The 10 Feeding Habits That Made A Difference For My Kids
Inside: Want happier eaters without pressure and micromanaging? These 10 simple feeding habits for kids made a big difference in our house.
When I became a mom, I figured that between a shelf-full of parenting books and my degree in nutrition, feeding my kids would be a piece of cake–or rather, a slice of organic whole wheat bread.
Narrator: Oh, but it wasn’t a piece of cake. And those pesky kids never did learn to like whole wheat bread.
That’s why I started this website 17 years ago. Feeding my kids was a lot harder than I expected–and harder than people on the internet made it sound.
The advice out there was enough to send me into a shame spiral: endless rules, food fears, and warnings that I’d mess up my kids for life with one false move.
But my two boys are older now. They’ll be 18 and 22 this year. (Hold me!) I made it through many of the standard food-related rough patches: toddler dinner strikes, uneaten lunchboxes, picky eating frustrations, and worries about growth. Though at times, I wasn’t entirely sure I would make it through!
Today, each kid has foods they never learned to like. After all, they’ve got two recovering picky eaters as parents.
But overall, they’ve grown into people who eat a decent variety, have a good relationship with food and eating, and who I’d put in the category of “successful eaters“: people who try new foods over time and can “make do” with less favorable foods when they have to.
When I reflect back, it wasn’t about Instagram-perfect lunchboxes, adhering to “approved” foods, or constant micromanaging that helped. It was about a handful of habits that are boring in the best way and worked quietly in the background.
These habits aren’t magic. But they do create structure, trust, and balance around food, so kids can learn to eat well without pressure. And you can stop feeling like every meal is a make-or-break moment. Put them in place, lather, rinse, repeat, and let time do the rest.
Here are the 10 habits that made a difference in our house.
10 Healthy Feeding Habits For Kids
1. Serve regular(ish) meals and snacks.
When kids know that there are meals and snacks coming, they’re less likely to graze all day and arrive to the dinner table full and uninterested.
Establishing a predictable rhythm also helps kids tune in to their hunger and fullness cues instead of eating out of boredom or anxiety about when they’ll eat again.
I certainly did not time meals with military precision, and reining in snacking felt like a constant challenge at times.
But offering food every few hours tells your kids you trust them to eat what they need in those windows. It’s okay to let hunger build between meals and snacks. That’s what helps kids show up ready to eat (and maybe even try something new, even during picky phases).
It also takes pressure off of you. Instead of worrying whether your kid has eaten “enough” or demanding a certain number of bites, you can fall back on a simple plan: There will be another chance to eat soon.
2. Offer a fruit and/or vegetable at most meals and snacks.
Kids (and grown-ups) don’t get nearly enough fruits and vegetables. But what can you actually do about it?
My advice is to make it a numbers game. When you offer some kind of fruit and/or veggie at most meals and snacks, your family is more likely to get what they need–rather than depending on dinner as the veggie main event or packed lunches to carry the full fruit-and-veg load.
This isn’t about a perfect balance at every meal or snack. It’s about consistency and exposure over time. A few bites of banana at breakfast counts. A cucumber slice on a salad counts. Small, frequent exposures really do add up.
And when I feel like my kids have been lacking in the fruit and veg department, I simply set plates and bowls on the kitchen island with sliced apples, rinsed berries, or carrots and dip, and inevitably, they get eaten.
3. Serve milk and water most often.
My kids, like pretty much all kids, love sweet drinks. Babies are born with a natural love for sweet things.
The problem is that sweetened beverages are the number-one source of added sugar for kids (and adults). Research also shows that what kids drink from birth through age five has a lasting impact on their health.
Plus, drinks shape long-term flavor preferences. When kids get used to sweet drinks early on, they’re more likely to keep wanting them later. And that makes water and other plain drinks a harder sell.
You don’t need to ban juice forever or feel guilty about making a pitcher of lemonade for a cookout. What your kids drink most of the time is what matters.
4. Keep some treats around.
I love to bake. Growing up, my mom regularly made homemade cookies and other treats, and now I do the same for my kids. In our house, dessert is a normal part of life.
Treats in our house aren’t rare, forbidden, or laden with drama. Because when kids know that sweets are available regularly, they lose some of their novelty. There’s evidence that for some kids, withholding treats can make them crave them even more–and overeat them when given access.
This matters because the outside world is full of Mountain Dew, gummy worms, and Pop-Tarts. As kids get older and more independent, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to have all manner of treats.
A flexible approach helps kids learn how to be around sweets without feeling out of control around them. When treats aren’t scarce, they can learn how to self-regulate over time.
