My husband and I got on the health nut train and now it was time to get Noah on board. Matt and I wanted to feed Noah very healthy from the moment he was born. He was not allowed any sweets until his first Birthday. I was very anal about it, despite being obese myself. I just knew that I never wanted my son to have the same issues with food that I had. As more and more foods were introduced to his palate, it became more difficult to feed him his fruits and veggies. We still hardly gave Noah sweets or candy. Instead he had processed, dyed snacks like granola bars, gold fish, fruit snacks, and yogurt, which at the time I thought were okay. But some days would go by and he had not eaten a vegetable, and if he had, it was microwaved frozen veggies. Even his fruit intake had gone down, and he was also drinking up to 5 cups of milk a day! He hated to drink water. We would have to dilute 1-2oz of juice in water. His whole diet was not terrible, but even then not having the knowledge I do now, knew that it could be better.
My husband and I are both VERY stubborn people and Noah inherited it two fold! I am not exaggerating in the least! I am hoping God will utilize it for good one day. There is no tricking this child either, because I have tried and have been unsuccessful. He is as smart and witty (and loving and cute and humorous, and creative....Now I'm being a mom!) as he is stubborn! So getting him to eat more raw was hell! Our first step was to switch him to almond milk and have him drink more water. He would rather dehydrate than drink almond milk. We are still struggling with this first step. We now allow him chocolate almond milk 2 times a day, sometimes diluted with original almond milk. He is also drinking water more often. We do dilute Naked Juice with his water now instead of the processed stuff. We have made great progress, but still need to make improvements. It is my goal to get him off the chocolate almond milk and into regular almond milk as well as drinking more water, but it is much better than before.
Getting him to eat better has been easy...er than getting him to drink better. He has organic cereal with almond milk for breakfast. In addition, he has 1-2 of my smoothies a day, fresh fruits throughout the day, and processed food is minimal. The one packaged snack he has is 1 Nature Valley bar (comes 2 per package) in the afternoon. Dinners can be a struggle sometimes, but He eats what we make him. I don't run a restaurant and I don't offer a menu, so he eats what I put in front of him. There were definitely fights at the beginning and even still now, but they are not as often. He is enjoying the food more, even my lentil soup and almonds! We just got him coconut yogurt and he devoured it. We switched his peanut butter to organic non-processed and non-homogenized and he loves it. It's easy when we do not even have bad food options and snacks in the house, because now he won't ask for it. He actually begs me to give him more fruit.
I knew that this process was going to be hard, but I knew that my son was capable. If I was able to change as an adult, then he should be able to as a child. Since he has started to eat this way, I noticed his behavior change for the better too. He is still an active, stubborn, three-year-old boy, but he is not bouncing of the walls...as much! I am so proud of us all for getting healthy, especially my little man!
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