Episode 38: How to stay motivated feeding kids despite the chaos and overwhelm

fussy eating

Episode 38: How to stay motivated feeding kids despite the chaos and overwhelm

If you are having a hard time managing mealtimes, you are not alone!

In this episode, I talk about the struggles of staying motivated to feed our kids, especially in today's busy world. As a mum who has faced these challenges, I will share practical strategies to help you deal with picky eating, time constraints, and the pressure to provide perfect meals.

We will discuss ways to simplify your week with menu planning, adjusting expectations, and create a positive mealtime environment. I'll also talk about the importance of involving kids in meal selection and how to consider their nutritional intake more broadly.

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Links
https://nourishwithkarina.com/feedingbabies
https://nourishwithkarina.com/3-week-feeding-kids-reset

Highlights:

  • Introduction (00:00.00)

  • Busy Eating Challenges (02:28.282)

  • Busy Eating and Food Labeling (03:01.294)

  • Parenting and Child Development: Strategies for Managing Eating Disorders (05:20.29)

  • Challenges and Strategies for Eating Well (07:37.792)

  • Menu Planning and Expectations (10:03.226)

  • Improving Meal Expectations and Eating Habits (12:26.846)

  • Strategies for Managing Family Dinners (14:48.546)

  • Menu Planning for Ethical Consumers (17:11.054)

  • Planning Dinner for Fancy Eating (17:47.488)

  • Home Feeding Environment for Success(20:06.368)

  • Understanding the Importance of Food in Children's Relationships (22:28.716)

  • Nutritional Balance Strategy for Children (24:48.054)

  • Nutritional Balance for Busy Eaters(26:53.182)

  • Understanding Child Nutrition and Dinnertime Eating (29:11.244)

  • Understanding Children's Appetite and Motivation (31:30.19)

Show Notes

If you are having a hard time managing mealtimes, you are not alone!

In this episode, I talk about the struggles of staying motivated to feed our kids, especially in today's busy world. As a mum who has faced these challenges, I will share practical strategies to help you deal with picky eating, time constraints, and the pressure to provide perfect meals.

We will discuss ways to simplify your week with menu planning, adjusting expectations, and create a positive mealtime environment. I'll also talk about the importance of involving kids in meal selection and how to consider their nutritional intake more broadly.

 

Key points of discussion:

1. Menu Planning Magic: How planning 3-4 meals a week can transform your mealtime stress

2. Expectation Adjustment: Why lowering the bar might be the key to happier mealtimes

3. Kid-Approved Recipes: Finding go-to meals that please both children and adults

4. Creating a Positive Mealtime Environment: Tips for fostering a love of food in your children

5. Nutritional Balance: Looking at your child's diet over a week rather than day-by-day

 

Please know that you are doing your very best - we are ALL a work in progress!

Keep going and please know that there is plenty of support for you feeding your kids inside "Nourishing Kids".

To learn more head to (https://nourishwithkarina.com/membership).

For delicious, kid-friendly recipes, visit: https://nourishwithkarina.com/kids-recipes

For the Eat for health - dietary guidelines, click HERE

  • Introduction (00:00.462) 

    You're listening to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number 38, how to stay motivated feeding kids despite the chaos and overwhelm. Hi there, I'm Karina Savage and with over 20 years experience feeding children, including my own, I've learnt all the secrets that busy mums need to get their children eating better and actually enjoying healthy foods. So a huge welcome to the Easy Feed Podcast.


    Hi everyone, I hope you're well. I am here today to talk about something which I think hits most of us and it kind of goes up and down in waves depending on how we're feeling with life in general, how tired we are, how stressed we are with everything else going on in life. And I guess how our kids are behaving, how many tantrums we're having to deal with, how badly they're refusing food.


