5 Easy Ways to Mix-It Up: The Rotation Rule in Action

The Rotation Rule—switching what you serve from day-to-day— lays the foundation for introducing new foods.

I write about this all the time (so, sorry if you're sick of it) because it's crucial. Kids who get used to eating different foods are more open to eating new foods.

Still, many people find it very hard to mix-it up. That's why I was glad to receive this question from Emily. Emily writes: 

You often mention the importance of switching things up. But could you possibly provide some ideas on *how* to do so in the midst of a packed schedule? Part of the reason why my son eats a lot of the same foods is because I only have so much time to make a meal or a snack. How can busy parents find the time to shake up the food rotation?

I get it. Lots of people are too exhausted (both physically and mentally) to put more effort into meals. I, myself, confessed to suffering from this situation in When You're Too Tired to Cook...

Here are 5 ideas to make mixing it up easy to do.

1) The Simple Rotation

Make a list of what your children eat for meals and snacks. Then, develop menus by alternating what you serve. Don't strive to provide radically different meals. The idea is to create a structure of change. 

• Day 1: Eggs Day 2: Waffles Day 3: Cereal
• Day 1: Eggs Day 2: Waffles Day 3: Eggs

2) Borrowed Foods: Foods your children eat for different meals and snacks.

Make a list of all the foods your children currently eat on a regular basis. Then mix up when you serve stuff. 

You don’t have to stick to breakfast foods for breakfast, lunch foods for lunch and/or dinner foods for dinner. And you certainly don’t have to stick to snack foods for snacks—any food can fit this category. Make a list of foods your children happily eat at other times and consider using them to fix your Food Ruts. Everyone enjoys pancakes for dinner, but you can also consider carrot sticks and dip at breakfast or chicken and broccoli for snack. Anything goes! 

Read Falafel for Breakfast.

2) Forgotten Foods: Foods your children used to eat but which they now refuse.

Parents often take food refusals more seriously than their children do. Don't assume that once rejected is always rejected. 

Read The Easy Way to Solve Your Toddler's Decision to Suddenly Refuse Certain Foods. 

3) Planned-for Foods: Foods your children would willingly eat but which take a little planning to use on a regular basis.

Muffins, omelets, blintzes, and lasagna for instance, all can be refrigerated or frozen for use during the week.

4) Invented Foods: Old favorites you can dish up in new combinations.

For instance, does your child like cottage cheese, bananas and jelly? Put them together and make a breakfast banana split.

5) Get your kids involved

Let your children tell you how they experience foods they eat. Then, get them to help you figure out how to mix up tastes, textures, etc.

If your children are extremely attached to one food...

Consider varying the flavor, the texture, or the brand. As your child's palate expands you'll be able to reduce your dependency on this one food.

When your children ask for a Food Rut two days in a row...

Remind them you will honor their request the following day. This way your kids won't think their favorite food is out of the rotation forever.

Remember to tell your children before you make any changes.

A simple statement should do it, "Tomorrow we are going to start eating different things on different days because that's the healthiest way to eat. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to eat anything new."

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Kid Eats Q&A: Help! My son would rather entertain than eat.

Everyone loves the class clown.

Clowns make things fun. They entertain. They make us happy.

Unless, that is, you're trying to get something done.  Like teach a class, or serve some dinner.  As a former college professor, this question really resonated with me.

Brenda writes:

I have a child who spends more time being the entertainment at dinner than eating his dinner. He is 7, almost 8 and from the time he could sit in a high chair, he has enjoyed dinnertime but especially because it's his time to talk and tell jokes and be silly. Sometimes he's out of his chair, most of the time he's in it. And I'll admit, he's so darn entertaining that it's hard to ignore him! He talks a mile a minute and asks a lot of questions--generally just an inquisitive and engaging child.

Brenda continues:

How much do we push our children to eat SOMETHING. Or is it the old, let them be hungry after dinner a few nights and they will then realize mealtime is the time to eat, not 20 minutes later?

Though I'm not a fan of pushing kids to eat more, and I believe that sometimes a little hunger can go a very long way, I think there's a better, more nuanced, solution than simple starvation.

Read Two More Bites and The Upside of Hunger.

Balance entertaining and eating by changing the mealtime environment.  

1. Don't focus on the food...
2. Or on how much your son eats. 

Instead, alter how you interact at dinner.

Read Meals: The Daily Struggle and When Playing is More Fun Than Eating

My 10-Point Plan for Feeding an Entertainer

1) Talk to your child about the importance of eating at mealtimes, and acknowledge that eating rather than entertaining can be difficult and boring.  Brainstorm solutions with your son, including some of the following suggestions.  Read Table Talk and Conscious Parenting.

2) Give your son 10 minutes of pre- or post-meal attention every night so he can revel in having an audience.

3) Limit snacks before dinner so your son is hungry when he sits down to dine.  Alternatively, consider giving your son a quality pre-meal snack (fruit, vegetables, salad, etc.) so you know he’s “good to go,” even if he never really settles down to dinner.

4) Teach your son to share the stage by giving everyone time to talk during meals. Consider using a talking stick to promote table time democracy with a visual cue of who has “the floor.”

5) Set some of the conversation by introducing a topic for discussion: politics, world affairs, geography, the pros and cons of something that's on your mind....

6) Require everyone to stay seated for the duration of the meal (even if standing would really, really enhance the story).

7) Decide, with your son, how much time he should have to complete his meal after the last other person has finished eating.  Use a timer if you think it will help.

8) Give your son gentle reminders to let him know how much eating time he has left.

