It`s a well-known fact that food to a child should be as visually appealing as it should be tasty. Here`s how you can make mealtimes fun for your kid. Simply cooked, nutritious meals are arranged in recognizable, picture book shapes and patterns - often helped by the use of cookie cutters and moulds - to encourage your child to eat well. You can make foods look appealing with very little
effort.

Don`t spend too much of your time creating elaborate arrangements or you`ll feel even more depressed and resentful when pieces are thrown on the floor. Instead treat these shapes as a catalogue of ideas to encourage your child to enjoy eating, to
try new foods and to have fun at mealtimes.

The following recipes will help you with some wonderful shapes and ideas based on finger foods for children upward of 9 months.

Each meal is nutritionally balanced and in most cases can be adapted from the foods
you use and prepare for the rest of the family.

You can serve a diluted fruit juice or, better still water, if your child is thirsty, with
meal.

Text: Rehana Khambaty

Image: Flickr/creativecommons ranahki