How to Enjoy Stress Free Meals with your Baby and Toddler

If you’ve ever been around children at meal times, you’ve probably heard their parents say things like, “Just sit still while you eat please.”
“No, you can’t go and play yet. Eat some more of your food.”
“Hurry up and finish your dinner.”
“Stop playing around at the table.”

And of course, the well-known catch-cry of mothers with babies or toddlers – “arrgh. I wish I could just eat my dinner in peace!”

There’s no doubt, meal times can be quite stressful for parents of young children, but there are a number of things you can do to help reduce stress and make meal times an enjoyable and more importantly, stress-free time for everyone.

​Encouraging Independence when Feeding

Let’s face it – letting your child feed themselves SOUNDS easy, right? But the reality is that letting your baby or toddler feed themselves is often way more messy and time-consuming than just feeding them yourself. And it’s not always easy to watch them making such a mess.

However, there are lots of benefits to encouraging independence with feeding. Of course babies still need to be fed when they’re young and as they start to hold food and then use a spoon themselves, it will still take a combination of help from an adult and trying it themselves.

Letting little ones hold their food and use a spoon is great for their coordination, spatial awareness and fine motor control, as well as giving them sensory input and allowing them as sense of control over their own food intake. As mentioned, they will of course need help while they’re learning, but in addition to all the great skills eating independently helps children develop, children who are more independent with their meals means less intervention and assistance required by mum!

As children get older, you can encourage them to learn to use a fork and then a knife. There are lots of knives that are safe for young children, such as Kiddikutters. Using serrated but safe knives like these teaches children to use the sawing action and is great for integrating physical and mental skills.

It does take patience and a willingness for children to be messy though, but it pays off. When children are more independent, it is less stressful for the parents in the long run and the parent is able to spend time engaged in conversation or enjoying their meal too, not just doing everything for the child and being constantly distracted.

Timing Your Meals with Children

Another way to make meal times less stressful is to consider the timing of meals. Little children have little tummies and can only fit small amounts of food at a time, and so need to eat more regularly than adults. They are not designed to wait for long periods of time between meals. When children are forced to wait a long time for a meal, they are often stressed and cranky and they pester their parents before a meal which results in everyone getting to the table feeling anxious or grumpy.

Providing your children a plate of salad or vegetable bits to snack on while dinner is being prepared can be helpful for them and keep them from bothering you and allow everyone to get to the table in a better mood with less chance of meltdowns. In terms of “ruining their appetite,” if they do fill up on salad and vegetables, consider that a wonderful bonus!

In terms of meal preparation, allowing children to help where possible is also a great way to making the lead-up to meals much more pleasant and give the child a sense of being part of meal preparation, of accomplishment and being included. Children are much more likely to eat and enjoy a meal that they have helped prepare. Once they’re old enough to use a safe knife, children can cut things. They can wash or spin salad, stir a cold mixture and lots of little jobs that help them be involved.

Just being aware that children have different eating needs to adults is important too. Children may need a lot more time to eat than an adult – or a lot less, depending on their age or stage of development. They may need to graze or snack on healthy food between meals too, and thus may not eat as much at dinner time. This is completely natural for little ones. If you keep these factors in mind when timing your meals and taking the time for meal preparation into account, meal time is much less stressful for everyone.

Activities for Babies to Do in a High Chair

All parents are familiar with feeding the baby while your own dinner gets cold and then having fed the baby, finding that he or she is now ready for play time and needs all your attention, or is going to throw a tantrum at having to stay in their high chair. However, with a little creativity and planning, you can quickly and easily create activities for little ones to do in their high chairs, while you are able to finish your dinner and have a nice conversation.

Here is a list of ideas for babies aged around six to eighteen months. You can also use these activities at times when you want to pop baby in the high chair while you’re cooking or something like that.

