Mi hijo no quiere comer: 9 tips to stimulate your appetite

To stimulate the child’s appetite, it may be interesting to resort to some strategies such as helping with the preparation of foods, taking them to the supermarket and preparing more attractive and fun dishes. However, it is also important to have patience, as the strategies to open the appetite can only work when they are repeated several times.

Lack of appetite in children is normal between 2 and 6 years of age, which is why it is common to reject food at this stage.

Resorting to appetite-stimulating medications is only indicated in exceptional cases, when the child has a high risk of malnutrition, and they must only be used according to the indication of the doctor or nutritionist. Learn more about the lack of appetite in children.

Some tips that can be useful to open the baby’s appetite:

1. Define the foods of the day with the child

A way to help the child eat better and open his appetite is to plan the meals of the day together, following his ideas and suggestions, so it is possible to include him in the process, making him have more interest in eating.

Asimismo, it is also interesting to involve him in the preparation of the foods, as he observes that his suggestions were taken in the account.

2. Take the child to the supermarket

Bringing the child to the supermarket is another strategy that helps to increase the appetite, being interesting to ask him to push the shopping cart or take some foods, such as fruit or bread, for example.

After making the purchases, it is also important that you help with the storage of food in alacena, with the aim of seeing which foods are purchased and where they are placed, in addition to including them in the table arrangement, for example .

3. Eat at the right time

The child must have at least 5 meals a day, breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and scene, always at the same time because they are educating the body to feel it always at the same time. Another important care is not to eat or drink anything 1 hour before the meal time, as it is easier for the child to have an appetite for the main meal.

4. Do not fill the plate too much

Children don’t need to have a full plate of food, so small amounts of each food are enough to keep them nourished and healthy. Apart from this, not all children have the same appetite, and it is normal that between 2 and 6 years of age this is smaller, since it is a slower growth phase.

5. Make fun plates

To open up the kid’s appetite, a good strategy is to create fun and colorful dishes, combining foods he likes most with those he likes the least, making this a great option to make the kid eat vegetables. So, by means of this type of plates, it is possible to entertain the child and stimulate his/her appetite.

6. Prepare food differently

It is important that the child has the opportunity to try foods prepared in different ways, such as raw, cooked or roasted, as they can have the colors, flavors, textures and availability of different nutrients, so that the child enjoys more less certain vegetable according to the way in which it was prepared.

7. Avoid the “temptations”

Preferably, you should have fresh foods at home such as vegetables and fruits, in addition to pasta, rice and bread, and you should avoid processed and prepared foods, since they are, although they have a bad taste, they are harmful to health when they are consumed daily. , and it is possible that children do not like the taste of healthy foods, but they are less intense.

8. get out of the rut

To increase the child’s appetite and see the mealtime as a fun time, the parents can set a day of the month to change the routine and eat outside the house, in the garden, have a picnic or a barbecue, for example.

9. Eat together

The time for food, like breakfast, lunch or dinner, should be a moment when the family is together and everyone eats the same foods, leading the child to understand that they have to eat the same thing as the priests and brothers.

In this way, in order for the child to acquire healthy habits, it is very important that the adults give the example to the child, showing the taste for what they eat, as they are repeating what they do as adults.