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
