Further to some good advice we got on here a while back, Mrs AB and I have been trying for the last couple of months to introduce a more varied diet during our 19 month old daughter's meal times.

I'm sure 'most' parents would agree trying to get a young child to eat properly/healthily can be difficult. Both my wife and I work full time in fairly stressful jobs and there have been times where we have come in and cooked something from scratch only for our daughter to show little or no interest – but nonetheless we're determined to continue to try and develop her pallet.

We try to sit down and eat together as a family whenever we can, but work means this is often difficult.

We feed her plenty of fruit – apples, melon, strawberries, banana, grapes – and keep sweet things to a minimum. She also has her favourites (cottage pie, sausages, tomato & basil pasta) which she would probably eat everyday quite happily, but we'd like to continue to try offer her different food.

Can I ask what you all feed/have fed your kids of a similar age so we can get some inspiration? (Ideas for food that can be prepared ahead of time – and possibly frozen – or meals that we could all eat would be especially welcome.)

Thanks.

Generally better to make things that can be eaten together but with a spoon for youngest.
Soups work well but is messy but sneaks in any unwanted/like veg food groups.
Start them off with the spicy stuff now both ours (2 & 4) can do a pretty hot curry now.
Chilli's are easy to make and freeze /defrost as needed.
Ours also like stir fry but hate noodles.
We also got a slow cooker as you can get home and food is cooked and waiting for you.

It sounds like the diet she gets already is pretty good (certainly compared to some I have seen).

Chilli's

For a 19 month old child????????

If she likes cottage pie, how about other pies – shepherd's pie, fisherman's pie? Do toad in the hole rather than just sausages. Savoury mash? Filled potatoes (jacket spud, contents scooped out and stuff added such as bacon, cheese etc) then put back in and grilled.

Junkyard – I may be wrong on this, but I too am a bit reluctant to offer her hot/spicy food.

Slow cooker – we have one of them. What do you tend to cook in that?

I may be wrong on this, but I too am a bit reluctant to offer her hot/spicy food.

Totally agree – even though I will have my work cut out trying to cook for our two (still only 12 weeks old) as we live on spicy food – even though we have had to tone it down considerably whilst Mrs M breast feeds.

Mastiles – if it works for JY I can't really argue, but we're only just starting off in terms varying her diet so it might be a bit early for us.

Have another little one on the way in November so no doubt that will 'spice-up' the mix!

Mastiles – if it works for JY I can't really argue

Yeah fair enough – and there are children the world over that eat spicy food straight away.

I just know what it does to our two's number twos on the days after a spicy meal. :-O

My youngest daughter really likes spaghetti. You can make a pseudo bolognaise sauce but use veg as well as mince (carrots, courgettes chopped up small) to make sure they are getting their 5 a day.

That's a meal you can all eat together and the sauce can be made in advance so preparation time is 10 minutes. Obviously they end up eating the spaghetti with their hands but that's part of the fun.

Vegetable rice — rice (obviously), vegi stock, and steamed veg (done over the rice pan). Takes no time, can be frozen after making a vat of it.

We add in sweetcorn, peas, broccoli, onion, leek, peppers, grated courgette etc.

Got lots of carbs (rice), veg and adding cheese makes it nice and calorie rich.

Tastes nice too for shared meals.

Suggest you get a copy of the Annabel Karmel book – loads of ideas that you will be happy to eat too. We used it from the off and our little one (now 2yo) will eat almost anything – these days almost always just what ever we have.

If you're finding it hard to get time to make stuff, have you thought about freezing up pots of stuff (this is what AK suggests a lot of) so you don't have to spend ages prep'ing?

…..just reads orig post …sorry. Yes, lots of freeze-able meals.