5. But be blasé about it.
Dessert is typically the grand finale of dinner, the good stuff you get after eating the less exciting stuff. So it often becomes a bargaining tool: “Two more bites of broccoli and you can have a cupcake.”
But when dessert gets knocked down from its end-all-be-all pedestal, something surprising happens: It loses its power and becomes just another food–or at least, a whole lot closer to it.
A good place to start is to stop bribing your kids with the promise of dessert or withholding it as a punishment for not eating “enough”. I know this shift can feel uncomfortable at first, but it’s effective, and it’s an approach backed up by leading health organizations and feeding experts.
Once you get the hang of that, here are two more things I’ve tried with (surprising!) success:
6. Make just one meal.
We have a mantra around here: Every meal can’t be your favorite. It’s a valuable lesson, one that serves kids well beyond their family dinner tables.
Nobody has time to prepare multiple meals like a short-order cook. And when kids know there’s a guaranteed backup meal when they don’t like what’s on the table, there’s very little reason to try what everyone else is having.
Instead, plan one dinner each night for the whole family. This is not about forcing kids to eat foods they hate. As a former picky eater myself, I wouldn’t dream of doing that!
It’s about keeping expectations reasonable for everyone. So make sure there are at least 1-2 items on the table that you know your child likes, even if it’s just a favorite veggie or a basket of dinner rolls. And remember that some nights will be easier than others, and that’s okay.
7. Involve your kid.
You’ve heard it a million times: Kids who are involved in food prep tend to feel more invested in the meal–so they’re more willing to eat it and enjoy it. On top of that, learning to prepare food is an A-plus-plus life skill that pays off long after childhood.
Full transparency: I tried for years to get my kids to be excited about cooking or baking. They helped occasionally, but they never loved it. And for a while, it made me feel like I’d failed in this particular parenting department.
But then my college kid started sending me photos of the meals he was cooking. And my high schooler casually mentioned recently that he’s comfortable reading a recipe and figuring it out.
The moral of the story? Kids don’t have to love cooking every step of the way for the lessons to stick. The goal isn’t passion. It’s competence.
And involvement doesn’t have to mean standing at the stove. You can also give ownership to kids by letting them pick a recipe once a week, choose a side dish, help grocery shop, or put food into serving bowls.
- Meal kits can be a great confidence booster for kids and other beginner cooks. We’ve used them for years. Here’s my honest review of HelloFresh if you’re curious.
8. Eat together as often as possible.
Research shows that kids who eat with their families more often take in more nutrients and are better off socially and emotionally. When kids eat with their caregivers, they learn by watching: how to try new foods, listen to hunger and fullness cues, make conversation, and politely pass the ketchup.
That said, family dinner every night isn’t realistic for most families between work schedules, sports practices, and plain ol’ life getting in the way. But any time you can sit together is meaningful, like bagels on weekend mornings, a snack after school, or take-out sandwiches on the sidelines. What matters is the shared experience, not the meal or the menu.
Yes, some meals will be more pleasant than others. Some will be loud, short, and interrupted. Some, with especially cranky toddlers, may make you want to run out the back door, screaming. They still matter!
9. Get control over pre-dinner snacks.
I swear, managing pre-dinner hunger in a way that doesn’t sabotage the meal is the dark-horse habit here that can make a world of difference.
That’s because kids who are full on snacks when they come to the dinner table seem pickier than they really are–not because they’re difficult, but because they’re full. And forget about trying less familiar foods on a full belly.
The pre-dinner snack can feel like a no-win situation. Say yes, and they’re suddenly not hungry when dinner is served. Say no, and everyone’s ultra-cranky while you’re trying to cook.
So after some trial and error, I settled on a system that worked: Veggies in the hour before dinner. They take the edge off of hunger without filling kids up like pretzels and granola bars can.
An added bonus: The low-pressure timing of this can even increase veggie acceptance. Your kid may be surprisingly willing to nibble on carrots or cucumbers while dinner is being prepared when it feels optional and casual.
10. Let it go.
It’s our children’s overall eating that counts, not one individual meal, day, or even week that matters.
When I relinquished control at the dinner table, we all felt better. I stopped counting bites or stressing if my kid only ate a few bites (okay, I was sometimes still anxious inside, but I didn’t express it to my kid!).
Micromanaging your kid’s eating isn’t fun for anyone. And research shows it doesn’t even work anyway. Pressuring kids to eat often backfires, causing them to dig in their heels even more. There’s also evidence that kids who are forced to eat certain foods may develop a long-term aversion to those foods.
Prioritize a happy table, and keep mealtime a positive environment so your child feels relaxed and accepted at the table–so it’s not a place where they get scolded or pressured but a place they want to be.
