Nutrition for Littles

How Your Child’s Eating Habits Are Affecting Their Sleep

Your child’s nutrition and sleep habits are two huge contributing factors to their healthy development and growth. The two are inextricably linked–what they eat affects how well they sleep and their sleep quality affects their nutritional habits and preferences.

I am a dietician, not a sleep expert, but there are things nutritionally that we can do as parents to guide our children to healthy sleeping patterns.

Gut Health

Gut health is the phrase used when talking about the gut microbiome. A healthy gut microbiome consists of billions of different bacteria, a delicate balance of the good and the bad, that keeps us healthy, digests food, controls gut leakage, and is the number one protector of our immune system. There is not a single mechanism in our body unaffecting by the gut.

A healthy gut is particularly important for kids because a majority of the immune system lives there! The biggest issue that picky eating can lead to is poor gut health because of a lack of variety. If their gut health is suffering, you may notice difficulty in falling asleep, waking frequently, or waking up not feeling rested. 

The number one thing you can do nutritionally to improve your child’s gut health–and by association, their sleep–is to make sure they’re getting enough variety. That variety introduces different bacteria to the gut, allowing it to reach perfect homeostasis.

Vitamins

Vitamins come from the food we eat and are an important component in the production of sleepy-time hormones like melatonin and serotonin. They also support the deployment of neurotransmitters that promote sleep.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D helps regulate sleep/wake cycles by regulating stress hormones, supporting the immune system, and aiding in the production of melatonin. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to get enough of this essential vitamin from food alone. Even with the recommended 15 minutes a day in the sun, you and your child likely need to supplement.

Iron

Iron is a crucial mineral that most children are deficient in, especially if they are picky. Low iron can cause extreme fatigue. Unfortunately, that fatigue will not lead to better sleep. It will actually put the body in a stressed state which will impede the production of sleep hormones. Red meat is the best source of iron, though supplementation may be needed.

Magnesium/Calcium/Potassium

These three vitamins are extremely important for heart health and getting a solid, restful sleep. Magnesium is the top deficiency in the world, especially in America. Consult with your physician, but you and your child likely need supplementation for these three essential vitamins.

Timing of Meals

Blood sugar regulation is crucial for restful sleep. When we eat food, our body turns it into glucose which is the energy source of our cells–especially our brain! It also directly affects our gut health and cortisol levels. 

But it’s a fine line. We don’t want too much or too little blood sugar. That spike and crash cycle activates our sympathetic nervous system and prevents our body from creating the hormones vital to healthy sleep.

Aim for meals every 2-3 hours, focusing on well-balanced plates to keep blood sugar levels regulated. 

Fats

Our culture has demonized fats in recent years, but it’s an essential nutrient for children. They need fat for their development because it’s very energy dense. It’s also a precursor for hormone production, especially melatonin.

Coconut oil, olive oil, and full-fat dairy are great sources of healthy fats that should be a part of every child’s diet! Plus, the omega-3 fatty acids decrease inflammation and help establish a circadian rhythm. 

Hormones

Sleepy hormones are crucial and we need to make sure we are supporting them. However, be careful with supplementation, as over time your body will think it no longer needs to produce it on its own.

You can help your child support melatonin production with B6, Tryptophan, regulating cortisol levels, and offering melatonin-rich foods like walnuts, oats, eggs, fish, cherries, grapes, tomatoes, and breastmilk.

How Sleep Affects Nutrition

While our nutrition can certainly affect our sleep, the quality of our sleep also impacts our nutrition. It can dictate what we eat, how we eat, and when we eat. When we are operating off less sleep, it makes us crave quick fast energy \in the form of carbs. But when we, and our children, succumb to those cravings, we fall into the spike-crash blood sugar cycle. 

Getting good sleep to support our child’s nutrition is just as important as optimizing their nutrition to support quality sleep. Working on one will likely impact the other, leading to an overall well-rounded, healthy child. 
It might feel overwhelming thinking about all the ways you should optimize your child’s nutrition, especially if they’re a picky eater! Focus on taking one small step at a time and adjusting course when needed. If you still don’t know where to start, I invite you to join my Table Talk Course. There, you can join a team of other parents in the same boat as you and together we will guide you to take back mealtimes and become your child’s at-home nutritional expert.

And Easy Ways To Meet Their Needs, Even Without Meat!

A common question among parents is whether or not their children are getting enough protein. They’re worried about how much they need and all the sources they may be getting it from. Or maybe they’re nervous their child is getting too much protein!

Either way, not to worry! A simple equation and a few extra minutes will give you peace of mind in knowing your child is getting everything they need.

Finding Your Child’s Protein Needs

Protein is an essential nutrient for every human body. It’s important for many biological functions and particularly during the younger years when our children are experiencing rapid growth and development.

The general equation for establishing protein needs is to divide your child’s body weight (in pounds) by two to determine the amount of protein needed in grams. For example, if your child weighs 30 pounds, they need to eat around 15 grams of protein per day.

