Dinner with toddlers and young preschoolers can be a notoriously challenging experience. Over the years, we’ve tackled the subject in a number of posts, including Dr. Anne Fishel’s advice on How to Make Your Toddler an Adventurous Eater and Cooperative Diner, and this relatable pandemic-era article about managing lockdown dinners with a two-year-old. But there are lots of good reasons why parents may still shy away from trying to manage meals with toddlers at the table. The most common challenges — and the possible solutions — boil down to these “three T’s” of eating with toddlers.

Timing

Dr. Anne Fishel points out that the timing of family dinner is often all wrong, as far as toddlers are concerned. “Toddlers tend to be hungry by late afternoon, when parents are just unwinding from their workdays and may not yet be ready to eat,” she says. Of course, that’s to say nothing of the fact that in many families, parents are rushing in the door later in the evening, fresh from daycare pickup with tired and hungry little ones in tow.

Many parents choose not to eat dinner as a family when their kids are small, precisely because the timing is such a challenge. Here are some solutions that may offer a compromise:

• Dr. Fishel suggests treating toddler dinners as an “appetizer” opportunity for parents. For example, if you’re feeding the little ones earlier than the rest of the family, everyone can sit together to enjoy part of the toddler meal, like cheese and fruit. That provides a chance to connect, model positive eating behaviors, and have a short family dinner experience to benefit the toddlers.
• If you’re typically rushed at the end of the day and really need to just get something into toddler bellies while taking care of other portions of the household routine, try flipping the timetable and making family breakfast a priority instead, or setting aside weekend lunchtimes to eat all together.
• Some families may benefit from thinking carefully about the choice of foods, to minimize cooking time and stress so everyone can eat together after the end-of-day rush. You might set aside a few nights a week to prioritize eating with your toddlers, and on those days, decide to serve something super quick and basic for everyone — grilled cheese sandwiches and canned soup, macaroni and cheese, or one of these 20 No-Fail Dinners are all fast choices. Or you could pack a cold picnic-style dinner the night before or early in the morning, and have it ready to go in the refrigerator.

Tastes

Although it’s common for toddlers to be selective eaters, the real “picky eating” of childhood typically happens closer to preschool and early elementary ages. Your two-year-old may go on food jags or seem to be able to exist on a steady diet of air and the occasional handful of crackers, but all in all, toddlers are usually more curious about trying new foods than kids between the ages of 4 and 8. That’s why so many parents can commiserate about an eighteen-month-old who happily ate salmon or curry, but by kindergarten would only tolerate a specific brand of mac and cheese for lunch.

To capitalize on toddlers’ receptiveness to new foods while also balancing their totally unpredictable whims, here are a few things you can try:

• Eat with your toddlers whenever possible, and serve whatever wide variety of tastes and textures the adults at the table will enjoy (within the bounds of your pediatrician’s advice on introducing foods and your own good sense about things like intense spice levels, of course). Offer 1-2 toddler-friendly “safe foods,” like bread and cheese or yogurt and fruit, as part of the whole menu, so kids get used to seeing new foods alongside the old standbys and can eat something that’s being offered.
• Let toddlers play with food, both at mealtimes and not. A toddler may want to see if they can eat spaghetti with their hands, sip mashed potatoes through a straw, pick up their pizza with chopsticks, or eat their chicken like the family dog (no hands, no utensils, face first). As long as there’s no real safety concern, this kind of exploration is absolutely okay, and may help kids develop a more positive relationship to all kinds of foods. Outside of mealtimes, offering food-based sensory play is a great opportunity to introduce toddlers to different textures and food items without the pressure to eat any of it.
• Deconstruct meals whenever possible, to help make it easier for toddlers to feel in control of their eating choices. Build-your-own meals, like taco nights or baked potato bars, are an easy way to offer lots of different options. But you might also think of separating the parts of a meal into small dishes or a muffin tin — for example, a few pieces of the chicken from your stir-fry might go into one well, with a scoop of the cooked vegetables in the next one, a scoop of rice in another, a few pieces of the raw vegetables in a fourth well, and a tiny portion of the whole thing mixed together in a fifth.

Temperament

Part of what makes eating with toddlers so challenging — and so different, from family to family and even child to child — is the unpredictability of a toddler’s temperament. Some kids are naturally going to be more laid-back and mellow than others; some kids will have a more adventurous palate. But almost all toddlers will have some elements of the curiosity, mobility, activity, and stubbornness that make this age group unique.

Whether you’ve got a go-with-the-flow little one, or an “I do it myself!” kind of kid, here are some things to keep in mind about managing the toddler temperament at mealtimes:

• Get them involved. Dr. Anne Fishel has decades of experience with letting kids into the kitchen, starting with her own sons’ fascination with gadgets and pushing buttons, and now her granddaughter’s desire to help. “As a parent, I loved to involve my sons in a variety of culinary tasks, like dressing the salad or salting the soup,” she says, but admits that she’s more adventurous about letting her toddler grandchild help. “She routinely asks me for the ‘green chair,’ which she knows I’ll pull over to the counter or sink. She likes to crack the eggs and hand me dishes from the dishwasher to put away. I think, as a parent, I would have considered both of those activities a little bit risky (broken shells and dishes!) but being a grandparent has emboldened me to take my cues from her.”  Bottom line: Knives and flames are out for this age group, but their natural drive towards independence and wanting to do what the bigger family members are doing can be a plus, if you’ve got the patience for it.
• Manage your expectations for time at the table. Most toddlers can only sit for a very short period of time before they become restless — one minute per year of age is a common guideline to keep in mind! Dr. Fishel recommends engaging toddlers in doing enjoyable activities at the table outside of meal times, like playing with a stuffed animal or coloring, to help them build the “staying put” muscle. You can also allow some of these activities during dinner, for those moments when sitting nicely and eating their food feels boring. As they get a little older, you can also try to slowly introduce some of our dinner games for preschoolers, or sing a favorite song together, or even read a few pages of a storybook aloud while you eat. Try slowly building up their tolerance for sitting, one minute at a time.
• Reframe your idea of “appropriate” behavior. Toddlers are naturally wiggly creatures! It’s perfectly normal for a little one to need to get up and walk around or get a change of scenery during a meal. That doesn’t mean they can’t ever come back to the table; it just means they may need to move away for a little while and then wander back for another bite or two. When your toddler gets fussy about sitting at the table, you might say something like “Ready to get down for a bit? Okay, let’s wipe your hands and face, and you can play over here where we can see you. Your food will still be here if you feel hungry again!”

The toddler years go quickly, but when you’re in the thick of this phase, it can feel like it lasts forever. Remember that the habits you set up as a family now are the ones you’ll be able to build on as your child grows. Setting the expectation that mealtimes are for everyone to enjoy together, even if they require a little creative compromise and a lot of patience at this age, will put you on the path to many years of connecting around the dinner table — probably with a lot less throwing of food as time goes on!