TRYING to get your toddler to eat their food can be a testing time for any parent.
Fortunately a childcare expert has revealed her top tips to make meal time a breeze.
Amie, a nanny, from the UK, revealed on TikTok how to make sure your child eats their dinner.
Amie's first tip is to sit as close as possible to your toddler when they are eating and to make sure you are eating the exact same food to encourage them to eat it too.
"The stuff that goes on the floor, we do not talk about," the expert adds.
Instead, she role models the behaviour she wants to see the toddler do when eating and minimises giving attention to unwanted behaviours.
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But if it looks like a bowl is about to be thrown on the floor remove it from them and start again.
While the toddler she cares for kept throwing the courgette on the floor, she instead talks to her about the courgette to generate curiosity.
If they seem to be throwing a particular food away, continue introducing it to them at different meal times.
She explained: "She can remove it or she can eat it, it's completely her prerogative, it is our job to offer well balanced meals at the right time in the right environment."
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The childcare expert said a calm environment was also important when it came to meal time, so remove any distractions you can before sitting down for your meal.
You can make meal times easier by having a predictable eating schedule and giving them low pressure exposure to different foods so they can try it when they're ready.
And plenty of mums were grateful for the tips, one wrote: "I absolutely love hearing ‘what they do with the food is up to them’ literally this!!! Hate seeing so much force feeding and pressure with food!"
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"My kids I used to give them a discard plate. anything they didn't want went on the plate. they learnt this from about 1 years old," added another.
A third penned: "Glad to know I'm doing at least one thing, I pretty much exactly this, it's a success most of the time."
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