Hi Melissa,
I can't remember too much about the specifics about swapping the mid afternoon snack with dinner except she did say that when kids get to go to school for the first time i.e. Grade One, that they usually come home from school famished and exhausted and that they normally fall asleep way earlier. So she was suggesting that at that age, they should have "dinner" at say 4pm when they get home from school and if they are still awake, then a snack at the time that the rest of the family was eating like 6.30pm or whatever. As i said tho, I can't really remember!! Sorry!
We have had some (small) success with a fussy eater's alphabet soup. Ds had about 4 spoonfuls of it the first time I made it, which is really good for him!! 2nd time he only had 2 or 3 bites, but still! And Dh and I thinks its pretty tasty so we like to eat it! Recipe is::
* 1/2 white onion, grated or finely diced
* 1 garlic clove, crushed
* 1 tsp olive oil
* 1 celery stalk, grated or finely diced
* 1/2 carrot, grated or finely diced
* 1 lean rasher bacon, diced (optional, but really yum!)
* 1 small zucchini grated or finely diced
* 1 small potato grated or finely diced
* 1 cup passata
* 2 cups salt reduced vegetable stock
* pinch mixed herbs
* freshly ground pepper
* 1/2 cup alphabet or other small soup pasta
* parmesan cheese for serving (optional)
1. Place onion, garlic and olive oil in a saupan over low heat. Cook for 2-3 mins then add celery, carrot and bacon if using. Cook, stirring, for a further 1 minute. add zucchini and potato and cook for a further 1 minute then add passata and stir well. Bring to a simmer, then add stock, herbs and pepper and let simmer until vegetables are tender, approx 20 mins. Check consistency and add water if needed. Bring a small saucepan of slightly salted water to a boil and add pasta Cook until al dente. Stir pasta into soup. Transfer to bowls and sprinkle with parmesan cheese if desired.
It is pretty quick and easy to do. I blend the soup with my hand mixer before I transfer the pasta in, as ds is more likely to eat it if he can't see any "lumps" of veggies.
We had small success on the weekend. Saturday for mid afternoon snack after sleep I offered choice of sliced apple or sultanas. Ds was not happy but I was pretty firm and said he could only have the apple or the sultanas. Well the sultanans got thrown on the floor (
) I vacuumed them up and said "well it looks like there is only apple left now". He was quiet for about 20 mins then out of the blue just started eating it, ate the whole thing and then asked for another one!!! So we shared another whole apple!!!
I was very happy!! He has only ever eaten dried apple for me and has gone off that now so I saw that as a slight victory!! of course when I offered apple again today, he took it (and I was very happy) then he chewed it and kept spitting it back out onto his plate.
So not the result I wanted, but anyway!!! Another thing I have been doing is ds is addicted to Vegemite so i have been smearing a small amount of cream cheese spread UNDER his vegemite on his toast or muffin and also a little on the bread under his vegemite sandwich and he hasn't seem to have noticed. So today i offered him a Sao cracker with cream cheese on (not the usual Vegemite) and he ate 3/4 of it!! So another small victory!!
Hope everyone else is having a good weekend! We just bought a big boy bed (arrrrgggghhhhh!!) so we are going to go set that up this afternoon!
Melissa.
