Creating Successful Mealtimes

Learning how to eat well is a skill that develops over the childhood years, bringing the focus to enjoying mealtimes, exploring the senses and developing agency around food. By agency I mean building confidence in making good independent choices. And so, creating successful mealtimes within families has some key essential ingredients such as timing, setting intentions and expectations and a diverse food choice. An AI search will quickly provide you with top tips for successful mealtimes, and my own 5 key components of Making Mealtimes Better here.

Starting with a sense of the key stages your child goes through, to understand their most receptive phases, and to help you shape their feeding journey positively.  From the ages of 2-5, food typically takes a back seat, when most children’s focus is on movement, play and exploring, and less on trying new foods. In fact, many children narrow their previously accepted range of foods at this age. It’s a completely normal developmental stage, and how we manage that time will influence their relationship with food and their onward food journey.

So rather than giving you a list of top tips and actionable suggestions, I instead offer some principles and questions; the ones I use when co-creating plans with the children and families I work with. I have developed a framework called Structure, Nurture & Boundaries, which takes account of the multiple ways in which food touches our lives. Social and family relationships, sensory embodied experience, physical, emotional and immune health, gut health and mood, as well as the rapid growth & learning that children go through. So, yes there is a lot going on! Lets take a wider view ...

What do the developmental phases in eating look like?

Each phase of childhood comes with its own milestones and feeding challenges.

• Infants need safety, comfort, and sensory connection, and is the ideal time for exploring a wide variety of foods. It’s no coincidence that everything goes in their mouth! Ultimately a feeding skill that needs practice if children are to self-feed!
• Toddlers are all about play, movement, and curiosity which need regular fuel. Carbohydrate foods are often their go-to, with fussiness and elected eating very common. Mealtimes can be messy and behaviours tricky.
• School-age children begin forming social relationships with food – and this can be a key time to work on developing confidence and enjoyment in social eating.
• Puberty brings emotional, social, and physical shifts that impact appetite, nutritional needs, weight, physiological changes and eating habits; an important time to maintain structure and boundaries, whilst exploring the connecting and caring principles of nurture.
• Adolescence is a time period super-charged with change, in which food, mood and body connection become key objects of identification. Inviting your teens to co-creating different ideas of experiencing family food, providing agency and helps keep them involved.

What about Structure, Nurture & Boundaries - what does that mean?

Structure is about meeting nutritional needs for key nutrients, creating a balance in food groups from plants and animals, creating rhythmic patterns such as sleep, bowels habits, growth for support wellbeing. Nurture explores connection, communication and how we feed with care …  it's about noticing, giving right attention, tone, and presence. From eye contact in infancy to listening and being present in the teen years, it’s all about connection! Developing self-care and agency around food choices, connecting with others and ourselves. Small moments of nurture build confidence and emotional safety, helping children to create ways to self-care as they grow. Boundaries create clarity and confidence, with safe, clear expectations around food and mealtimes. Boundaries can help children feel secure and parents feel empowered. Boundaries also support respectful feeding relationships, help children develop agency and grow into capable, confident eaters.

And so asking yourself, what are the 3 main issues that I'll like to tackle?

Make a list ... and then book a discovery call with me! You don't have work it all out by yourself!

I'm here to help! x

Learning how to eat well is a skill that develops over the childhood years, bringing the focus to enjoying mealtimes, exploring the senses and developing agency around food. By agency I mean building confidence in making good independent choices. And so, creating successful mealtimes within families has some key essential ingredients such as timing, setting intentions and expectations and a diverse food choice. An AI search will quickly provide you with top tips for successful mealtimes, and my own 5 key components of Making Mealtimes Better here.

Starting with a sense of the key stages your child goes through, to understand their most receptive phases, and to help you shape their feeding journey positively.  From the ages of 2-5, food typically takes a back seat, when most children’s focus is on movement, play and exploring, and less on trying new foods. In fact, many children narrow their previously accepted range of foods at this age. It’s a completely normal developmental stage, and how we manage that time will influence their relationship with food and their onward food journey.

So rather than giving you a list of top tips and actionable suggestions, I instead offer some principles and questions; the ones I use when co-creating plans with the children and families I work with. I have developed a framework called Structure, Nurture & Boundaries, which takes account of the multiple ways in which food touches our lives. Social and family relationships, sensory embodied experience, physical, emotional and immune health, gut health and mood, as well as the rapid growth & learning that children go through. So, yes there is a lot going on! Lets take a wider view ...

What do the developmental phases in eating look like?

Each phase of childhood comes with its own milestones and feeding challenges.

• Infants need safety, comfort, and sensory connection, and is the ideal time for exploring a wide variety of foods. It’s no coincidence that everything goes in their mouth! Ultimately a feeding skill that needs practice if children are to self-feed!
• Toddlers are all about play, movement, and curiosity which need regular fuel. Carbohydrate foods are often their go-to, with fussiness and elected eating very common. Mealtimes can be messy and behaviours tricky.
• School-age children begin forming social relationships with food – and this can be a key time to work on developing confidence and enjoyment in social eating.
• Puberty brings emotional, social, and physical shifts that impact appetite, nutritional needs, weight, physiological changes and eating habits; an important time to maintain structure and boundaries, whilst exploring the connecting and caring principles of nurture.
• Adolescence is a time period super-charged with change, in which food, mood and body connection become key objects of identification. Inviting your teens to co-creating different ideas of experiencing family food, providing agency and helps keep them involved.

What about Structure, Nurture & Boundaries - what does that mean?

Structure is about meeting nutritional needs for key nutrients, creating a balance in food groups from plants and animals, creating rhythmic patterns such as sleep, bowels habits, growth for support wellbeing. Nurture explores connection, communication and how we feed with care …  it's about noticing, giving right attention, tone, and presence. From eye contact in infancy to listening and being present in the teen years, it’s all about connection! Developing self-care and agency around food choices, connecting with others and ourselves. Small moments of nurture build confidence and emotional safety, helping children to create ways to self-care as they grow. Boundaries create clarity and confidence, with safe, clear expectations around food and mealtimes. Boundaries can help children feel secure and parents feel empowered. Boundaries also support respectful feeding relationships, help children develop agency and grow into capable, confident eaters.

And so asking yourself, what are the 3 main issues that I'll like to tackle?

Make a list ... and then book a discovery call with me! You don't have work it all out by yourself!

I'm here to help! x