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Meal planning can be tough especially when you have a picky husband and child. You try your best to get them to like vegetables and fruits, but what happens when they are set on just a few vegetables and fruit? Do you give it to them or do you try to bribe them with a dessert that they like? Or do you yell like Chi Chi from Dragonball to get them to at least try a new and different vegetable? Well, I could have a solution for you…meal planning. I know that there are A LOT of articles, pins, and bloggers who talk about this, but what about the moms who tried meal planning and couldn’t get anywhere with their child, their husband, or themselves??
That’s where I come in, I have a picky husband and child. I have been acting out my Chi Chi with telling both my husband and daughter, “We are out of the things you like, this is the only thing we got, so eat it.” I also give them that glare like I am not joking around. Okay, so it is mostly towards my daughter, but sometimes my husband jokingly makes the ‘Ewww’ sound. Now there are only a handful of recipes that they individually like. I must admit that I am a little picky as well, but both me and my husband don’t mind trying out new recipes. However, our daughter is different. She does not like to eat anything out of her comfort zone, which is completely normal. I have even expressed my concerns with a nutritionist last week about how our daughter use to like vegetables, different proteins, and fruits to now only wanting to eat powdered doughnuts, pb and j, chips, and an apple. And, that is literally all that she will eat in a day.
I have tried and tried my very best to the point where I get so tired of the begging, the tantrums, and the looks on both ends that I simply just give her whatever she wants so that way she will eat something. Then, the nutritionist told us that it could be a phase. I would love to believe that is a phase, but I asked her, “what if this isn’t a phase?” She replied with, “You can introduce different types of food to her by putting it on her plate and if she doesn’t like it or touch it, then try again in a month.” She said that we also needed to be stern about the meal and stick to ‘you need to eat this since we have nothing else to fix for you’. The results….I have actually found this to be true. Especially since both me and my husband have both been stern about the meal plan, sticking to it, and getting our daughter to actually eat the food we fix.
So how did that happen?? Well, at the beginning of this week, it was time for us to start meal planning. Once again, we have tried meal planning before, but never stuck to it. This time around though, we decided to do just one week. One week of doing the meal plan so that we can actually stick to it. Here was our meal plan:
There is not a whole lot and it’s nothing to rave about, but doing this type of planning actually worked for my family. It also saved money for us grocery shopping because we didn’t need a whole lot (we only spent about $100….a mom and wife win…yay!!). Even with us going into a second week right now with meal planning, all I had to get at the grocery store was 6 things!! I was blown away with that. And, we actually stuck with this meal plan and didn’t have to order take-out. I must admit that I did get tired one day and thought about it, but decided against it. Now, when we made the meals and had everything on our plate, we kept telling our daughter that it was good and that she should try it. However, she didn’t touch it…until we brought out the big guns. I mean we brought the kamehameha with getting her to try the food. Our secret was that we did not let her get any snacks, dessert, toys, or anything until she ate her food. The first night that we cooked, we had to actually feed her ourselves such as getting the chicken on the fork and put it in her mouth. Then, the next night, it worked and she was eating the food!!
Let me tell you that I was doing the happy mom dance on the inside because I could not believe that my stubborn child actually ate a good decent meal and I was proud of us for being the stubborn parents. I know that it is not going to go this way all the time, but I like to hope that it will. If you like the meal plan, then please click subscribe and I will e-mail this meal plan template to you for FREE!! I hope you enjoyed reading this and if any of you are going through this, just know that you are not alone! Have a great weekend and a Happy Easter! As always, I will see you in the next post!