Toddlers love to “help” you do just about anything in the kitchen.

As much as possible, include your little one in meal preparation because the cooperation, fine motor skill, and sensory input involved in cooking is food for a toddler’s brain.

Cooking with a toddler, however, gives new meaning the cooking phrase “slow food.” Most often, you could finish a meal much quicker on your own, so up front you need to see cooking with your child as an opportunity to bond and learn. You may also find that your toddler will be more likely to try something new if he or she has helped to make it. You might want to make cooking together a Friday night special. Whether you work together in the kitchen every night or every now and again, here are some ideas:

• Include your child in simple decisions about what to have with dinner. For example, you could ask, “Should we have rice or noodles tonight?” Or “We can have either broccoli or green beans. Which one?” Keep the options simple and few to avoid struggles and frustrations.

• Keep some staple food items in places where your little one can reach. Later when you are getting out ingredients for the meal, ask him to bring you an item. Keep the instructions to one item until you know your child can follow more than one step at a time.

When it comes to actually cooking, here are a few suggestions:

• Allow your child to break spaghetti noodles in half over a large bowl. Often toddlers don’t want to stop at half and will break the pasta into little bits. No problem. Pasta is cheap. Let him help out and sneak your actual noodles for dinner into the pot.
• Keep some soft items on hand that your child can cut with a butter knife. Canned potatoes and carrots work well. Cooked pasta and cucumber does too.
• When you finish using an item, such as a spoon or bowl, ask your child to put it in the sink. Or likewise, put an empty package or can in the trash. You will be surprise how important this makes him feel.
• While you are cooking, fill the kitchen sink with sudsy water and let your child wash some non-breakable dishes (even if they aren’t dirty). Just keep a towel and a dry shirt handy for when it comes time to eat.
• Keep play dough handy. When there just isn’t something that your little one can do, set him up with some of your cooking tools and let him work next to you with the play dough. You can always put some of his creations on the table.

Hopefully, these ideas will get you started because once you start you will soon discover your own ways to include your child in meal preparation, and then you will experience the joy of cooking…with children. Bon appétit.

By Anne Oxenreider

(Thanks to Audrey for the pictures of her cooking with her daddy - In the Kitchen with Audrey)

You may also be interested in...

• Introducing new foods to toddlers
• Toddlers can sometimes be a challenge at mealtime and introducing new foods can be a daunting.
• more

• Mealtime routines (ages 1-2)
• Mealtime is a time for families to gather together, share and have fun!
• more