Dinner Eating Hacks for Kids

At times we struggle to get Sloan, and sometimes Beau, to eat their dinners. If you are a parent, you understand this colossal frustration. In an attempt to remedy the hesitancy to eat what is on their plates, we have tried to “hype up” ordinary dinners in some small or silly way.

In tonight’s blog post I thought I would share five dinners we have on a regular basis at our house and what we do to increase the chances that our kids will actually eat it.

Tonight I describe some of the techniques we implement to encourage Sloan and Beau to eat their dinners.

Dinner: Spaghetti
Gimmick: Eat with your shirt off
Details: On spaghetti nights we allow Sloan and Beau to take their shirts off. Of course we do it for practical reasons as we don’t want them to stain their clothes with marinara sauce but the kids think it is the coolest thing to go shirtless at the dinner table.

Dinner: Tacos
Gimmick: Homemade nachos
Details: Sloan likes to take the hard shell of her taco and break it up into pieces. She then places the taco contents on each of the pieces or uses them to scoop the contents instead. It is like she thinks she is being gourmet. Whatever. Sloan’s technique results in the same food intake as eating the taco whole so we are more than happy.

Dinner: Waffles
Gimmick: Fun with sprinkles
Details: Every now and then, Sidney busts out her grandma’s waffle iron and we have breakfast for dinner. Never underestimate the impact a burst of color can have. Sloan and Beau might not be impressed with regular “boring” waffles but let them shake a small amount of sprinkles into the batter and they can’t come off the iron quick enough.

Dinner: Pizza
Gimmick: Chips
Details
: How often do you eat chips with dinner? Sidney’s family has a tradition of pairing their pizza with chips and it is something that we adopted in our household. Sloan loves it that she can eat Doritos with her cheese pizza and as long as she understands that she must eat both items on her plate, everyone is happy.

Dinner: Hamburgers
Gimmick: Welcome to McDonald’s
Details: Sloan is a major fan of McDonald’s. She enjoys nothing more than a cheeseburger happy meal. When we actually want to eat decent hamburgers, we cook them at home or at my parents’ house. We are able to tell Sloan “These are just like what you get at McDonald’s” and she buys it (although I don’t we are bending the truth that much)

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Besides starvation or no dessert, do you have any hacks for getting your children to eat the dishes you cook? If you are ever in a pinch, just know that adding some sprinkles is a reliable way to get food in the bellies of your kids. Don’t Blink.

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