I am so happy to have my friend, fellow twin mom, and blogger Dr. Orlena Kerek writing this guest post today. Like many moms, I struggle with making sure my kids are eating a healthy diet, especially since I have one very picky eater. I attended Dr. Orlena's free healthy eating for kids online workshop last month and loved her ideas and attitude on the subject. She is hosting another workshop on February 24 and I asked her to share her insights here on Sunny Day Family.
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Do you find feeding your children a healthy diet tricky? You want them to eat lots of lovely tasty fruit and vegetables but they prefer cookies and chips. In the name of variety, you try lots of new and exciting recipes, but they’re always met with howls of ‘yuck’ and unceremoniously shoved away. Eventually they pick out the pasta and leave the vegetables on the side. And time. How do you find the time to cook healthy food?
That’s how my life used to be. Picky eaters, a bad diet, introducing food was a disaster and ALL I thought about was how to get them to eat healthy food. Obsession was the word my husband used.
Things are different now. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you my children have great table manners and that dinners are a sedate, tranquil affair. I have 4 children aged 6 and under. Two year old twins. Their manners are quite frankly a disaster. No going for dinner with the Queen for us!
BUT, I don’t worry any more. I know my kids eat healthily. They eat vegetables. They try new foods. They eat more than just pasta. There are no more howls of yuck and screams of despair. No more fighting over whether or not they get pudding. No more coercing. No more “just one more bite”. And yes, I think about what I’m going to feed them, normally about 5 minutes before I actually cook it. They get healthy, home cooked food every single day. I don’t do junk any more. I spend about 30 minutes every day cooking. I cook easy, healthy tasty food that my children eat, generally without complaint.
How did I do it? How did I transform our lives?
There’s no secret, just a few simple rules. Rules for us, not the kids!
- NO pressure. If my children don’t want to eat something they don’t have to.
- I offer them healthy food through out the day. If they want it, they eat it. If not, they wait until the next healthy food opportunity.
- Dessert is not tied up with how much dinner they ate. We have dessert on Friday and Saturday. It doesn’t matter how much they eat.
- I offer variety. Lots of different healthy vegetables. They just don’t eat the ones that they don’t like.
- I KEEP offering variety and new things. It takes time to accept something new and kids don’t like new. They like familiar.
FREE Healthy Eating for Children Workshop
If you’d like to know more about how you can feed your children a healthy diet without stress, here’s how I can help. Firstly, I have an awesome FREE workshop that you can attend. We’ll look at how you can help your children. It’s totally free, you can come, you can learn and that’s it (there’s a recording if you can’t make the live session.)
Healthy Eating for Children Course
I also do an awesome online course, which is not free. But it is great. It’s $350 which does sound a lot if you compare it to a book. But if you think of giving your children the gift of a healthy life...remember that nothing in life is guaranteed, but there are things that you can do to increase your chances and healthy eating and exercise are up there at the top. If you could give that gift to your children, it’s a small price to pay. Think of it as the road map to stress free healthy eating. If you want to know more about the course... check out this page.
Just want to come along to the free session? It would be great to see you. Just register here.
Dr. Orlena Kerek
I am a paediatric doctor and mother of 4 small scamps. I write about helping children to eat healthily, without lots of stress and worry. It’s all about building healthy habits that last a lifetime.
Read Dr. Orlena's blog at https://snotty-noses.com.