• Make a discovery basket. Put together a collection of things that babies find interesting – even things that are simple to us are great for babies to explore. Things like measuring spoons, rattles, balls, utensils, pastry brushes, spatulas, bottles with different things in them (rice, water or beans) are great. Babies can drum with them, make music and generally see what they do.
• Make a sensory basket. Gather different kinds of fabric and textures, ribbons, sponge, fur – anything that feels interesting and put pieces into a basket for babies to feel and explore.
• Try some “unmessy” finger painting. Tape a sheet of greaseproof paper or cling wrap to the high chair table. Place some dobs of paint on it and then tape another sheet of paper or cling wrap over it, making sure paint cannot escape the edges. Babies love pressing on the paint dobs and squishing them around.

• Use suction-cup toys. Toys that will stick to the high chair tray, such as Boon Cogs, Melissa & Doug First Bead Maze, Sassy Sensation Suction Cup Toy, Grapple Baby Suction Toy Holder and the O-Ball Grip & Play Toy are great, and there are lots more.

• Tape popsicle sticks to the high chair tray and let babies try to pull them off. You can also put sticky notes on the tray and babies have lots of fun pulling these off and sticking them on again too. Pulling pegs off a box is also a fun activity for babies. High chairs like the Graco Blossom 4-in-1 are great for this as they have decent tray area for you baby to play on.

• Make a squish bag. Fill a ziplock bag with shaving cream and glitter and tape all the edges tightly shut. Babies love to feel the squishiness! You can also make squishy balls by filling an uninflated balloon with rice, cornflour or even water and tying it tightly.

• Yoghurt finger painting. If you have a night where you’re willing to let bub get messy, they will love finger painting with yoghurt, or playing with cooked (and cooled) noodles or with some jelly. Some people worry that this will teach babies to play with their food, but provided this is only a very occasional activity, babies just love the sensory play.

• Poking holes. Letting babies poke straws or popsicle sticks through holes in a colander or even that you’ve cut in a box is great. Babies love to post things or poke things through holes of any type and this is something easy to do with a high chair.

Activities for Toddlers to Do In a High Chair

Toddlers also love to have activities to do while in their high chairs at the dinner table or when parents are busy. Having something to do once they’re finished eating allows toddlers to stay at the table and feel included, listen to the conversation and be part of the family, whilst still having something to do and to keep them interested.

Try some of these fun activities to keep your toddler busy in his or her high chair.

• Pegs on a box. Putting pegs on the edge of an open lunch box is a great activity for toddlers. They love taking them on and off. You can also give them bits of fabric to try to clip on the box too!

• Holes in a box. Poking holes in a box with a pencil is great fun for toddlers. For an easier version, poke holes in a Styrofoam tray or block. Poking the bubbles on the large-sized bubble wrap is lots of fun too!

• Sorting things in muffin trays. Letting toddlers sort things in muffin trays is a great activity. You can use pompoms, buttons if they’re old enough not to eat them, little balls, beans and more. Little ones can sort by colour or type or even number.

• Ice cubes. Letting a toddler play with some ice cubes on his/her high chair tray is a great sensory experience for them.

• Getting Creative. Using crayons like Playon Crayons that are designed for little hands are great. Other artistic activities like finger painting (you can do the mess-free version described above), playdough or painting with dot markers are great high chair activities.

• Lacing and threading activities. Little ones love to lace and thread things and there’s so many things they can do. Threading cereal onto straws, lacing with lacing toys or stringing cotton reels onto a chopstick. Pinterest has plenty of great ideas for all kinds of lacing and threading games to keep your little one busy.

• Posting activities. Toddlers LOVE posting things into holes or slots. Shape sorters or even something as simple as a slop in a box that they can post playing cards into is great! Posting or poking pipe-cleaners or straws into a box with holes or a colander is also lots of fun!

• Sensory bags and bottles. Filling up a bunch of ziplock bags with different substances and taping them closed is a great activity for toddlers. Put shaving cream in one bag, glitter, rice, beans, flour, sand, water, pompoms, buttons, sauce, spaghetti, dry macaroni, cotton balls and all kinds of interesting things make awesome bags for toddlers to feel and explore. You can also put different things in bottles which is fun also.