    So our motivation levels definitely go through peaks and troughs. And I've certainly experienced this too, but, and that's why I am so keen on supporting and motivating fellow moms because it's just hard. I feel that we have so many challenges and look, you know, play the violin strings, right? But I'm allowed to, cause I've been talking to fellow moms who have been in the trenches or are in the trenches, but


    We're just so busy these days. feel like we work, statistically there are more single women, single moms. Statistically, children are spending more hours in long day care or childcare extended care, or with their grandparents, because their parents are working. Cost of living's higher. Everything's more expensive. So we have to work more, right? But it means that we're not necessarily always.


    there to feed our children. And what it also means is that it's, we have less time and everything is kind of, how can I say it? It's, it's almost like a bit of a pressure cooker situation, I feel. And so my role is to try to help relieve some of that pressure inside the pressure cooker, because a pressure cooker situation with fast eaters only leads to explosions and


    Busy Eating Challenges (02:28.282)

    Nothing gets achieved. so even without bussy eaters, meal times can be hard. It can be hard to get a meal on the table. Even if it's a cheese toastie, sometimes it's hard. know, life is so busy. So I think it's really important to recognise that we don't always have to have it perfect.


    Busy Eating and Food Labeling (03:01.294)

    time poor, money, everything's more expensive now, including fruit and vegetables. In fact, the healthy stuff is more expensive. Our kids are fussier than ever. feels like, I mean, I don't know, I wasn't around a hundred years ago, but I just feel like this environment is breeding more fuzzy eaters. I feel like I'm too much of a yes mum and maybe that, I just feel like everything is more skewed now to...


    the children having the control. And I'm certain of this in many other aspects as well of children just being able to call the shots. So I feel like bussy eating is, is, you know, rife. I wouldn't say at its peak, it could be going up more, who knows? But I feel that our busy lives, the bussy eaters, the food companies that are not helping one bit. So they're marketing to children, whether it's on buses or in between.


    Bluey episodes or actually I don't know if they can market in between Bluey episodes, but they certainly find their way of marketing to our children. The labeling that goes on in the supermarket drives me nuts because it's deceiving. I've been ranting about it recently. You would have heard, hopefully. I even talked about it actually on Channel 7 the other week about toddler snacks and how deceptive the marketing is on food labels and how misleading it is to


    parents because there's so much added sugar in a lot of those foods and they don't have to label it as added sugar because they get around it because they call it fruit juice concentrates and concentrated fruit paste, which are nothing like fruit. It's really another name for added sugar. There's about 55 or 60 names for added sugar. But anyway, that's a whole nother podcast, but it's deception and marketing of this junk to our children.


    That also makes it harder for us when we want to sit down and say to our children, Hey, let's eat a healthy meal together. Because they just want the crap that they've been marketed to a dinosaur nuggets or whatever else that they love. So it's, it's really challenging for moms and dads. Like of course dads are there as well. Often. I don't mean to discount dads because dads play a crucial role. In fact, how the dad eats can sometimes play more of a role in influencing.


    Parenting and Child Development: Strategies for Managing Eating Disorders (05:20.29)

    the fuzzy eater than the mums. That's what one lot of research told us or showed us. So I think that we are in a situation which breeds stressful meal times and we have to find a way to navigate towards more calm, full, controlled meal times. And we need to put some simple but highly effective strategies in place to


    look after ourselves and our own mental health first and foremost. So we're not in the kitchen cooking three different meals and pulling our hair out because we've gone out, we've bought the ingredients, we've spent the time cooking this healthy meal for our child or our children that then gets thrown in the bin after an argument. So that's not good for our mental health. And so we need to come up with some effective strategies to manage not only


    just feeding kids in general, but feeding classy eaters. And we need to have the confidence to set boundaries. And I know that this is something that I struggled with as a mum when my daughter was younger. I really struggled to set boundaries. And when I finally had the confidence to do so, she responded. Kids thrive on boundaries and knowing how far they can push us. And when we have the confidence to set those boundaries in place, they actually


    acknowledge and thrive with those, but it's not always easy to do, especially in the feeding world. Cause I feel like we sometimes get completely lost. It's not like a, we cook the food, you eat it. It's not an A to B. feel like it's one of the, it's like Mr. Messy. That little Mr. Men character, which he's basically full of like squiggly lines.