All three of my kids love spicy food from a young age, were straight onto it as soon as they were fully weaned, not mental hot obviously, but spicy and curried food can often get them to eat things they wouldn't normally.

spicy things my kids liked from an early age:-

burritos, refried beans, salsas, veg/quorn chili

dal (basically lentil soup innit! kids will eat most stuff if presented as soup, homemade ministrone is another fav in our house), spinach and tattie curry, cheesy pea curry, dry spiced cauliflower (fried in minimal oil and braised in a little water with spices till tender)

Thai coconut milk based curry, they love the coconut, works very well with quorn chunks and lots of coriander

Other stuff-

Veg stir fries, they especially like tofu, deep fried in very hot oil so it doesn't absorb too much fat.
toad in the hole,
couscous based dishes go down well too.

Pitta pizzas are quick and easy to make, just use a half-cooked pitta as the pizza base and let them spread the tomatoes on followed by the other stuff then stick under a grill.

Falafels with salad/veg and pittas is another good one for kids, the mix you can buy in Tescos is very good, no point slaving away to make your own from scratch.

Kids like risotto generally as well.

It sounds like you're doing the right things already.

We just cooked pretty much whatever we would normally have eaten and gave them it. We've never made a big deal about sweets so they eat them fairly often compared to some of their friends but we're working on the principle that will make them less exciting, which seems to be working so far when looking at what they go for at birthday parties when given a free choice.

Our eldest (6) will eat almost anything, apart from things that are too spicy, though she's now almost vegetarian.

The youngest (nearly 4) is adamant that she doesn't like "vejbbles", but actually will eat a lot – "that's not a vegetable, it's broccoli" works well at the moment 🙂 She would happily live on sausages.

The main problem we're having at the moment is filling them up. The older one especially, we just can't get enough food into her. She's just turned 6, but is into age 7/8 clothes and has size 1 shoes. She's really lean, and absolutely ripped – she has a pecs and bigger biceps than me.

My parents just fed me whatever they were eating, after the baby-food stages. If I was too young to cut it up they'd cut it up. If I was too young to chew it they'd blend it. I then (and now) eat anything and everything, im not picky, and moving onto "adult" food was never a question. Same with my siblings.

Sounds like your doing fine. Kids won't starve themselves so as long as there's healthy food available to them they'll be fine. I'm amazed sometimes how little my kids eat, yet they still run around all day and are perfectly healthy (attitude aside obviously).

If it's any more reassurance AB, we've just finished tea, nice healthy salad and lamb kebabs. My 8 year old daughter ran screaming to the bin and spat her kebab out in a hissy fit, and my 2 year old is just eating a choc ice which he has spread butter all over. It's bathtime/bedtime now so I'm buggering off to walk the dogs.

eating a choc ice which he has spread butter all over.

Awesome!

sprats, sardines, herring, trout, mackerel.

Our 18 month old loves oily fish, I pick out the big bones with my fingers and she just happily munches on the little ones and swallows them.

I've found the best way to cook fish is wrap it in baking parchment and wack it in the microwave till its piping hot.

mastiles_fanylion – Member
Totally agree – even though I will have my work cut out trying to cook for our two (still only 12 weeks old) as we live on spicy food – even though we have had to tone it down considerably whilst Mrs M breast feeds.

Our kids weren't bothered spicy breastmilk?

Now that they are on proper food ,they are always keen to try the spicy stuff be it mustard, pepper, horsereadish or chilli, but cry with just the tiniest taste.

other spices are fine. I make a mean chilli-less pork vindaloo

Dont be so scared they will eat it though clearly like adult you could do too hot for them. I reckon though these days they could both eat mental hot stuff though and as you say think of India and the asian Ginger and Chilli soup that babies/everyone eats.

My daughter has been loving Frankfurter sausages for about 2 years now, a day without a couple is a day wasted.
Give her what you eat, we did when ours was about 9 months old and never looked back (BTW hot chilli sauce keeps kids at bay 😉 )

3rd or 4th for the AK books.

I think she reckons that kids take up to 7 attempts to accept a new food / flavour. If after that time they still don't like it, they probably don't like it. Before then, they are manipulating you – trust me, kids are very devious and if she sees that by refusing new foods you go back to the 2 or 3 dishes she does like, guess what she does every time you offer new food?