Zoe eating one of her favorite dishes, barley pilaf with butternut & some homemade pesto.
Becoming a mum and feeding my little daughter really changed my relationship with cooking and food. Healthy eating has been important to me for many years but cooking for a toddler is a different story. Feeding a 1,5 year old can sometimes be very frustrating, especially if you make the best, clean and healthy ingredients as well as cooking up a nice meal a point. It can be very depressing if you spend lots of love and thought into nice meals and they don’t like it or just don’t feel like eating because of whatever reason. Especially evenings can be challenging sometimes.
What I learned from all these challenging situations is:
✔️Lower my own expectations (sometimes sadly but truly just pasta with butter and Parmesan works),
✔️Don’t be too hard on myself (it’s ok to want to play more and cook less and therefor make meals easier and simpler)
✔️It’s ok to get help (be it by our lovely babysitter, family when they visit, healthy places to eat out or the occasional take away like sushi etc)
✔️Moderation is key, so if the majority of my daughter’s diet is great, wholesome and healthy why not also let her little tastebuds explore the occasional “nasty” exception just like I have it myself (e.g. A nice piece of cake or ice cream)
✔️Keep cool, mindful and don’t stress out. Having a mess, lots of leftovers and no more enthusiasm for the rest of the evening is ok. Bring her to bed (she won’t starve!) and then enjoy a big glass of wine and your favorite TV series.
✔️ Timing is key. Giving Zoe dinner by 6pm somehow catches her in a better mood and if it’s paired with a phase where she has good appetite she is actually even demanding food with a vigorous Nam Nam and eats like a very cute little horse 🐴 😜❤😍
I want my daughter to develop a healthy relationship with food. And, I want to keep my own healthy relationship with food and my sanity. So if it means less fancy, less time effort and more simplicity while still eating a clean and wholesome diet for most of the time, so be it ❤ Walk the talk – one of the big things I learned during my course with Integrative Nutrition to become a Holistic Health Coach. Amen to that 🙏🏻😉
Maybe one or the other mum can relate to all this and find something helpful or comforting in this post. This all might sound really obvious to many but to me it’s a big deal to let go off all my own expectations and pressure I sometimes put on myself 😜
With all this in mind I wish you a pleasant and relaxed eve!
Love,
N xxx
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