• Toys on strings. Tie a number of toys to your child’s high chair with string. Teach them to pull up the string to play with the toy. Once they learn how to do this, it will save you having to pick up their toys too – yay!

• Using tongs or spoons. Using tongs or spoons to scoop up things like pompoms, cotton balls marbles or buttons (if children are old enough not to swallow them) and put them from one container to another, or into an empty egg carton is excellent for fine motor skills.

• Toys for trays. There are lots of good toys that are suitable for play on a child’s high chair tray – peg puzzles, suction-cup toys as described for babies, touch-and-feel books and many other manipulative toys are fun for little ones.

• Fidget Toy Basket. Create a basket of sensory and fidget toys to explore. This can include things like wooden fidget cubes, tangle toys, liquid motion bubblers, sensory balls, chains, squishy balls, hoberman spheres and more. Make sure they’re safe for your child’s age though.

• Magnetic toys. You can buy a little whiteboard that is magnetic to attach to your child’s high chair tray, or use the lid or inside of a metal box and let your child play with magnetic numbers, letters, shapes, pictures or magnetic construction shapes.

Using Meal Times for Family Bonding

Something that you can do to make meal times less stressful, is to consciously work toward having them be a time for family bonding. This is a nice idea of course, but easier said than done! So what are some ways to create meal times as a special time of the day?

1. Take timing and meal preparation into account, as discussed earlier. When little ones are not coming to the table super-grumpy from hunger and when meal preparation is not so stressful, it sets the tone for a nice time together. According to the Bureau of Statistics one third of household activities is spent preparing and cleaning up for meals.

2. Overlook the little things. Children make mistakes. They need time to learn manners. If you are correcting your child all the time and over every little thing, meal time becomes a chore and something to dread. Learn to let go of the little annoyances that crop up in favour of the bigger picture and family harmony. This doesn’t mean don’t ever help children learn social norms and manners, but they can learn this without being corrected every time.

3. Initiate discussion that includes everyone. Sure, babies and toddlers aren’t the best conversationalists, but talking to them about what is happening around them and finding ways to make eye contact and include them helps everyone feel welcome. If you have older children, look for interesting things to talk about together, ask them lots of questions and share about your life in a way that is relevant to them.

4. Establish family traditions. Some families pray together or offer a blessing on their food before a meal. Others sing a song together. Some families just say one thing they’re grateful for in their day before eating. Some families join hands before a meal or say one nice thing about everyone at the table, or share one things they’ve learned that day. It doesn’t have to be a big thing or take a long time, but these little traditions really help build family connection, strengthen relationships and establish a positive mood.

5. Have fun. Meal times don’t have to be serious. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking here about food fights or “messing around” or being really silly or rude. Fun doesn’t necessarily have to be any of those things. What I’m talking about is little things that you can do at the table together during your meal – a quick family game of eye spy or another word game. Sharing a joke you heard during the day or a funny story. Sharing a memory of your childhood or of a child when they were younger. Take the time to allow a meal to include talking, sharing, a word game or something fun. This helps meals to be something that everyone enjoys and that aren’t rushed and stressful.

Meal times don’t have to be something to dread, even if you do have a baby or toddler – or both! If you keep in mind what is natural for little ones, provide activities for them to do if they finish their meal quickly and use meal times to create a strong family bond, your home will be happier. Having a good high chair for little ones can encourage independence while eating and provide a tray for activities, and a bit of effort in helping children become independent with food and creating a great environment for meal times pays off in the long term.

Things that take some time and effort when children are young pave the way for happy and easy meals together as a family and strong relationships as children get older. And as a bonus, when dinner times are happier, after-dinner routines such as a bedtime story, getting ready for bed and so on tend to also go more smoothly too! So what are you waiting for? Go and enjoy a relaxed meal with your family today!