One small change can lead to much bigger changes

Are meal times a chore with little ones? Here are some things that have helped us. 

• Make faces in breakkie, snacks, lunch and dinner with dried fruit and veggi bits. I really have found the enjoyment factor from this fuels an appetite. Children get very excited when “eating eyes”.
• Sit down and eat together as a family. The minute we started doing this, our boys have started eating a ton more vegetables. I witnessed them gobble up asparagus the other day. Kids really just want to be like you. The more you include them in your actions the more likely they are to follow suite. Children mirror you. You are their everything.
• Avoid microwave food. Research shows microwaves destroy a lot of vital nutrients and growing kiddies need as much as they can get. Not only that- the taste of microwaved food just cannot compare to the taste of a fresh meal.
• Avoid following your child around with a spoon to try and make her eat. This does not end well. Sit him down in a baby chair as soon as he starts solids and let him get used to the idea of being seated at every meal time or snack time. Teach them to sit and eat no matter where they are. If a baby chair is not available, sit him on your lap or next to you. No one can run around and actually focus on eating at the same time. It is an awful habit to break at a later stage and children who don`t learn this generally are not great eaters. If younger babies starting solids hate the chair, perhaps baby is not ready. Remember that milk/formula is baby`s main source of nutrition until 1 year of age. Solids is only for fun and milk/formula should always be fed thirty minutes before solids.
• Include kids in snack and meal making. There is always something they can do. This is also a total game changer.

• raisins
• nuts
• seeds
• coconut
• coconut milk
• dates
• any type of fruit can be cut up for eyes etc.

Store your goodies in glass bottles and get rid of plastic. Recycle as much as you can. Keep old jam bottles for example. We all have a place here and we are all responsible for the trail we leave behind.

Living a more sustainable life doesn't mean moving to the country and starting a veggie garden. It means making one small change, once a month if that is all you can manage. 

Switching to cloth is one of the most massive contributions you can make, if not for yourselves but for our children. We are all aware that throwing a disposable nappy into a bin takes up to 500 years to decompose- we all know it does not decompose. Even if we use five cloth nappies a day at home, it would reduce the landfill space we are clogging up with our mess. Let`s support the land we live in and respect our place here. 

Some things to look at where small changes can be made that are very manageable:

• Using cloth nappies as much as is possible for you
• Creating a compost bin/hole in the garden.
• Recycling 
• Reusing old milk bottles, tubs, butter tubs etc to make simple toys or crafts for kids (Pintrest is your friend). Plastic toys are often used for a very short period and pile up and end up in a landfill. 
• Save water by avoiding running the tap endlessly. Leave a bowl to catch water and give it to the plants.
• Teach your children about our environment. Get kids to take a walk and clean up litter in your street. Fun for everyone and kills time before bed.