    The path for a child to start eating a food is a very messy, convoluted path. Sometimes it's not, we cook the food and you eat it. How good would that be if that actually happened when you actually just gave your child, I don't know, like a vegetable fritter and they just ate it. Could you imagine that? Some of you will hopefully be driving and going, yeah, my child does do that. And I'm like, amen to you. That's awesome. So well done you.


    Challenges and Strategies for Eating Well (07:37.792)

    Actually, that's a recipe that I've recently released to my members. There's a red veggie fritter recipe. I was also chatting to one of the mums in my membership last night. We had a member call and she was talking about the zucchini slice that her child absolutely loved, but then reacted to it because I've still got a bit of an egg allergy. Damn it. But he loved the zucchini slice, which is full of zucchini. And you can also actually pop carrots in there as well. And it's a really good source of protein and eggs are rich in choline. So.


    I digress, but I can't even remember where I was going with that. But anyway, let's get back to being on track with the challenges. So we've, we've clearly know the challenges because we live and breathe them. And it's like, right. How can we come up with some strategies that are going to help us on a daily basis? So simple strategies, but they're going to give us a little bit more head space and a little more energy because let's be honest.


    We are absolutely shattered by the end of the day. And I think for me, if I start to think about what I'm cooking for dinner at 5 .15 at night, it never really goes well. And we end up eating late and it's really challenging. And so I encourage you to look after yourself by on Sunday, writing out at least three or four meals for the week.


    And that's it. It does not have to be any more than that. Three or four meals, the rest can be cheat nights or just leftovers from the fridge. Okay. So if we say you plan for four meals and you buy the ingredients for those four meals, and then the others are cheat nights, whether it's baked beans on toast, could be a fried egg in between, you know, a bun. It could be a bowl of cereal. It could be leftover.


    spaghetti bolognese, whatever, could be takeaway. But if you can just have at least three or four meals written down, you've got the ingredients for those in the fridge, that is going to make your week run so much smoother. And I know that when I do that, it makes such a difference. And my kids don't love leftovers, but I'm trying, I'm getting better. No, I am getting better at just serving them up and saying, well, this is, this is dinner tonight.


    Menu Planning and Expectations (10:03.226)

    And bad luck, right? And I know that they like it. Like if it was a dinner that they didn't like and it was a part of their test food, then I'd be like, well, that's a bit sillier. I need to put it on the side of their plate. But if it's a dish that they have eaten like the night before or two nights before, probably wouldn't push it more than that. Then I'm like, right, well that that's dinner tonight because it's not always possible to have a freshly cooked meal. And I don't think we should expect to do that. And our family shouldn't expect.


    us to do that either. So that leads me onto expectation. So we've talked about menu planning and then I want to move on to expectation because I think that some of us, not all of us, but some of us still really set the bar way too high for ourselves. And it only sets us up for failure. It makes us compare ourselves to others. It makes us feel like we're never doing enough.


    It makes us feel like failures for our children when they don't eat well. It doesn't serve us at all. And I don't know if it comes from a comparison when you see what others are doing, whether you see it on social media and you see how others are doing an amazing job of cooking or you see your friends and how their kids eat and then you think, well, well, that's how we should eat. so then it kind of raises your expectation.


    I think you need to have an expectation of what's realistic for your family. And who cares how it compares to any other family because it's your family, it's your life, it's your workload, it's your energy levels, it's your kids' levels of fussiness, it's your finances, it's your time. And it's very specific to the family. So try to create an expectation that is appropriate for your family right now.


