Feeding fussy children at Christmas time

7 December 2015

By Dr Emma Haycraft and Dr Gemma Witcomb

 

Christmas is fast approaching and that means three things; Santa, food, and watching your little ones perform in their Christmas nativity plays and carol singing concerts.

 

We’ve been doing some performing of our own, along with the help of five lovely children and their Mums, to let people know about some of the examples of our research.  As child feeding researchers, we’re always keen to share what we do with the people who will benefit the most from it.  That means that we want to get the findings of our research to parents, caregivers, childcare staff and health professionals, so that they can use it to promote healthy, happy mealtimes.

 

You can see the end result right HERE!

 

The children really are the stars of the show, as we’re sure you’ll agree!

 

Christmas can be a particularly trying time if you have a fussy eater. Below we share our top three tips for managing Christmas with your little one. 

 

1. Don't let your fussy child stress you out over Christmas. Relax the pressure and it will make the festivities more enjoyable for you all.
    
2. Don’t worry if your child seems to only eat chocolate, crisps and biscuits on Christmas day.  The occasional day of unhealthy eating won’t do them any harm and it’s better to avoid causing a battle by trying to get them to eat porridge for breakfast when everyone else is tucking into chocolate coins.
    
3. If your child receives lots of treats for Christmas and you don’t want them to scoff them all in one go, try to restrict your child’s access to their treats covertly.  This may mean you pre-portion the treats for them, or that you create norms (one item from the selection box per day).  It stops you having to point blank refuse them food and thereby prevents the food from becoming prized or special.

 

If you’ve got questions about feeding fussy children, or dealing with food-related issues – either in general or over the festive period - pop over to the forum and ask us now.

 

We’ve got plenty more tips for feeding children in our free mobile app, which you can download from the Apple and Android app stores:

 

Apple app store: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/child-feeding-guide/id643322356?mt=8

 

Android app store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ems.childfeeding

 

Season’s greetings to you all,

 

Dr Emma Haycraft & Dr Gemma Witcomb

 

Loughborough University

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