she ate during one meal or one day. "Some children will eat really well one day and the next day eat very little," Faull says.
Ultimately your child controls what he or she swallows, making it futile to get into a power struggle at the dinner table. "You can get into a battle of wills very quickly with a toddler because they have determined they have a mind of their own, and if it becomes very important for you to get food down their gullet it becomes very important to them to resist that," says Faull.
Instead of arguing, offer your toddler a new vegetable every day for two weeks, advises Faull. And because children are often copycats, show your child how much you savor your own meal.