Does your toddler glance at the dinner you have lovingly prepared and then go back to searching online for the Tele-Tubbies?

If the food on the plate doesn't interest your child you may as well not have bothered. Some children love their food and are quite happy to sit still while you shovel spoonful after spoonful into an appreciative open mouth. Others, however, treat the whole business of eating dinner as an exercise to out-manoeuvre their parents. There is a solution - out-manoeuvre them first!

Here are a few ideas to encourage a spark of interest, but you are only limited by your imagination so get creative and take the stress, and some of the mess, out of mealtimes...

• Serve food on a new and exciting plate every day. Paper plates with party scenes work well. Invest in a few brightly coloured plastic bowls and plates. Many have TV characters printed on them.
• Choose foods in a variety of colours. Red tomatoes, yellow sweetcorn, orange carrots etc; Try mixing a natural food colouring into mashed potatoes. Beetroot juice goes a long way to turn a boring spoon of mashed potato into a pink and creamy delight!
• Create a different look every day. If the potatoes were pink yesterday, make them green today.
• Cut food into shapes. Patterns and pictures can be created directly on the plate, especially with a small dollop of tomato ketchup here and there. Use small biscuit cutters as moulds. Talk about how the patterns change as the food is eaten.
• Try turning off the visuals. TV and computer screens can be too distracting for some children, especially the ones who would rather do anything than sit down and eat their dinner.
• And finally, act as if getting them to eat dinner was the last thing on your mind. Don't try this too often though - the little darlings soon get wise.

One last point ... make sure your toddler is actually hungry. If he or she ate as little as half a biscuit an hour ago, it's possible they are just not hungry enough to be tempted by your gourmet creation.

This content was provided by one of our users, Lianda