That’s right! You should always restrict good foods. Of course, by good foods I mean foods your toddler actually enjoys. It’s pretty safe to say that your toddler isn’t going to love the foods that are good for them! Besides, even if he turns out to love carrots, he’s going to get enough of them, so rather then blindly give into your baby’s desires for the foods he prefer, instead limit all foods he loves in effort to balance his diet.
When you know your baby has had a complete days worth of nutrition, this is the time to allow your baby to indulge in his favourites. It’s the – dessert after having eating all the good foods his body requires to function properly. By the way, a child how’s getting the right nutrition from his foods is far less likely to snack and overeat. Have you ever really thought about what foods are typically found at all-you-can-eat restaurants? Usually, it’s foods such as wings, Chinese food buffets, pasta and breads, pizza and salty snacks (at least this is a food we can often consume endlessly), and the like. These foods are completely devoid of nutrition which permit us to gorge on them. Having a well balanced diet turns off the hunger sensors in your brain, inhibiting you from wanting to eat more foods – so you stop. Calorie dense foods are great for gorging, but do nothing to make the hunger go away. So instead of feeling healthy after eating, we grow accustomed to feeling stuffed! It’s the stuffed feeling that is swapped out for feeling satisfied as we age.
Your child is in a great position to accept your dietary influence now that you understand this fact. So instead of allowing your child to gorge on white flour items like pasta, bread, pastries, balance out all meals. Make sure your toddler is getting their nutrition first and adjust things accordingly. So if your baby picks evenly across his plate to each food group, veggie, starch, meat, then you’re good to go. But if your baby rarely eats his veggies, you’re going to have to figure out a strategy. You might consider stopping snacking or offering veggies as snacks. You might introduce veggies first before he has a chance to eat any other more preferred foods. You might make sure he’s truly hungry before sitting him down for a meal. If a child is not hungry, they’ll simply eat as an obese person does – high calorie foods with low density nutrition. Remember that if your toddler isn’t really hungry, he’s just gorging and in most cases, your toddler isn’t attuned or communicative enough to tell you about his feelings (hunger not excepted). Lastly, I wanted to mention dessert. For our family, dessert is something that follows a well balanced meal. We offer fruits for dessert in most instances, but sometimes offer pastries. If you stick to it and offer just good desserts, your baby isn’t going to know the difference between store bought processed foods and the sugar he’ll find in apples, bananas, oranges and berries. While fruits are packed with sugars, they at least contain vitamins that the body needs.
Balancing a toddler’s meals is not easy and does take some effort and practice, not to mention a significant amount of strategizing so be patient and play around with various variables and preparation methods until you figure things. And by all means never replace good calories for bad and never think your baby is starving himself, he’s not, no baby with food in front of him will go hungry so stick to your guns!