Now before you bust out your calculator or start tracking macros, remember this is a general rule and you don’t have to police your kid’s eating habits. Their requirements aren’t super high so you don’t need to worry, but you should be intentional. Just keep the general idea, check their labels, and offer protein at every meal and snack time.

Worried About Giving Them Too Much?

Since 15g seems like so little, maybe you’re worried you’re giving your child too much protein. It truly is extremely difficult to eat so much protein that it causes harm. Typically, your child’s body will absorb what it needs and excrete the rest!

The concern only comes in when they’re getting too much too often. Having a large amount of protein in a meal here or there is not a concern, but continuously overloading the body with protein could lead to an undue burden on the child’s organs or cause dehydration.

There are products out there that can make it easier to over-serve protein, however. I really am not a fan of protein powders and caution parents to be cognizant of adding them to meals. 

Reasons They May Need More Protein

If you have a picky eater, they likely need more protein. Picky eaters tend to be more wary of meat and prefer carbohydrate-heavy foods like bread or pasta. But it is possible to find carbs with protein, like some kinds of pasta and whole grains.

Vegetarian children, whether by your choice or theirs, likely need to increase their protein intake. Because they are not getting large amounts of easily absorbable protein from meat sources, they usually require a larger volume of food to meet the same protein levels. Vegetarian sources of protein may also be more difficult to absorb.

Non-Meat Protein Sources

Meeting your child’s protein needs really is so simple, even if they don’t like meat! My top favorite source of non-meat protein is dairy. A single cup of whole milk has 8g of protein, so two cups and you’ve met your goal (for a 30-lb child). Yogurt is also another great source of protein, but be careful to check labels, as protein and sugar content can vary drastically between brands and types!

Whole grains are another great option, though they don’t offer the same amount of protein as meat because they are a carb first and foremost. You can also supplement with legumes, lentils, and beans, all of which are a great source of fiber. Try adding nuts and seeds as well for their added fiber and healthy fats.

If you have a picky eater and you’re worried about protein intake because they simply just won’t eat, I invite you to join my Table Talk Course. There, I will help become your child’s own nutrition expert and bring joy back to mealtimes. 

Understanding your child’s individual protein needs is the first step in finding peace and easing your fears around protein. When you establish a baseline, you can identify if they need more or less. Be careful not to take a snapshot in time, rather zoom out and look at the big picture–on average, have they gotten enough protein this week or month instead of just today.

Feeding Picky kids is so hard and sometimes we can get hyper-focused, stressed out, anxious, and worried. It can start to feel really serious and scary really fast when we don’t think they’re getting enough of the right things–protein, calories, etc.

Sometimes that seriousness makes its way to the table with us like a dark cloud. To lighten the mood, here are three unique ways to get your picky eater to try something new! It will help you keep things fresh, change your perspective, and help relax your kids at the table by making it fun again.

Let Them Feed You

This will likely feel super unnatural to you, but this is often the experience our kids have when we feed them. The role reversal will make it fun and exciting for them, especially if you try foods they’re uncomfortable around–and maybe even some you’re uncomfortable with, too!

Even though we may not be picky, even adults have preferences. For example, I hate olives and mushrooms and my son loves to order them on his pizza and he thinks it’s hilarious to ask me to try them.

Sometimes I will reflect the behavior he shows me at the table, in a loving way, and using similar language. Then I overcome it by saying something like “But I can be brave and just try it” or “It’s been a while so I will try it again”. I’m verbalizing what’s going on in my head that’s leading me to choose to take a bite.

He loves the look on my face because, surprise surprise, I still hate olives.

It’s important to model the behavior we want them to show when they don’t like a certain food, so I may say something like “It’s not for me. Maybe I’ll try again another day”.

It’s also a great opportunity to show them how to try something new and overcome a food they previously didn’t like. I don’t hate mushrooms the way I used to and have found ways to incorporate them into meals. 

If you’re worried you won’t say or do the right thing, don’t let fear keep you from trying. Let them feed it to you, swallow it, then move on. It’s that simple! Typically that’s enough for them to get their gears turning.

Don’t expect it to be perfect and work the very first time, it will take time!

Make Up Stories/Characters/Identities For The Food

This can really push parents out of their comfort zone by forcing us into the pretend play area of our brain–something not often utilized in adulthood–but our children love it! Make up characters, laugh about them, make up stories, and make it fun and interactive. 

Try using things they’re interested in, too. For example, when we were expecting his little sister, we would play a game with the brussel sprouts on his plate. We would name them Mom, Dad, Big Brother, and Little Sister according to size and he had a great time calling them by name as he ate them!

It was helpful that it represented our family and he was so excited to be a big brother. We played around with it, talking back and forth, keeping it fun and exciting for him. Now he has no problems with brussel sprouts!

