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Kid Cuisine: Expanding Your Child’s Food Horizons
When you’re ready to help your tiny tot go beyond their favorite tots, these tips will help
We all have our favorite foods. Kids have a knack for choosing some faves and refusing to chow down on anything else, though. So what do you do when you want your littles to expand their palate and eat something other than chicken nuggets, mac & cheese, and peanut butter?
These tips will help you get your child to try new foods with a little less fuss.
Implement a “two bite” rule
You may have already implemented this rule or one like it. It’s a pretty straightforward rule: everyone (parents included) has to eat at least two bites of everything on their plate. While two bites of any food is unlikely to start a love affair between your kid and the food, it is exposure. And two bites of that same food over the course of many meals may eventually lead to loving it — or at least tolerating it.
The key to making this rule work is keeping it simple: just two bites, period. Don’t insist that they be a specific size (though you can insist they add a little more if they’re only picking up one pea or one green bean). Don’t demand they eat those two bites first or together or anything else. Just two…