Practical tips for your fussy eater

Babies grow more rapidly in their first year than at any other time in their lives. After 12 months, a child’s growth and weight gain generally slows down.

Once they start walking and “toddling” around by themselves, they do lose interest in food, their new found independence is very distracting and they are having far too much fun to worry about food.

Rule one: Don’t show emotion when it comes to food or use it as a tool to teach your child to do as he or she is told.

The most important thing here is not to get stressed out, stay calm.

If your baby refuses their meal, don’t make a fuss, leave his meal in front of him and ignore him. Your child will soon realise that refusing food isn’t much fun when you don’t react and give him the attention he is looking for.

However, you do need to be firm and consistent.

Bumbles™ tips on helping your fussy pots

• Set an example
• Disguise vegetables
• Give raw vegetables with a tasty dip and let them self feed
• Meat can be difficult for little mouths, so give cottages pies, fish pies, lasagne, spaghetti bolognese, chicken balls and encourage self feeding
• Drop a bottle rather than a meal or cut back on snacks
• Don’t overload your baby’s plate, offer seconds or a healthy pudding
• Make food fun to stimulate them
• Sit down together and have family meals
• If baby refuses to eat, remove the plate and offer nothing until the next meal
• Keep putting the “don’t like” foods in front of him – remember it can take up to 15 times for a baby to accept a taste

Family cuisine

Now that your little one can eat almost everything that you eat, except whole nuts, unpasteurised cheeses and soft eggs, it is a good time to review your family’s eating habits. It is important that you set a good example so you are able to initiate healthy eating pattern right from the start.

Two to three: The growing years

Your child should now be enjoying a full and varied diet and you should be able to cook meals for the whole family to enjoy. Make sure you offer plenty of healthy snacks, as toddlers prefer lots of small meals to three big ones.

Healthy snacks

Children need a large amount of energy in comparison to their body size but they cannot cope with large quantities of food at any one time. Some toddlers may survive quite happily on three meals a day but you will probably find that your child will also need snacks between meals to keep up her energy levels.

Keep a stock of foods for snacks that are wholesome and that will give a child a slow release of energy rather than a faster boost of energy followed by a more rapid drop in blood sugars.

Energy rich snacks

Unrefined carbohydrate foods like whole meal bread, wholegrain cereal or potatoes take longer to break down into glucose and provide nutritious and sustained energy supplies. Fruit also provides a good fast working supply of energy.

Bumbles™ healthy snack ideas

• Fresh fruit
• Mini-sandwiches
• Yogurt
• Wholegrain breakfast cereals
• Steamed or raw vegetable sticks
• Fingers of toast
• Pitta bread fingers with hummus
• Rice cakes, crackers or provitas
• Muffins
• Crumpets
• Dried Fruits
• Cheese
• Cream cheese with mini breadsticks

Meal planning

To help guide you we have another Make SuperFoods SuperFun printable especially for you. Check out our How Much Food printable and follow this easy guideline to ensure your baby or toddler’s nutritional needs are met.

Don’t forget to print out our reusable Bumbles Mealplanner to make your life just that little bit easier!

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Bumbles Cookery Club

The Bumbles™ Cookery Club offers detailed workshops for each vital stage of the weaning process, as well a support and social group for moms to enjoy.

Our goal is to guide and assist moms, and dads, through the different weaning stages and to understand and learn the importance of each stage, when to introduce each food group and how to create delicious, nutritionally balanced meals not only for your little one but for the whole family.

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