Utilising every other weekend

Fairy_Michelle

Back to your original post Big Cook Little Cook on https://www.cbeebies.co.uk has fun recipies and activities for toddlers about food.
Michelle

Bun

Yes, Big Cook Little Cook is fab! There is a dvd and a recipe book.It also shows you where a lot of food comes from.
It sounds as if you are doing a great job, and putting a lot of thought into your time with him. Even if you do nothing else this will rub off. And do bear in mind that if you widen his experiences with food this is a long term lifeskill - he will be able to utilise this later when he has a choice of foods in places other than home - he will know there is more than sausage and chips to choose from. Not that there is anything wrong with home made chips and good butcher's sausages or sausage casserole....

Annabel Karmel uses loads of herbs and spices in moderation.I used a lot of her recipes together with stuff we like, and my son (22months) adores anything with garlic in (spag bol,lamb with cous cous etc). As he loves a tomato and garlic sauce, I often try new things in with this first and then gradually reduce/seperate it so he can eat it on it's own. If he's still not keen at least you can get subliminal ingredients into them by combining and hiding them. Often it's the texture of new things children don't like, rather than the taste.

purplepatch

Similar situation in our household as stepson stays every other weekend - he's nearly 8 and this arrangement has existed since he was 2.

We've now got our own nearly 3 year old daughter and she is just beginning to know her letters and numbers - she can pick out the letters that mean something, ie first letter of her name, brother's name, M for mummy, D for daddy, G for grandma/pa, N for nanny etc and the list expands daily. She has wooden numbers and alphabet puzzles from early learning centre which are very good for letter recognition. Also aquadraw by tomy I think, has all the letters around the outside and it isn't messy either as you draw with a pen that is filled with water - disappears as it dries.

I spend quite a lot of time doing activities with her, but she's very interested and actively encourages me to do so - I'd imagine it would be hard if not impossible to do it if the child doesn't show much interest. We also have a CD, again from elc, of counting songs which is very popular with her at the moment, although is beginning to drive me slightly mad :rolleyes:

With stepson, I like you had no experience of kids and we just muddled along really. Maybe try some puzzles but don't be surprised that he's forgotten it all by the following fortnight -my stepson even at his age forgets stuff we've talked about the previous fortnight!! If he is lacking attention at home, then you can only do the best you can with the time available to you and it is worth persevering. Some of it will go in and as he gets older he will retain it better.

We've also found over the years that unless what is happening at home is actually harmful, then it's better to turn a blind eye and just make sure that while he is at yours he has nourishing food and a sensible bedtime - 7pm sounds perfect. It's obviously not the ideal situation, but from experience the arguments and bad feeling that either party criticising the other's methods can cause are usually more damaging to the child in the long run.