I’ve always been honest with everything I’ve done as a parent as think its the only way you can really learn from it.

I’m not proud of some of my behaviours regarding dinner time for Teddie, As a baby food was never an issue for him, he had some allergies but grew out of them. Then one day I gave him something he really didn’t like and from there we hit a wall.

Some days I would be that ‘If you don’t like it, go without’ mum, other days I’d literally force feed him! there would be tears, snot, gagging you name it it was happening, it wasn’t a look and really wasn’t helping. What I was doing was actually only scaring Teddie rather than helping the situation.

I read somewhere (Cannot tell you where as I read stupid amounts a day now) that as long as your child is sitting up the table with you that should be good enough, So I clearly overstepped the mark then!!

Whenever I read something I always try to put it in motion, so thought I’d give this info ago. At first, Teddie wouldn’t always come to the table, he would see what was on offer then make a run for it, so instead of making a big deal out of it I just left him and eventually he made his way back to the table.

It’s so easy to let the kids just eat their food in front of the Tv in the lounge but it doesn’t help when they need to set up the table when they start preschool/school so its best to nip it in the bud early (although we didn’t). I know not everyone has a kitchen table but even just turning the Tv off at dinner time is a help and makes all the difference.

Dinner time now is so different, in fact, Teddie’s always sitting up the kitchen table even when he’s not eating. (which is most of the time, the boy likes his food!!) Now I always make sure he has foods he likes at dinner but I’ll introduce a food I know he won’t eat, if he eats it, brilliant, if he doesn’t then that’s fine. Making sure there’s one food I know he’ll eat keeps him at the table and sometimes get’s him to eat what else is on offer.