    And it will change. it will evolve. Like what you expect to be a healthy week now might be different to in a year's time. And that might be because your kids eat differently in a year's time. It might be because you have more time to cook in a year's time. It might be because you have more money to buy food, different foods in a year's time. It's, who knows, but your expectation can change over time. But I think you need to make sure that


    Improving Meal Expectations and Eating Habits (12:26.846)

    your level of expectation is appropriate and you're not setting yourself up to feel crappy every time the meal time goes pear shaped. I had a mum tell me the other day this week that it was literally just before she joined my membership. was like, Karina, my lowest point was my daughter ate cake for dinner. And there was no, absolutely no judgment because we...


    all go through really crappy dives with our kids and beating and buzz eaters. And she was like, I knew at that point that I needed to reach out and yeah, welcomed her in with open arms. She's lovely lady and I know she'll get there for sure. But you know, cake for dinner, one night, big deal. Like that's when you really know that you need to lower your expectations and go, right, we need to create a new plan and then expectations will evolve. then as


    her child starts to eat better, then yes, your expectations can move. But I think if you're really busy, if you're working, you know, half time, full time, you need to really check in to make sure your level of expectation is where it should be. And absolutely fine to be having those cheat meals of eggs on toast, baked beans on toast, bowls of cereal. You know, doesn't have to be meat and three veg cooked to perfection. Just try to keep it really simple because hopefully


    That way you will still be able to include foods on the plate that they will eat. And it can be really quick for you. And everyone's eaten. And at the end of the day, if everyone's got food in their belly and they go to bed and they're warm and they're loved, you've done well, right? Who cares if it's a chicken nugget two days in a row? At the end of the day, in their whole lifetime, you just got to stop judging yourself if you are.


    And most of us do, so I'm just going to assume that you do because it's human nature to judge yourself. So I think trying to simplify your week by menu planning and then lowering your expectation. Have your meals, your three meals of the week that are planned, that you've got the ingredients for, or if you want to do the four, great. Have two or three cheat nights, have a takeaway night. And that's it, right? Try not to do what I am guilty of sometimes.


    Strategies for Managing Family Dinners (14:48.546)

    And I know this stresses me out is wait until five o 'clock and go, my goodness, what am going to do for dinner? And then you're trying to scrounge. So trying to set yourself up for success with those simple strategies is going to make a big difference to the days and the weeks and the months. And you're going to have less stress between that five and seven PM period because you've got some ingredients, you've got a plan. And I think having those good, healthy recipes that your child will eat.


    is really important, which is why I always try whenever I release new recipes to my members each month, I always make sure that they are recipes that are effectively Fussy Eater approved. So they're not recipes that are likely to be rejected by kids. I mean, look, some kids that are super fussy are still going to kind of need time with that food, but it's something that can be a work in progress and it's something that the adult can eat and then the child can have as their sort of test food on the side.


    but it's important that you find some recipes that really work for your family and you can have them on rotation. Again, children seek comfort in routine. And so if you have a one week rotation or a two week rotation, so whether you have, you know, maybe seven meals per fortnight and they are consistently the same, helps you too, because then you can have those same ingredients. You can have, you know, those same fresh foods that you need to buy for those


    meals, but you know, you may need honey and soy and butter or cheese and I don't know, noodles and rice and pasta as sort of pantry items. And so if you're keeping the meals relatively consistent each fortnight, then you're also going to have all the pantry items as well. And then you just need to buy the fresh produce, whether it's like meat, fish, chicken, or the fruit, the vegetables. So that can be another good strategy is to have go -to meals that


    everybody likes that everybody can share together. And then again, you, you feel like you're in a place where you're going to get less pushback. Another thing you can do to help make sure that you are going to be giving children foods that they like. And I'm not saying that you have to cater to all their taste buds all the time, but getting children involved in select


    Menu Planning for Ethical Consumers (17:11.054)

    one or two meals for the week or for the fortnight, it empowers them, it gives them a voice and they will probably love to say, can we put, I don't know, tuna mornay on the menu? Or can we put spaghetti bolognese on the menu? Or can we put plain pasta on the menu? Or can we put chicken nuggets or, you know, sausages on the menu? And accommodate that because it's fine to include some of those safe foods for them.


    always include some safe foods for them, but include some of those preferences for them.


