One of the most important things to learn as a parent is how to promote healthy eating habits to your child. To do this you must start as young as possible. It’s not easy, especially if you don’t know how or what needs to be done. One of easiest ways to promote healthier eating habits is to limit snacks during the day, especially sweet snacks. Sweets not only promote tooth decay, but they also contribute to loss of appetite. Encourage your child to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Have apple slices, orange slices, baby carrots, and slices of celery on hand and ready.

Proportion is also very important. As a toddler, your child’s meals must have one tablespoon of food served for each year of age. Therefore, a one year old child would get one tablespoon of carrots, while a two year old would get two tablespoons of carrots.

There are dozens of ways to incorporate healthy eating into your child’s diet. Remember, though, children learn by example, so if you have older children in the home keep in mind that your younger children will want to eat what their big brother or sister is having. If your older child is eating something that you would prefer your toddler not to have, the best way around this is to feed the toddler seperately. Another way to show your child that his healthier foods are yummy would be to eat some of it yourself. Children generally want what mommy and daddy are having anyway. I learned this one first hand.

Although teaching and encouraging proper eating habits can be somewhat of a challenge, being prepared will help you instill the proper eating habits early and without too much complication. Good eating habits will grow with your child into adult hood, thus making it easier for your children to teach their own children how to eat healthy and grow up to be healthy adults.