The ridiculous things that make kids eat.

Once upon a time, our dining table was a place of engaging conversation, glasses of red wine and thoughtfully prepared meals enjoyed fresh from the oven. Then we had kids. Brought to you by Yoplait Petit Miam.

In the baby stage, this made our dining table the place of "shift taking". Suddenly, we were scoffing meals-gone-cold and tag-teaming between rocking and shushing a screaming bundle of joy. But now, in the throws of the toddler years, our dining table has become a theatre filled with spectacular showmanship and hilarious antics all in an attempt to get a fussy eater to take a bite.

These are some of the highlights of the tactics we have used to get our kids to eat ready to be deployed from our dining table to yours. Please note; it's best not to reflect on how you used to be cool and have intelligent things to say before diving into these ego-diminishing strategies.

The Musical: a.k.a the all-singing, all-dancing food introduction spectacular.
Difficulty: 3/5
Resources required: Some mediocre musical ability and / or knowledge of nursery rhymes, jingles, pop-songs and Broadway musicals.

Nothing beats introducing a spoonful of fruit with a loud rendition of "Son of a Peach-er Man." Take it in turns to update your favourite songs with food puns and see which become household hits. Some of our favourites include "We all live in a yellow aubergine", "Heads and shoulders, knees, tomatoes!" and "Sweet dreams are made of cheese…"

The Farm
Difficulty: 4/5
Resources required: Depends on your child's animal knowledge, YouTube may be required for discovering "What noise does a panda make."

Before presenting each spoonful to the little connoisseur, give it an animal identity. "Oh look, here comes a dog… woof, woof, woof." As the child gets the hang of it, you may find yourself being demanded to create a wide variety of animals. Dinners became particularly avant-garde in our home when we found ourselves impersonating many inanimate objects on the demand of our toddler. It turns out two adults can argue over who does a better impression of a carrot.

The Virtual Role-Model
Difficulty: 2/5
Resources required: this requires your child's favourite role model to be a willing participant in boring video-call exchanges- a resource, not easily obtained.

In times of intense fatigue, this never-fail strategy allowed me to sit back and just do the mechanics while my daughter's favourite aunt did the heavy lifting in the dramatization department. Rather simple in execution, it only required calling my sister on FaceTime to pretend to feed her each mouthful before my daughter would accept it. During times that my sister wasn't available, I discovered that "feeding" a photo of her would sometimes suffice. This is how my daughter's high chair table ended up with a crowd of family photos and celebrities cut from magazines adorning her tray-table like a creepy miniature Madame Tussaud's.

The "Self-Driving" Snack
Difficulty: 1/5
Resources required: delicious and enticing snacks that little hands can control themselves.

The most sure fire way to get kids to eat is give them something they are excited about, and can "do it by myself". Yoplait Petit Miam is a snack your little ones can handle themselves and you can feel good about giving them. You might even enjoy enough of a break to exchange a few full sentences with your partner or get to drink a cup of tea while it's still hot.

For more information on Yoplait Petit Miam visit http://www.yoplait.com.au/

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