Raising a veggie-eater

Teaching a child to eat greens and fruits may be one of the most difficult tasks for mommies. Well, asking one to take his or her medicine is another thing, but let me focus on veggie munching this time.

If you are a mom-to-be or a new mom with a baby below 6 months old, I’d say you’ll likely succeed in raising a veggie-eater because you still have a chance to choose the foods that you’d introduce to your baby. This is so because 6-months is the start of the weaning stage or is the period when solid foods could be introduced to a baby. At this point in time, your baby still has to drink milk though. To train his buds, it is best that you feed him pureed cooked vegetables and fruits instead of processed ones which are usually sweet and don’t provide a variety of tastes that are necessary for your child’s eating training.

For a start, you may get the sayote, potato, squash or carrot from the main dish you cooked for the family and mashed a spoonful of it in the dish’s soup, if there is any.  Feed him or her with the mashed mixture in very small amounts as the process of eating solids is a new experience for your baby.  It would also be a good thing to remember to always make your precious one’s eating experience a happy one so that he would always wait for the next feeding and eat whatever it is you prepared for him.

Meanwhile, if your child has already passed through the weaning stages without any taste of vegetables, your task is more difficult as his taste buds have already developed specific likings.  Still, don’t lose hope.  All you need is to use your creativity and a few tactics to get him running after greens and fruits.  One thing you can do is to include vegetables in your child’s favorite dishes in small or unnoticeable amount until he has developed a liking for its taste.  Another thing is to prepare veggies and fruits in appealing settings and invite your child’s friends to your house for some sort of party.  This way, your child would see other kids eating what you prepared and would somehow realize that it is okay to eat carrots, beans, melons, apples, bananas and the like.

On top of these, it is a must that parents eat what they want their children to eat because action speaks louder than words.