Our take on making the most of family mealtime + our top 3 ways to make it happen
/I envisioned an entire childhood of idyllic family meals; my husband and I would cease balancing our plates on our laps in front of Law and Order reruns and instead have lively family discussions around the table filled with a delicious dinner.
It sort-of came to be…with modifications. My top 3 tips to make it work:
Try, try, and try foods over and over again. Repeat.
The power of positive peer pressure is real. Eat together as a family as much as possible.
Engage them in meal planning, and include meal prep as they grow.
Here’s how we made it work:
Ages 0-4:
Baby #1 was kind of picky. I’d hide pieces of chicken inside of hummus and spend more time than I’d like to admit trying to creatively get her to eat all of her veggies.
Babies #2 and #3 arrived together. They ate a lot. Usually one of them liked it and this at least encouraged the other one to try it. Positive peer pressure at work.
Baby #4 didn’t eat at all (see former blog post here). She was orally averse but would at least play with the food on her tray. During meal times she sat in the middle of the kitchen table in her boppy, and had ample opportunity to take it all in.
Ages 5-9:
Family meals were a bit like a circus with 4 kids within 5 years of age. I vowed to NOT be a short order cook, and have stuck to it with minimal exceptions, usually illness.
Not everything I made was a hit. At least one kid disliked at least one thing at every meal. But, everyone was expected to at least try a bite of everything on their plate, once.
This is a great age to get the kids involved in meal prep. I can vouch for the more stake they have preparing the food, the more likely they will try it (willingly).
Ages 9-14:
Over time, the complaints about disliked food have decreased. I’ve always told my kids that it can take up to 14 tries to like something, and I think there’s some truth to it. Now, almost all of them will eat almost anything.
At this stage, give them one night a week to pick the menu. Try not to let them repeat the same choice for at least a month. If you want them to get really involved, let them pick out the recipe, grocery shop for the ingredients, and help prepare the meal. In no time, they’ll cook it all by themselves.
Now, we’re fortunate that the kids can pitch in and make dinner if needed, particularly on nights when us parents get to go out. And (for now) they will all sit at the table and eat together, probably out of habit. It was a lot of work initially, but we’re definitely reaping the rewards now.