    Planning Dinner for Fancy Eating (17:47.488)

    And then when it comes down to the actual meal, then it's about making sure that you are cooking something that you and your partner want to eat and then subbing out the food groups that your child, your fussy eater is not going to eat. And I've got a whole podcast devoted to this exact topic. It's how to plan dinner with a fussy eater because you need to be able to still eat food that you want to eat.


    and then just sub out the protein or sub out the veggies or sub out the carbs to suit your bussy eaters. But it doesn't mean that you guys don't get to eat what you want because you don't want to necessarily be eating chicken nuggets and pizza on rotation. So it needs to be a win -win for both of you. And when they see you eating that healthy food and enjoying it, that's going to subconsciously plant seeds and mean that they will eventually like to eat it too. It could take months and years.


    but it definitely helps to plant seeds. So getting the kids involved in food selection, but then also you guys having foods that you like and having a good combination of both, but definitely on a Sunday, planning those formulas, having those ingredients so that then during the busy week, you can actually just quickly whip it up. But having those good recipes, and look, if you want recipes, I've got them all in my membership for you.


    And it's easy to access. It's like recipe, website, password protected. You just log in, you pick your recipes and you work out which ones are best for your family. But it's a really good, easy way just to have those go -to, whether it's a homemade sausage roll or honey soy chicken or a fried rice or your children may be still at the deconstructed stage and all these recipes, apart from the sausage roll.


    allow for that deconstructed approach. So the fried rice does, the stir fry does, pretty much all of those main courses allow for that deconstructed approach, which fast eaters often need. Okay. So the next thing I think we can do, we can offer ourselves to help get through meal times every night, every week, every month, is create a really effective feeding environment.


    Home Feeding Environment for Success(20:06.368)

    And what I mean by that is we need the home feeding environment to be set up for success with feeding kids. So that means that the family eats together or at least one adult eats with the children. That means that the child is considered when serving up food. So either all the food goes in the middle of the table and everyone serves up their own or


    You serve up your child's safe foods and they would have a couple of safe foods. Look, someone, one of the members last night, we were chatting about their child's intake and I think the safe foods were pasta and bread. And then you put the test foods on the side and those test foods are the food that you and hubby or you and your partner want to eat. So it's a win -win for everybody. And you may say, well, that's not a win because my child's just eating bread for dinner. And I'm saying, well, look, if there's a protein that they will eat that's safe, put that on there.


    Whether it's a handful of cashews or a blob of hummus or a tiny bit of, you know, rotisserie chicken or a lot of rotisserie chicken. Put whatever they're safe proteins, whatever their veggies are, whether it's like one pea or one tiny bit of cucumber, or maybe all their veggies are the desk foods. But you just need to try to have something for them and then your meal and they get some of your meal as well.


    And that is what I call an effective meal time plan. Then it's all about making sure that there's no screens. Then it's about how you talk about food. And look, this is exactly what I go into a huge amount of detail inside my Fussy Eating program, the three week feeding kids reset, which you get for free when you join my membership. And that whole feeding environment is absolutely crucial over the weeks and months and years to your child.


    becoming a competent eater. Because the number of stories that you hear about kids being bribed or held down and food shoved in their mouth, you know, it's horrifying and it's only setting them up to hate mealtimes to grow up resenting being made to eat green soggy beans or mushy broccoli or whatever it might be.


