Hellobee Boards

Cooking while nauseous is the worst. Anything to survive!

I agree, let it go for the 3 year old. Tons of fruit is great. My 6 year old lives on pbj, fruit and cheese still (I know those aren’t options for you) and at 3 he almost never ate dinner. He would always just wait for breakfast! It’s hard with snacks at daycare but I say just feed him whatever nutrition you can without huge effort and let it go. If he eats fruit and bread for dinner every night (or whatever works) he’ll be totally fine.

Do you have to avoid allergens for everyone or just 3 year old? Maybe it’s worth making two things. I try to do a lot of meals where I can deconstruct based on what various kids will eat. Budget bytes (blog) has a lot of meal prep ideas that you could batch, I think they’re tagged in a section. I always batch cook chicken with various rubs and then freeze it - then thaw in small portions and often use cold - salad, hummus wraps, or heat in quesadillas with beans. Maybe even go out of the usual definition of dinner - overnight oats that can be eaten warm or cold are super easy to batch and pretty filling. I don’t know if they meet your allergen needs but Stonefire mini naan are the best for keeping in the freezer and making wraps and pizzas and things like that.

Hugs! Third pregnancy is just hard

That sounds really hard. Honestly, I feel like your husband should step up and do some cooking....

I would try to have healthier snack options at home, fruit, veggies, crackers with cheese or hummus, etc. We eat that kind of thing for lunch and and snacks. For dinner, I'd make the kiddo with allergies something sperate maybe and stick to easier stuff for the rest of the family. Pasta with store bought sauce, pancakes and eggs, tacos, dinner salads, burgers, stuff like that. I hate meal planning too. Even if you can't get your husband to cook at all, at least have make him participate in meal planning. Maybe that would help too.

As for the toddler, I think that's totally normal. Hard as it is, try not to stress about it. It will pass.

I've gotten bad at making meals lately because DH is on and off dieting and the kids prefer spaghettios or mac and cheese usually.
Other than those two things everything is homemade, I am fructose intolerant and fructose is in practically everything so it gets hard!

We keep deli turkey and ham in the fridge as well as lettuce/salad mix for easy salads.
My new fav salad is mixed greens with craisins, strawberries, blueberries, feta cheese and a raspberry dressing with grilled chicken. I cook it on the stove top in sesame oil with salt, pepper, and parmesean, so good!
I like to make a bunch of taco meat and keep that in the fridge for easy nachos or tacos. Same with cooking up a bunch of plain chicken in the crockpot for enchiladas or quesadillas, wraps, whatever!
Look up some one-pot skillet meals on pinterest. I do a yummy chicken enchilada one, a mexican skillet with beef, salsa, black beans and corn, and a sausage spinach pasta. All are sooo good and easy! I'm sure I can find the recipes if you want them.

Something to keep in mind - family meal time doesn’t have to mean dinner. On the days that DH is home we try to make a big deal about a fun family breakfast or lunch - breakfast foods always feel easier to please everyone with. And my DD isn’t a tired grump like she can be at dinner time.

Or for family dinner serve a variety of things all on the table. You can all mix and match the individual items you want to eat and you can make sure there are safe foods for your LO but you’re all eating together. I often look for recipes that can be served deconstructed- I might put things on top of salad greens, DH might put his on top of a potato, rice, or pasta, and DD can eat hers however she likes.

All that said - it’s totally okay for food to be the thing you let go of. As long as everyone is being offered food - you’re set! If you want to go back to family meals later, you can! If you don’t, well, you’ll figure out what works for your family.

I totally agree with the others. Picky eating is not worth a battle (and battles often make it worse) and you should cut yourself all kinds of slack because of pregnancy, pandemic, allergies - so many challenges.

One thing we do that works well with my picky eater is bowls. Kind of like the deconstructed thing @catgirl mentioned. We'll do various themes which usually just involve a grain, a protein, some veggies and a sauce that go together but don't have to. For example:

Greek: quinoa, pork, tomato, cucumber, feta, hummus
Mexican: brown rice, beef, black beans, corn, salsa, cheddar
Italian: cous cous, chicken, tomato, zucchini, mozz balls, pesto
Asian: white rice, shrimp, edamame, carrots, avocado, soy sauce

DH and I usually pile it all together as a bowl and the kids eat the items they like, usually separately. Bonus is I usually buy the grains frozen so they take 3 min in the microwave and so the prep is usually just cooking the protein and chopping veggies

I feel for you! We're in the same boat, minus food allergies and pregnancy. I'm over the food I cook - no wonder everyone else is, too!

And I've given up trying to get anyone to come to the dinner table. There's no second dinner if you don't bother to come to the first, I just assume they're not hungry and let it go. Not making it into a battle of wills, no thank you.