Feeding Tips & Tricks to Handle the Fussy Eating Child

Am I feeding my child enough? is she getting good nutritious food?, Is she still hungry? …. These are some of the questions that would constantly plague my mind when my baby was little.

She has always been a fussy eater, in fact sometimes I would wonder if she only ate to get by, as she was never interested in the food or getting fed. Unfortunately she also had a stomach condition, for which the doctor had advised us not to give her packaged food or food that I had not cooked myself (basically things like bread, biscuits, juices and other stuff falling in the junk food category) therefore many types of food were banned in our house. This led me to read a whole lot about cooking techniques that were good for my daughter and also carefully making myself aware of the nutrient quotient of the food that I was making and serving to my family.

Thus my experimentation with foods for children started and my target customer was my own fussy daughter .I was like a mother on a mission and took the challenge very seriously.

One of the first things that she really started enjoying was daliya (broken wheat)khichdi . Daliya is very good for digestion. She used to hate the regular khichdi (with rice and dal)because it was lumpy and slimy but the daliya khichdi still retained firmness even when fully cooked and of course I would add very finely chopped carrots beans and potatoes to it along with a piece of boneless chicken or fish which would give it great flavor. The nutrient content was very high as it had a combination of carbohydrates/ proteins/vitamins and fibre. It would be different everyday, as sometimes I would put the Italian herbs while other times it would be Chinese flavors.

I found out potatoes / sweet potatoes were great for my baby since they are high on carbohydrate content and hence a great source of energy. I would bake the potato or boil it and then add a bit of salt and butter and that itself was a full dinner for her.
Dosa and idli was a great hit with her and I tried many varieties of idlis like the broken corn idli or the oats idli .

We would play the game of “what color roti” each day and depending on the color she picked I would mix carrots ( for orange)/ boiled yellow pumpkin( for yellow) / boiled spinach (for green) or beetroots (for red) and give her the fun colored rotis, these really made her excited, she would eagerly eat those and I was happy as she was eating the vegetable without knowing it! This was great way to introduce her to different flavors and textures and also get her interested in food .

Today ,she is six years old and is still a fussy eater but she eats the regular food that is cooked in the house and her stomach problems are behind her. She is a healthy , growing child.

I couldn’t ask for more….