    Understanding the Importance of Food in Children's Relationships (22:28.716)

    So we really need to be mindful. We've got this beautiful opportunity to create and shape our children's relationship with food and their love for food. And we really want to make the most of shaping their love for food. And let's be honest, a happy mealtime environment where your child has something that they like to eat and you've got something that you like to eat.


    is going to be much less stressful than arguing over them trying to take one mouthful of broccoli for 55 minutes and then stressing, fighting, them not even eating it anyway and then it going in the bin and then getting frustrated and you getting frustrated. Okay, I've got two more for you. Two more ways that we can stay motivated feeding kids despite a chaotic and overwhelming life.


    So we've already talked about trying to menu plan a little more on the weekends. We've already talked about trying to lower our expectations, not compare, not judge yourself, just trying to cut yourself some slack. We've talked about involving the children a little more in the planning. We've talked about being considerate of their choices, but also choosing what you want to eat and how we can accommodate that.


    Okay. So the next thing I want to talk about is how we view what our children eat. And I was again, talking about this with one of the mums in my membership a couple of days ago, who in the private Facebook group, she, she was sharing how she was feeling quite defeated and frustrated about how her child just wasn't progressing as quickly as she liked.


    And interestingly, she posted this post and then actually a lie. She posted it late last week and then just before our live call, which was yesterday, she actually then reposted and I'm actually going to read, I'm going to read that out. I'm going to actually jump into my, Facebook group now and I'm going to read it out and I'm sure she won't mind me sharing her name. Mandy. She said, hello, lovely mums.


    Nutritional Balance Strategy for Children (24:48.054)

    I might not be able to attend tonight's call, so I will share some good news here in case I miss it. So what we actually did, actually, before I continue reading, when she was sharing how frustrated she was and how, you know, she was struggling to stay motivated and struggling just to get him to eat anything different, I said to her, right, let's get you to write out every single thing he eats. And then in our member email that I send out every Monday, I said to...


    All of my members, said, right here is a bit of a checklist. Let's go through each food group and try and tick off how many in each food group your child is consuming. And remember it's across the day in the week. It's not just for that meal, because I like to think about it as a nutritionally balanced week, not a nutritionally balanced meal or day. So she ended up doing that.


    And she reported back and said that her son is now eating at least two foods from each of the five food groups! He's not eating from the five food groups every single day, but he is moving in the right direction. So his iron is ever so slowly creeping up.


    He is more energetic, which I put down to him finally getting all the goodies that he needs. Hope you've all had a great month. So that was the message that she popped in the groove. Once she had gone through her child's intake and actually wrote it all down and looked at what they were getting from each food group. And I think this is a really great strategy to try to help.


    keep the motivation going when you actually write it down and you go, it's actually not as bad as I thought. Or sometimes it's the opposite and that's where you need to head to my website and join my membership. But, actually, if you are interested, I'll tell you the website. It's nutwithcorina .com forward slash membership. And that's where you can find all the details about how to join. And we'd love to have you inside. So thinking of it as a nutritionally balanced week.


    Nutritional Balance for Busy Eaters(26:53.182)

    rather than a nutritionally balanced day means that we just try to get something from all the five food groups in over the week. And yes, the more colour we can get into their life, the better, but it's a work in progress, right? So if you're really worried about whether your child's getting enough nutrition, then I would consider looking at the five food groups and there's actually a really good resource that you can go to. It's free. It's called Eat for Health and it's the Australian dietary guidelines.


    brochure for children, I'm actually going to pop it up on my website. It's a free resource. I'm going to pop it up under learn. So if you head to nourishwithkareena .com forward slash learn, or just click the learn tab, and then you'll see useful links and resources and it will be there. So you can access that to help you understand what the food groups are in what your child needs. And I...


    explain all of those dietary guidelines in even more detail in basic terms inside my membership in week two of my bus eating program, the three week feeding kids reset. So I unpack that even more. Okay. The final thing I wanted to mention was to think about your child's day. I mean, we've just talked about a nutritionally balanced week, but think about your child's day as being five or six opportunities to


    eat and be nourished because often we place, I feel, emphasis on dinner and vegetables at dinner and also breakfast. We're told breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But I feel that with Bussy Eaters, and I know with Bussy Eaters, we really need to make the snacks count. And we really need to make sure that we put time and effort into offering and stretching their intake.


    offering new foods with their safe, trusted foods at snacks because snacks are a great opportunity to get more nutrition in, whether it's nuts, whether it's veggies, whether it's homestips, whether it's black bean brownies, whether it's homemade cookies or muffins. We've got plenty of opportunities, vital eats with peanut butter, plenty of opportunities to increase very nutritious foods.


