Heinz - Tinytums

Food, Fun and Games

Ready to play?
Helping  your child to enjoy food is vital in moving them on to a healthy diet. It also requires persistence, patience and a simple extra ingredient – fun! It’s easy to say, but sometimes during a hard day you just want your little treasure to eat their dinner! If you can take a few deep breaths and try some of these little tricks, meal times can be fun again.

Counting Down
Line up little pieces of fruit, vegetables, cheese or whatever you like and play counting as they vanish down the hole.

Getting involved
Often, feeling involved can really help. Ask your toddler to help choose which pieces of fruit or veg they would like. The wider the range of fruits and vegetables they will accept the better.

Special
Giving them their special cutlery, plate and mug helps to make mealtimes their own.

Shopping
Play games at the supermarket asking them to point out items. “Can you see the carrots?” Then congratulate them when they succeed. You might find they’re then more inclined to eat food they’ve cleverly found.

Let them watch you cook
Cooking is really fun and creative. Your toddler can watch from their highchair as you show them how you peel, chop and mix foods to make something good to eat. You can let them put the chopped vegetables in the pan for you or help them mix something with a spoon.As they get older you can get them more involved, and hopefully they will be happy to eat what you have made together.

Food is fun
Let them decorate their mash with smiley faces made out of peas, have them painting with potato shapes and sauce, let them have a picnic on a rug indoors, dress them as monsters for dinner - whatever it takes to remind them food is interesting and fun.

Presentation
Why not arrange their dinner into shapes or faces? Then ask them to eat the eyes, the hair. They’ll find it very amusing and children have an immense ability to enjoy the same joke over and over and over again.