9) Eliminate after-dinner snacks.

10) Remember to enjoy the nightly show!

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Kid Eats Q&A: Should you serve your kids exactly what you eat?

Thanks to Emma who originally posted this question on my Facebook page and to everyone who wrote about how they handled the situation when I posed the quested back to my FB friends.

Do you recommend serving your kids exactly what you eat, or making it a little more "kid-friendly" for them if it's easy to do, or do you make everyone's meal a little more kid-friendly in order to get something on the plate you know he'll eat?

My answer is “yes” and “yes” and "maybe yes depending on how much you're going to dumb down the meal." How’s that for clarity? Let me explain.

1) You want to set up the expectation that everyone in the household eats the same food.

Otherwise, why would your child ever rise to the occasion?  Plus, you don’t want your tot even to toy with the idea that there are separate foods for kids and for adults.  We can thank modern American manufacturers for that distinction, but it's not a real (or necessary) one. Read this post on feeding a one year old.

2) But, you don’t want to disregard your child’s taste preferences (though they’re always changing), personality and stage of development. 

That's a recipe for conflict. So you need to make some compromises.

3) You want to serve meals without putting on the pressure.

Pressure is the kiss of death. Read The Pressure-Cooker Problem.

In practice this means you need a hybrid approach to serving meals.

1. Serve the food you eat.
2. Be willing to serve foods separately, and to add extra flavors that you enjoy at the table.  It’s better to add these items — onions, jalapenos, and other spicy stuff—in front of your child (think of it as a form of exposure) than to create separate dishes in the kitchen.
3. Put something on the table that you know your child will eat (bread, rice, apples...) or consider using a backup. Read How Cottage Cheese Changed My Life.
4. Use dessert constructively, not coercively. Read Dishing Up Dessert.
5. Don’t take your child’s likes and dislikes too seriously, and never pressure your child to eat.  Read The Easy Way to Solve Your Toddler’s Decision to Suddenly Refuse Certain Foods.

As with everything parent-related, you have multiple goals at each meal:

• Nourish your child.
• Socialize your child to eat with the rest of the human race.
• Keep the peace.

It's not always so easy to balance these goals. Let's take a look at each goal, and then, in the spirit of the political season, let's vote to see how the balancing turns out.  

A vote for Your Food=Serve your kids what you eat.  A vote for Their Food=Serve your kids what they want to eat.

Goal One: Nourish your child 

Fundamentally, you want to get enough food into your child so he’ll make it to the next meal, without having a major meltdown—or worse, waking you up unnecessarily throughout the night.  Vote: Their Food.

On the other hand, how nourishing is the stuff your kid prefers? If it’s typical “kid-friendly” food then…not so much.  Read The Truth About “Child-Friendly” Food.  Vote: Your food.

If your child isn’t into the usual crap—i.e. macaroni and cheese and hot dogs—you might get a pass.  Before you vote, though, take a long hard look at what you’ll be serving if you continue to cater to your kid.  Read What’s the Problem with Cheese?,  Polly Want a Cracker?, and Yogurt vs. Coke. Then decide how to vote: Your Food or Their Food.

Overall to reach your Nourish goal the vote is...too close to call.

Goal Two: Socialize your child to eat with the rest of the human race.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you’d like to move your child beyond pasta and chicken nuggets, and so the question becomes: what’s the best way to do it?

One strategy is to wait until your child expresses an interest in other food. The underlying logic is that when your child is ready, it’ll be a lot easier to introduce these items.  Vote: Their Food.

On the other hand—Didn’t you know this was coming?—research shows that the strongest predictor of the number of foods liked at age 8 is the number of foods liked at age 4.  Furthermore, kids are more likely to accept new foods that are introduced between the ages of 2 and 4 than they are to accept foods introduced between 4 and 8.  Vote: Your Food.

And, if you consider the evidence that repeated exposure is the key to food preferences—You know the advice: you have to introduce your child to a new vegetables 3492 times before he’ll like it.—then you have to factor this into your feeding strategy.  The more you feed your child stuff that resembles fast food (salty and sweet snacks, sugar-added items) the more you reinforce a preference for those kinds of foods.  Vote: Your Food.

Finally, since the brain biases the buds—what people eat is related to what they think they like— it’s vital not to teach your child that children eat differently than adults.  Keep categorizing foods as “kid-friendly” and that is what your kid will want to eat.  Read Mind over Matter.

Overall Join the Human Race Votes: Your Food.  (Personally, I think this is the most important goal, but I understand why you might not agree with me.)

Goal Three: Keep the Peace

If you are willing to be a short-order chef for your child for the long haul, then vote Their Food.

If you think you’d like to stop some day vote Your Food.  Kicking the can (or in this case the confrontation) down the road will only make it worse.

Overall Keep the Peace Votes...another toss up.

And the winner is…Your Food.

If you have a child with a very limited diet this might seem like a total disaster.  Before you disregard everything I've written, read this woman's experience with a very picky eater. She stopped catering dinner to her daughter "cold turkey" with a Dinner Challenge.

Even though a Dinner Challenge might not work for you, the habits idea being served up in this strategy, is a message well worth considering. Your expectations really can shape how your child eats.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~ 

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Sources:

Skinner, J. D., B. R. Carruth, W. Bounds, and P. Ziegler. 2002. “Children's Food Preferences: a Logitudinal Analysis.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 102(11): 1638-47.

Cornwell, T. B. and A. R. McAlister. 2011. “Alternative Thinking About Starting Points in Obesity. Development of Child Taste Preferences.” Appetite 56: 428-39.