Come Up With A Secret Ingredient

This trick will come in handy when you serve mixed dishes like oatmeal, chili, or curry. If it’s an ingredient we can say, we might start with a game of I-Spy, letting them find and identify the green, red, or yellow food.

Then have your kids taste it and try to guess the foods they’re tasting. They will start to form that connection in their brain between taste and identifying food to help decipher what they’re eating. It will help them be more confident, especially when eating mixed foods.

It helps them refine their palates, gets them interested in what they’re eating, and helps them recognize different foods and ingredients. For example, I added honey to our curry last week and after a while, my kids were able to identify it. We made it extra fun by pulling out the honey and drizzling it on top!

Get creative with your recipes! Try starting with foods you know they like and find ways to incorporate them in a new and unique way. Don’t be afraid to get a little silly and weird, but of course, make sure it’s tasty. Start with foods they like and go from there.
Of course, it’s not always as simple as trying three weird tricks. Maybe you’re feeling completely overwhelmed and beyond repair. If you want to take back control of your mealtimes and enjoy being at the table again, you can join my TableTalk Course today. I will guide you to becoming your child’s feeding expert to help bring joy back to your table.

How Your Mindset May Be Affecting Your Child’s Eating Habits

One day, back when my son was in daycare regularly, I’d come to pick him up and watch him a few minutes before going in. I saw him putting his toys away and climbing the stool to wash his hands, able to dispense his own soap and turn the water on and off. I was awestruck! He wasn’t doing them at home and I didn’t understand why. The next time he needed to wash his hands I caught myself as I fetched the stool for him. I was the one preventing him from learning how to do it on his own. I didn’t know what he was capable of because I never gave him a chance to show me.

Sometimes, when we feel like we’ve tried everything we can to help our picky eater, the truth may be that you just need to get out of your own way. You’ve got to take your foot off the brake to keep moving forward. Making these three big mindset shifts may be the key to finally helping your picky eater once and for all.

You don’t really know how hungry they are

As parents, we can read our kids better than anyone else. We are so in tune with them and learn their little cues that express their needs. It can feel that we know them so well that of course, we would know how hungry they are. But that simply isn’t possible. We may think we can read their cues or tune into their habits well enough to know how they feel, but we aren’t inside their bodies. 

You may be able to identify when they’re super hangry, but how do you react when they tell you they’re full after a single bite? Do you accept that answer or do you feel you know better like there’s no way they’re full after one bite? Do you employ pressure techniques like bribing or begging to convince them to eat more?

Once we recognize that we can’t feel their level of hunger, we give that power back to them. From there, we can help educate them on understanding the cues their bodies are giving them, and over time they will begin to trust it more and more; like when they’ve eaten too much or too little, had too much sugar, etc.

The earlier we can communicate to them how to express their needs and understand their body’s cues, the better.

Acknowledge your expectations

When you meet your child at the table, do you walk into it with an expectation of how much they should eat, what foods they consume, or how long it should take them? Setting too high expectations will only set you both up for failure. 

When there is a gap between our expectations and our child’s “performance” at the table, we think we have to work them up to the expectation, often using pressure techniques to get them there. While it may work in the moment, over time it will lose its effectiveness and you’ll dig yourself into a deeper hole.

Shift your mindset to start recognizing the expectations you have and lowering them to a more realistic level. We’ll never be able to release all our expectations, but if you can realize when they’re too high and adjust, it can help let them feel more prepared for meal times. Instead of coming to the table with a feeling of predestined failure and being overwhelmed, they can approach it calmly and confidently.

Let go of how you were raised

Our experiences as children come up frequently as parents and our actions at the table are no different. Reflect on how you were raised and whether you are bringing those experiences to the table with your own children. In our Table Talk group, I often hear, “Well I was raised having to finish my plate” or “There are starving kids in Africa” or they were reprimanded, punished, or rewarded. 

Having kids brings up a lot of stuff as parents and when something happens, that problem feels immediate. When we aren’t sure how to address it, we often pull from our personal experiences as children instead of taking the time to navigate the possible solutions and choose the right one for that moment. Or maybe you had such a traumatic childhood experience that you have swung to the complete opposite side. Either way, you are making a decision for your child based on your personal experience.

Think about the challenge you’re facing and find different options and tools to keep in your tool belt so you can find a solution that aligns with the type of parent you want to be and the type of person you want to raise.

We grow independent eaters by being intentional with our words and actions and being consistent. Remember that you and your child are completely different people and what worked (or didn’t work) with you likely won’t work with them. 

Finding the right tools for the problem at hand can be difficult. My Table Talk Course is a self-paced picky eating course that will give you a toolbelt full of strategies to employ during your picky eating journey. We focus on mindset and high-level ideas as well as the nitty-gritty details of dealing with certain situations so that when they come up, you have a plethora of options to find the one that works for you.

When you can shift your mindset and learn to trust your child, let go of your expectations, and release your childhood experiences, you are setting your child up to be more successful at the table.