Levi does not eat very much. He does love fruit and will eat fresh fruit throughout the day, but he just doesn't eat much of anything else. It's a constant battle to try and get enough protein and calcium into him to insure he has what he needs to grow properly. He might act like a monkey but bananas are not enough to keep him healthy. His biggest issue is he will be hungry but after 3 bites he is full and the meal is over.
Here are some tricks I use to get him to eat:
1) frequent healthy snacks- If lunch would consist of a protein, a veggie, and a carb, then I engineer his snacks to encorporate those items and give him cheese at 11am, carrots and dip at 12:30 and crackers at 1:30.
2) sneak in protein- add an egg to a bowl of soup, put peanut butter on toast, put cheese on everything
3) dip, dip, dip- he loves dip, any kind. I make peanut butter dip, cheese dip, sour cream dip, anything I can think of and let him go at it with veggies, crackers, fruit or whatever. I think his main source of calcium lately has been sour cream.
4) add supplements to drinks- I buy a strawberry protein smoothie powder for kids and add it to milk (when I can get him to drink milk) I have also stirred it into ice cream and it is goooood!
5) Tell him he can't have something- I will make a 'special' food and tell him he can't have it, which of course makes him want it very badly. So then I finally 'give in' and let him have some but tell him it's a secret and not to tell his Dad. I don't do this very often but it has been highly effective. Hah! (And everyone thinks he's the smart one!!!)
Why do I worry so much? Because last year when he got the bad stomache flu he ended up in the hospital for a week and almost had to come home with a feeding tube. He just doesn't have enough reserves if he gets sick. He is growing well, taller all the time, he is active and healthy and smart, but if he gets sick, he has nothing to fight with. So if he wants to nibble on our gingerbread house, he can. If he wants to have a bite of my food, he can. And if he says he wants pizza for breakfast and pancakes for supper, he can. (Caramels for breakfast, no, but pizza? OK)
1 comment:
Great ideas Wendy!! It can be a real challenge sometimes, getting kids to eat healthy.
:) :) :) :)
Im always telling my kids to drink water and making sure they drink enough milk. We moms do worry about our lil sweeties, cause we love them soooooo much.
Laura
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