A child not eating while away on holidays is one of the biggest fears for travelling parents. Depending on where you live, your child may only be accustomed to eating certain foods. Fear not, you will be surprised by your child’s willingness to eat new foods when they are removed from their routine.
Don’t forget that as parents we also set example for our children to follow. If you are a picky eater, your children will also likely to be picky eaters. You can’t expect children to enjoy a variety of new foods if you yourself don’t like trying or even refuse to enter foreign restaurants. When they see you enjoy eating these new cuisines, they will be more likely to try them out.
Here are Letsgobeartravels tips to help encourage your child to eat while travelling:
ESTABLISH GOOD EATING ROUTINE
Start establishing good eating routine from home. If you hardly go out to restaurants back home, then that is a disaster waiting to happen during your holidays.
Before your trip, regularly dine out in cafes or restaurants. Get your child used to sitting down happily for at least 30 minutes for meal times.
PRACTICE EATING AT FOREIGN CUISINE RESTAURANTS
When visiting an unfamiliar destination, visit your nearby foreign restaurants weeks or months leading up to the trip as practice. We did this this prior to our Nepal, Sri Lanka and Vietnam trip.
This will give us parents a good idea as to what food selections will be available and what dishes our kids will enjoy for the upcoming trip.
PICK GOOD EATING ENVIRONMENT
Know your child’s preferred eating environment.
Both our sons hate loud, dimly lit, small restaurants with no personal space – no matter what food they’re serving. They prefer eating in a more open restaurant or outdoor seating with chilled background music – expensive taste!
DO NOT FORCE YOUR FOOD PREFERENCE TO YOUR KIDS
We know some travelling Asian parents who turn family holidays into a fully scheduled culinary “must eat” list of local specialties and social media popular restaurants. Their kids unfortunately have no choice but to be dragged from one must try place to the next.
If you are planning to visit your “must eat” restaurant: make sure there are meals on the menu your kids can enjoy (for example non spicy food). Otherwise prepare a takeaway alternative food for them.
LET GO OF STRICT PORTION CONTROL
Adults who don’t enjoy eating foreign food will eat less during holidays. The same with kids.
DO NOT USE SNACKS AS SOLUTION
Filling your kids up with unhealthy snacks because they didn’t eat much during regular meal is not a solution. In fact, this will only make the problem worse. Basically, you’re telling them “If you don’t eat, I will reward you with snacks!”
Note: healthier snacks such as fruits are ok.
LOOK FOR “EQUIVALENT” FOODS
If they are not keen to try new food, do not worry. In every destination worldwide there will be a staple food your child is familiar with. For example: bread, rice and chips (surely all kids like chips??).
Also look out for parallel equivalent food such as noodle & spaghetti pasta, bread & naan, dumplings & pasta (tortellini, ravioli). With similar look and texture, your child may be more comfortable in trying them out.
MAKE MEALTIME FUN
Pack their favourite activity book or toys. Let them play while waiting for food to arrive. For our sons, this means hot wheels cars and play-doh (just make sure you clean up the mess afterwards). If the food takes longer to come out, or your children are being extra loud, take your kids out for a bit of a walk outside.
We would always include our boys when we do “cheers” and clink our glasses. We also reward them with a shared dessert if they are on their best behaviour. Ipad or Youtube on Mummy’s phone is our very last resort.
ONE BITE RULE
Encourage your child to try foods by giving them one bite. Whether they eat more of it or not, praise them for trying.
DO NOT FORCE THEM TO EAT
Let them take their time to eat. The more you rush them, the more pressured they feel. Forcing them to eat three times a day will put them off even more and make mealtimes a hell of a time.
BRING BACKUP FOOD FROM HOME
Whenever we travel to developing countries, we tend to bring long life milk from back home in Australia as well as biscuits – as back up. When our boys were younger (pre-solid foods) we also bought food pouches. This is just in case we can’t find a good replacement at the destination.
IF ALL ELSE FAILS…
Google where you can find your child’s favourite food.
If that still doesn’t work, as a temporary holiday solution: eat at an international chain restaurant. Use McDonald’s, KFC etc as your last option.
Finally – DO NOT stress and don’t be too hard on yourself. DO NOT let your child not eating ruin your well deserved family holiday. You can always buy common fruits like bananas, apples and milk at the convenience store! Sure they may lose a bit of weight, but they will gain it all back when you arrive back home.
For other places we have visited, checkout our website’s travel Destinations section. We buy our travel essentials online via Ebay
