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Your question is "How do I get kids to eat?" Age-old question, right? Most of the kids that come into my daycare have developed a lot of bad habits at home or at their previous daycare that I need to break in order to get them to eat healthy and to eat a wide variety of foods.

I start very slowly. At first, I let the child tell me that they don't like the things I put on their plate and I don't make them eat anything they don't want to eat. After several days of being at my daycare, when they are eating something they do like and ask for more, I say sure, just eat one of those green beans, or whatever it is on the plate that they won't eat, and I'll go get more. Eat one green bean eventually turns into you have to eat your vegetables in order to get seconds. All my kids have to finish their milk before they're allowed down from the table. I also allow every child one item that they absolutely can't stand and I won't even make them try it. Once they get this opt-out option, they usually don't even use it.

I think one thing that works at getting the new kids in my daycare to eat is seeing all the other children eating whats put in front of them. I have a rule at my table that you don't announce what you don't like. I'm sure you've seen situations where one child announces he doesn't like something and then all of a sudden nobody likes that item. If they don't like an item, they just leave it and I will let them know before they leave the table if they are required to taste it or not.

Another factor at getting kids to eat is keeping it all very casual. You said your kids will only eat macaroni and cheese so they've gotten into a bad habit already. You will have very frustrating times introducing new foods, but just do it. Don't give in. Don't get frustrated. Just keep moving forward. Even if you dump a whole meal in the garbage, keep serving healthy food. If macaroni and cheese is not an option, they will learn to eat the other food.

I don't know if you've read it, but there is a page on the website regarding feeding picky eaters: Feeding a Picky Eater