    Understanding Child Nutrition and Dinnertime Eating (29:11.244)

    that can somewhat take place of the lack of nutrition at dinner. So if you're feeling really worried and frustrated about what your child's eating at dinner, then this is your opportunity to have a bit of a pass out and look at what else they're eating because especially if they're a front -ender and they eat a lot in the first half of the day, you can't expect them to eat as well at dinnertime. Some kids are back -enders and they do eat a lot more at dinnertime. So...


    It's really child specific. As I said, it's very much family specific and you need to have expectations based on your family circumstance. So if you have a child that eats really well, eats a really good breakfast, actually takes some decent stuff to school and eats it, then don't stress as much about dinner. And taking the pressure off dinner will probably mean that they eat better anyway and they start to actually try new foods because they're not feeling pressured and it's not a pressure cooker situation and...


    Maybe you download some of my pop quizzes if you are inside my membership and make it fun and light and happy. And then they'll start to eat better. It is incredibly crazy how much better they start to eat when you start to change that evening environment, that dinner time environment, when you start to create a really effective feeding plan. And so what does all of this do? It lowers our stress. It lowers our frustration and it helps maintain motivation.


    when we are feeding children because we know that they're actually going to eat something for dinner and it's not going to be just a complete battlefield and complete failure where the food goes in the bin and then they're still hungry and then they eat cake for dinner. So it's about trying to hold on to some degree of motivation and inspiration. And that's where I really think that menu planning can play a big role because you at least have a plan to start with.


    depends on how it plays out over the, over the evening, you know, it's going to be variable. And again, sometimes kids are super tired and they're not going to eat well. There might be constipated, they're not going to eat well. So it's going to be very variable according to the day. And we've got to remember that we're not robots. We're not going to eat the same thing every day either. We're not going to be the same level of hungry and full every single day. It's hormonal. It's specific to the day and the week and whatever else is going on. So.


    Understanding Children's Appetite and Motivation (31:30.19)

    We have to remember that our children's appetites will vary as well. And we do need to respect appetite to a certain degree, not to the point where they eat nothing at dinner and then 15 bananas for dessert. But we also need to consider that we have to practice what we call responsive feeding where we are allowing them to tell us when they are hungry and full. Okay. I'll wrap it up now, but I hope that's given you some tips on how you can stay motivated feeding your children.


    I want you to cut yourself some slack and know that it is very normal to feel completely unmotivated to feed your children, to feed your family. We all go through it. It's very normal to want to just get takeaway because you just can't be bothered with cooking and the dishes and it's just the end of a long day or a long week. And look, takeaway at the end of long week is completely fine, let me say. But I think it's really important to try and set yourself up for success as well.


    lower those expectations. But honestly, if you're looking for a bit more handholding, a bit more motivation, a bit more inspiration, that's what I'm here for. That's what I do inside Nourishing Kids. So please feel free to reach out, ask questions if you're interested in joining. Otherwise, I will chat to you next time. Please leave me a review for this podcast. I'd really love to get some more reviews, get the podcast out there, help more mums, help more families, nourish more children.


    If you're finishing listening to this, please hit the star button, leave me a review and I will chat to you very soon. Bye for now.

I'm Karina Savage, and welcome to The Easy Feed Podcast!

I'm here to help you nourish your kids more easily.. and to get them actually enjoying healthy foods. Read more….

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