Feeding Your Family (continued)

Offer a few choices. When your child is young, start offering her a variety of foods. Provide a few healthy choices at mealtimes. It may take time for your child to develop a taste for some of these. While it is good to let your child choose what she wants to eat whenever possible, you may be setting yourself up for a tantrum if you leave things open-ended. Instead, give her choices, and ask her to pick some healthy sides to go with her meal of choice.

Sweet treats. Both pediatricians and dentists agree that parents should relax when it comes to sugar consumption on special occasions like birthdays or Halloween. Forbidding your child to eat sweets will make him want them more. Although dessert should not be something that comes after every meal, the occasional milk and cookie for snack, candy in the lunch box, or ice cream after dinner is ok in small portions. Try to ration your child’s intake of sweets to once a day, and make sure he brushes and flosses his teeth.

Give yourself a break! No one feels like cooking on a regular basis, or eating leftovers several days in a row. It’s ok to order take out or go out for dinner as a treat to yourself and your child every once in a while. And if your child just wants pizza and wants to skip the salad, it’s not the end of the world.