Hellobee Boards

We use it as our inspiration but have adapted certain parts of it to be a better fit for our family. We require DD to try a certain number of bites of each food at each meal - the number has changed as she has gotten older, but it doesn't change meal to meal or day to day. She knows "x" bites of each thing. We don't serve dessert with meals but we don't put any extra requirements in place in order for her to have it, just the regular bites. (Though dessert only happens a couple of times a week.)

I also found that she does better having a hand in meal planning and grocery shopping. So I pick out 10 possible recipes for the week for dinner and have her narrow them down. I always make sure to include a 2-3 things I know she definitely likes and mix up the rest. I know the idea is the parent chooses the what, but this works for us.

But once the food is picked for dinner, it doesn't change. I don't make separate meals. We always eat meals and snacks at the table. Meals and snacks follow a very predictable schedule. Whoever is home sits to eat at those times. We don't label foods as good or bad. We don't argue about what we are eating. We never say "you have to eat all of this before you can have x."

@catgirl: we eat, very similarly! Meals at the table and together as a family, and snacks at 10am and 3pm. I also only cook one meal and it’s not always pretty or fancy but it generally tastes good and is reasonably nutritious.

We mostly follow DOR too. DS is about to be 4 and in general, is not picky. We try to have at least one thing he likes every night but we don’t make separate meals. I like to serve dessert with the meals, but I’m still convincing DH that this is a good idea. The one thing we do differently is an “adventure bite”. So if it’s something new or something he might not love, he has to try one bite. He can spit it out if he wants but rarely does. I know at his Montessori preschool, they start by encouraging the kids to touch a new food to their lips, then lick it then try it. So maybe a slower progression like that would be helpful? In general, I think repeat exposure and low pressure is key.

We follow it loosely, and I love the theory...but we've modified it a bit for our family. My 4.5 year old is an incredibly picky eater, and has some dietary restrictions (and I don't always limit our whole meal to avoid those, when I don't expect she'll even be interested in the meal anyway...so sometimes she does get things that are more "for her") Generally though, I serve meals family style and she can choose what to put on her plate. It's hit or miss with what she chooses, and about two years in to this, she's still quite picky.. She's surprised me a few times by trying something new though, so I'm hopeful that we'll see her expand her horizons slowly...but I guess time will tell. I generally don't stress about it - she's growing and healthy in general, and I do think this has taken the battle out of meal time.

Our main modifications are that a couple nights a week, I do make her something specific that I know for sure she'll eat and put it out as one of the "options" on the table. So it's for her, but it's there for us all to pick from (in theory!) so I tell myself it doesn't stand out as a separate meal so much.

Meanwhile, my younger daughter eats anything and everything...so it's amazing how different the kids can be!

We eat a fairly early dinner and then the kids play for a bit before we start our wind-down routine at night. Each kid gets a bowl of fruit while we read some books before heading upstairs to get ready for bed. So I feel like even if my picky one doesn't eat dinner, I know she'll eat the fruit when we read later in the evening...and that gives me some piece of mind too.

I hope you and your husband can get on the same page about a strategy that works for your family soon. I feel like that's the hardest part for me - I really don't stress about what my daughter eats or doesn't eat, but it stresses me out when my husband and I aren't in sync about it because mixed messages throw us all off. For the most part, we're on the same page - but every so often, we have to come back together to regroup or make some changes.

@JennyPenny: My doctor says that kids generally get what they need and also to look at food consumption over a whole week or so. Also I know sometimes E eats better at daycare, so I make sure she gets veggies and such in her lunch to help make up for not always eating a perfect dinner.
I think its great you guys are getting on the same page and want to make evenings easier. That has always been my goal, we have such limited time with E.

@JennyPenny: I gave DOR a really good try a couple of years ago, but then we kind of naturally progressed to something different. I still really like the idea of the parents deciding what, when, and where, and the kids deciding if and how much. I also love the no-bribing thing. My husband used to so that sometimes and his family are the worst at that. “If you don’t eat ______, you don’t get _______”. It drives me nuts. But I also don’t like, put ice cream on their dinner plate to make it just a part of dinner. I more like, remove it from the meal time equation entirely and leave it in an “occasional treat” category.

But I noticed my own kids (I think most kids are like this), were just afraid of anything new, even if it was all made of things I knew they liked. So I do now really try to convince them to take a bite, but we have a “game” where they can do thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumb-in-the-middle if they aren’t sure if they like it. If they honestly say thumbs down, I won’t push it. I just want them to try the taste. But they do this part pretty willingly—I wouldn’t do it if this method started a long battle of wills. We also really try to keep desserts/sugary stuff to a minimum in the house at all. We go get ice cream, or donuts, or we bake cookies or whatever, but we try to keep it to 1-2 times a week. I also try really hard to actually offer the 4-5 servings of fruit/veg a day, which is a challenge sometimes!

Probably a lot of it is luck. My oldest is laid back in general so she’ll try almost anything, and she’s really great about eating vegetables. And although my second is much pickier, she’s much more likely to keep eating after the first trial bite, especially if the rest of us are eating the same thing. Tonight, for example, I picked up some ready made green beans with almond—and they were long, uncut green beans and stir fried and still really crunchy. We don’t normally eat green beans this way, so my 2nd was skeptical. But after the ate the first bite, she saw all of us eating them and saying how good they were, and then she finished her serving with no drama.

It’s definitely harder as they get older—they are 4 and 6 now so they are exposed to a lot more foods that they see in their friends’ lunch boxes/school snacks. And it’s difficult to strike a balance between not being controlling about food, but also still trying to offer healthy foods. Like my oldest really wanted “small cans of chips” like her friend gets every day. She also wanted fruit roll ups. And fruit gummies. I’m okay with these things in moderation, but don’t want to give them every day, several times a day, so it gets tricky.

Anyway, I did end up getting Pringles but not the mini can, I got the smaller size. And they’ve had some but luckily they haven’t requested them daily. I already let them have fruit snacks occasionally, but I totally keep them up on the highest shelf in the pantry where they can’t see them and they don’t know they are a choice.

It definitely gets complicated as they get older.

But on the “wins” side, my kids have tried some crazy stuff lately and they ate it, even if it wasn’t their favorite. I made a pumpkin soup with lentils mixed in one night and I don’t think any of us loved it, but we all ate it. And I also made a low fat vegetable lasagna with butternut squash and chickpeas and vegan cheese, and it was also a little strange, but they killed it. So, I’d like to think what we do is kind of working, even tho my second would be happiest with a diet of pure white carbs, at least she will usually try the other stuff.