How to improve your child's appetite

A child's appetite is often changeable. Just yesterday the baby happily devoured everything his mother offered him on both cheeks, but today he refuses to eat. Sometimes this is a temporary phenomenon and goes away on its own. However, if such behavior at the table becomes systematic, action must be taken. Our article will help you understand the reasons for lack of appetite in children and tell you how to improve it.

Why does my child eat poorly?

The reasons that a baby may refuse to eat can range from harmless whims to serious digestive problems. And it is very important to identify them correctly and on time.

The objective reason is illnesses. During this period, such behavior of the baby is absolutely natural, because any person who feels unwell does not want to eat. It all depends on the type of disease:

• If this ARVI, flu, a reaction to teething, accompanied by a high temperature, then you just need to wait until the baby feels better and the appetite returns on its own.
• If you have an upset stomach or intestinal infection, you need to restore the body and the desire to eat requires a special diet.
• In case of problems associated with the digestive system and gastrointestinal tract, the child may refuse certain foods and dishes, because after eating them, he experiences discomfort or even pain. Here you need to immediately consult a doctor to prescribe the correct treatment and a suitable diet.

Next, we will consider a number of other reasons that arise as a result of erroneous actions of parents:

• The consistency of food, its quantity and method of preparation do not correspond to age standards and tastes of a little gourmet.
• There is no daily routine, which means that the diet is automatically disrupted. Therefore, the stomach often does not have time to digest the previous portion of food, which means the child does not feel hungry.
• Frequent snacking.
• Overexcited state of the child before eating.
• It happens that children are forced to eat by force, through threats, blackmail, and are scolded for making a mess while eating. In this case, they either instinctively protest and do not eat, or are simply afraid to sit down at the table.
• Sometimes during the feeding process the baby is distracted with cartoons so that he eats everything. However, at this moment his brain is distracted from food and the digestion process is disrupted.
• As you know, in the heat of summer, both adults and children need more water than food.

How to increase your child's appetite

Eliminating or adjusting all of the above reasons will help improve your baby’s appetite.

• Follow your daily routine and diet. Little kids They don’t yet know how to tell time using a clock, so their guide is a clear schedule of actions during the day. The baby’s body gets used to it and, out of habit, begins to feel hungry at certain hours.
• Avoid snacking. Only drinks can be left. However, give your child too sweet juices or compotes an hour and a half before meals, not later, as they cause a false feeling of fullness.
• First time make a menu from his favorite foods, or provide the opportunity to choose from several dishes. At the same time, make the serving size a little smaller and decorate it in an original way.
• Gradually offer to try new foods, even just one spoonful at a time. For a new product to be approved, you will have to make at least 10 attempts.
• Too active games and violent emotions suppress appetite, so 15-20 minutes before meals, try to calm the child down a little.
• Under no circumstances force children to eat, and do not scold them for refusal. Try the following tactics. At lunchtime, invite your child to the table with everyone else; if he doesn’t want to, then invite him again when everyone has already finished the meal. If the answer is “no” again, he will have to remain hungry until the afternoon snack without snacks. Perhaps after this he will be the first to run to the next meal and eat every last crumb.
• While eating, you should strictly exclude all entertainment, be it TV or computer. This rule should apply to all family members, because it is not for nothing that they say that children are a reflection of their parents.

Vitamins to improve appetite

It often happens that loss of appetite in children occurs due to a lack of vitamins in the body. For this reason, the work of all internal organs is disrupted, and it may simply not cope with the food that the child eats. Hence the lack of desire to eat.

Therefore, as soon as you notice a systematic refusal to eat, accompanied by lethargy, fatigue, sleep disorder you need to consult a doctor immediately. He will prescribe all the necessary tests to identify which vitamins are missing. And then he will recommend the most optimal complex and dosage for your case. After taking a course of multivitamins, appetite usually returns to normal.

The most important vitamins for children are A, C, B1, B2, B6, B12, and ascorbic acid. This means you need to pay special attention to the products that contain them and try to include them in your baby’s diet.

Among children's vitamin complexes, of which there are many on the market today, the most popular are Pikovit, Elkar, and Vitrum Kids.