Children eat so many times a day! Once they are 1 they generally eat 5 times a day (3 meals and 2 snacks). That’s a lot of different things to think about when it comes to food. As a busy mum of 3, I know! As soon as you have finished one meal you are thinking about the next.
I’m going to share 5 tips with you which help in our house.
- Recognise that we have limited time. Knowing what else is going on in our schedule can be really helpful when meal planning. I work out how much time I will have to cook, how tired I’m likely to be (and how tired the children will be) and work from there. This could be work related or social activities. It could be post nursery meltdown related! I would always recommend families eat together where possible. This saves on the cooking time as well as being much more social for everyone.
- Write a list of all the meals you know how to cook and roughly how long they take. Highlight the quickest ones, and highlight the ones which include store cupboard ingredients you can quickly grab. If you haven’t got enough variety in your list, maybe it’s time to learn a few new recipes – I’m not talking gourmet ones; I’m talking quick ones. Below is one of my quick and easy store cupboard recipes for little ones – Speedy Tuna Pasta.
- Make a menu for the week. If you swap meals round last minute, that’s fine but it gives you a framework. Having a menu helps you build a shopping list. It also saves you time each day thinking about what you might have to eat.
- Have days of the week which are attached to a certain food or cuisine – Egg Monday, Curry Thursday, Fish Friday (this could be even more specific and have a repeated menu cycle). The routine here speeds up the planning process. It doesn’t have to be boring, you could have a different egg recipe for each Monday of the month but it gives you a framework so instead of thinking about all the proteins you could have in your meal and all the associated recipes, you are just thinking of egg based recipes. Here are 5 examples – omelette, egg and wedges, scrambled egg on toast, shakshuka, egg fried rice.
- Remove the guilt. If we build a framework which works most of the time, it’s much easier to have a day when it doesn’t work out. There is enough guilt being a parent without adding food guilt. If you have a day which doesn’t work out in the way you wanted it to food wise, just pick up the next day and start again. Convenience food can be a really helpful addition here, try and find convenience which will still tick the boxes for everyone nutritionally if you can – for example if you are having a ready meal, try and pick one which is low in salt and sugar, and have a portion of frozen veg on the side.
Trust me, when you get into a rhythm with this, it does get easier, even with a very busy schedule. The investment of time is well worth it. If you would like help to work out how to plan food round your busy schedule and provide your child with everything they need nutritionally, please get in touch.
