The Benefits of Mealtime Structure and Routine
One of the most unequivocal pieces of advice found in almost every resource or piece of research out there is this: having mealtime structure and routine is one of the best things you can do for your family. It will help you raise confident, competent eaters while making your days a little easier!
Here are just a few of the benefits you can expect when you decide to add more structure to your family’s mealtimes:
#1 Trust
Especially if meals have been stressful and inconsistent in the past, mealtime structure and routine builds trust between you and your child. Realizing that they can depend on you for predictable and consistent meals and snacks gives them the space they need to listen to their hunger and fullness cues. As you watch their self-regulation skills develop, your trust that their own eating intuition will grow, too.
#2 Less Fussiness & More Enjoyment
Don’t we all want to enjoy meals more and have our kids complain less? Well, structure and routine are two of the cornerstone ways to achieve that throughout childhood. According to a study by Mallan et al (2017), “Higher mealtime structure at 2 and 3.7 years predicts less food fussiness at 3.7 and 5 years,” and “Lower structure around mealtime schedule at 3.7 years predicts more food fussiness at 5 years.”
#3 Confidence
No more second-guessing yourself (or your child) when they tell you they’re hungry 20 minutes after lunch! Mealtime structure and routine eliminates the guesswork in your days, especially when combined with the Division of Responsibility in feeding.
#4 Health Habits
A relatively set schedule gives your child consistent opportunities to practice great mealtime habits and to build a healthy relationship with food.
#5 Better Appetites
Proper meal and snack times prevent all-day grazing and in doing so, they help regulate your child’s appetite. (Worried that your child is eating too much/too little? Click here.)
If you’re thinking that all of these benefits sound pretty amazing, you’re in luck! Over the next few posts, I’m going to share the 4 essential steps to enjoying the perks of structure and routine in your own home.
Today’s post is the why: it will touch on everything you need to know about why you should incorporate structure and routine into mealtimes. Then, the next three posts will be all about the how. Specifically, I’ll be sharing tried-and-true tips for each of these steps, so that you know how to go about creating structure, establishing a routine, and making a feeding schedule that works for your children, no matter what age and life stage they’re at!
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Step 1: Building The Foundation
Mealtime structure is rooted in the Division of Responsibility approach to feeding (sDOR), where both parent and child each have their own clearly defined roles.
If you’ve been following along for a while, you likely already know that the parent is responsible for what food is offered, as well as when and where it’s offered-- and here’s the key: that’s all they’re responsible for. That means the child is solely responsible for if, whether, and how much they eat.
(If you’re new to sDOR, click here to read a more in-depth explanation of this.)
Parent’s Role:
What is offered
When food is offered
Where food is offered
Child’s Role:
If/whether they eat
How much they eat
Should be pretty simple, right? They eat from what you offer, when you offer it, wherever you offer it. And if they choose not to eat, they wait.
But in practice, it’s not always that easy.
Step 2: Creating Structure
Even when we know our roles well, we can end up compromising on our feeding values because of our kids’ attitudes towards mealtimes or our own fear that they’ll go hungry.
Feeding Temperaments
When you’re ready to create more structure, start by reflecting on your child’s feeding temperament:
If your child wants to leave the table early, do you let them? Are they allowed to return later? Can they finish their food at another time? Do they want to sit on your lap? Do they need the iPad in order to eat?
These temperaments all stem from your child taking control over what, when, and where they eat because they weren’t clear on the fact that this is actually your job!
So even though these behaviors are common, as you set out to create and maintain mealtime structure, they’re going to have to change. From now on, if they choose not to eat what, where, and when you offer food, then they’ll just have to wait for the next meal or snack time to fill their bellies.
Structure & Hunger
As parents, it’s our job to nourish our kids, right? So how can it be a good idea to let them starve?!
I understand where this fear comes from, but I want you to remember that there’s a big difference between being hungry and actually starving. Hunger is a good, and very important, biological sensation that we need to tune into. It doesn’t hurt us, it just tells us we need to eat.
When regular, reliable meals and snacks are offered, it’s good to give your child child the opportunity to tune into their hunger. This is in no way the same thing as you letting them starve.
The bottom line? In order to create structure, you’ll need to take back your role in the feeding relationship by managing your fear of hunger and starting to gently enforce a food schedule. Click here for more on exactly how to do this!
Step 3: Establishing Routine
Now that you have a sense of how and why to establish structure, you can use what you know to start creating routine.
A routine is a daily schedule that allows you to be structured but also to stay relatively flexible, because life doesn’t happen exactly the same way each day.
Work towards a schedule that offers a meal or snack every 2-3 hours, to help your child regulate their appetite. And remember, by doing this you are not starving your child!
Establishing a routine requires some preparation. You can expect it to take around two weeks for a child who’s used to eating on-demand to fully accept it, but it’s totally worth it in the end! Click here for more on how to establish routine effectively.
Step 4: Making a Feeding Schedule
To create a feeding schedule that accounts for your child’s unique needs, their age, and their stage in life, you’ll want to ask yourself questions like:
Do you use feedings to soothe right now?
Are you dealing with awake/asleep times?
Is mobility a concern in feeding?
Are behaviors like tantrums and boundary-pushing an issue?
Does your child have set activities and schedules?
Are they going out with friends?
Does their routine change depending on the day of the week?
In this post, I teach you how to make feeding schedules for children of all ages using my 6 simple steps. After reading it, you’ll walk away with a schedule that works with your child’s life (or your children’s lives) instead of creating big obstacles, and you’ll free yourself from having to make feeding decisions in real-time multiple times a day!
Stay tuned!
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