Children are fussy eaters? Untrue, how to condition and transition for child to table foods

People are always amazed how I can cook so many meals in 45mins - cooking for myself and maid, my 3yr old and 9mth old. Technically speaking there are 3 different groups of people I need to cook for but  I only treat them as 2 groups. 1 group eats my food and the only other person differently is my9mth old.

A few days ago, I explained how I multitask cooking in 45mins. I explained how I prepared the next night's dinner, the night before. But the main secret to my ability of multitasking cooking is because I have conditioned and trained my toddler to eat whatever I eat since she was able to eat proper food at 10-11mths.

I didn't have the luxury then when my current 3.5yr old was 9mths old. At that time, I was single-handedly raising her alone. I didn't have time to prepare a separate meal for her or we would be eating out wherever was convenient for me to grab food for myself whilst running around working like crazy. Also, I was selfish, I didn't want to sacrifice the type of meals I would be having nor did I want to waste money ordering another separate dish altogether.

So my baby would eat whatever I would eat. How? This may sound gross but I would order any dish I wanted except spicy ones and mash/puree the food ala caveman style - put it in my mouth, bite it down so it is soft and mashy and then put it into a teaspoon and feed it to my baby. If it wasn't this, then I would breastfeed her under a breast cover.

I would feed her lots of vege, fish, chicken and rice or pasta, chewed and mashed in my mouth and then transferred to her. I did this because I have heard stories from many mothers whereby their babies/toddlers would chew then spit food out or didn't like eating or had problems sitting down still to eat or were fussy eaters.

I knew in my condition as a single mum and being extremely busy working a sometimes 24-hour job that I couldn't afford to have such a situation.

Friends and public were disgusted by what I did but I ignored all their expressions as I felt that what I was doing and my logic for doing so were right. I felt that if my child experiences various tastebuds from young then she would have a great appetite for a huge variety of food.

I continued doing so and as she grew older, my friends would feed her anything and everything as long as it is softer, smaller  and not so dry. As she grew up, everyone was impressed that she would eat sashimi, raw vege, pate, foie gras, all fruits including Durian - the Asian king of fruit which even I can't stand the smell of, truffle oil, plain rice, pasta, pesto - well she eats almost practically anything from any cultural background.

Occasionally she tries to be stubborn and not want to try something new, but I have always praised her tremendously every time she ate something new and I would remind her how much I would love her and praise he if she just tried. Every time I say that, she will try and 98% of the time, she will realize that she loves eating it regardless.

Also I make eating fun. As she grows older, I multitask eating time with education. We bring out all the different sensors - taste, smell, sight, touch, hear. How?

Sight - I always talk to her about the color and how the food looks, sometimes if I am able to, I create a visual or face out of the food. So I rearrange it for her to see and for her to look at and laugh at and respond.

Smell - We will always smell the food 1st before we eat and I will discuss with her the various smells.

Touch & Hear - I will encourage her to touch the food (depending on what type of food whether it's using her fingers or her spoon) and certain food like crackers, I encourage her to crack them with her fingers to hear the cracking sound so it'll make her happy or impressed and then she can eat it.

Taste - finally everything ends with the taste. Once she tastes the food, I will praise her and clap so she gets really happy.

She has grown up to eat better than most adults, less fussy than most people or babies/toddlers and she eats food varying from super healthy foods to of course event junk food.

My 3 year old voluntarily eats fetta cheese for the 1st time and loves it. 

She loves to eat salad on her own

The other night, she ate almost half of my salad and for the 1st time, she saw fetta cheese and she didn't even ask me what it was, she stuffed it straight in her mouth. Immediately, she told me she loves it and ended up eating half a tub of fetta cheese on her own. A lot of people I know don't fancy fetta but my 3.5yr old thinks its the bomb now.

I hope my tips on trying to raise a non-fussy child helps mothers out there!