[Quiteria]

At one point when dh was home (maybe this was during a layoff?) I remember quitting, just quitting and letting him take over meal prep and execution. I did laundry and everything else, but I just couldn't. I wonder if I was pregnant, like 1st trimester? It was a long time ago. Whenever it was, it helped recharge me and helped him understand, though I don't recommend it as a long term solution.

My current solution is to make the biggest batches I can manage, in hopes of leftovers. I rotate through meals that please different people, and I try to keep some staples in the freezer for my pickiest eaters. If you don't like what I've made today, you can fix yourself some leftovers from the meal you liked yesterday or something we've frozen from before, or make pbj, etc. That way, I'm still making a variety, but only cooking once. The extra work of substitution is on the child being picky. I also try to think about sides pleasing the kids who are left out, if it's a meal with sides instead of one-dish.

Depending on where a child is at, I may require them to help make a disliked food, have a spoonful on their plate, smell it, touch it, lick it, chew it, swallow a bite....however far they can get. Some of them cannot even remotely handle the task of swallowing a disliked food without gagging, so the one-bite rule has never worked....seeing it on the plate, smelling it, or licking it with permission to spit and get a drink might be as far as we can get for the time being. I've explained that repeated exposure will help them learn to tolerate and eventually like more foods, and that sometimes they'll even like something right away, and that continuing to try is necessary because otherwise their food list will just get narrower as they tire of things. But I don't force them to actually eat, b/c the sensory issues are too much...they really gag on anything outside their comfort zone. So, I make it for other people to normalize it, and let them observe people eating it, and gradually experience in minimal ways.

---------- Post added at 10:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 PM ----------

I haven't started yet, but I'm hoping to work on the Once-and-for-all Meal Plan by the Psychowith6 blog. (Pyschologist currently SAHM with 6 kids).

Main idea is to list everything you already eat and make comfortably, and shape that into a meal plan. Leave some days to try new things, but start with what you're already doing. Change gradually as desired.