How to get your children to eat their greens... make a song and dance about it!!

 Getting Children to eat their '5 a day' is no easy task, but it is one that's on most mothers minds at mealtimes! I am quite lucky that both my son Benjamin, who is four and my daughter Elizabeth, who has just turned one really enjoy eating a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, but I do know that's it's not so easy for everyone! I have friends that go to great lengths to 'hide' vegetables in their children's meals! But why should we be trying to trick our children into eating healthily? Surely we want them to grow up choosing to eat well?

Recent research commissioned by organic baby food manufacturers Ella's Kitchen, reveals that toddlers who use all their senses to 'play' with vegetables outside of mealtimes are more likely to eat them than those who don't. The study found that toddlers who experienced new vegetables through sight, smell. sound and touch before actually tasting were much more willing to eat them! This rings true in my experience, as being a vegetarian, I cook with a wide variety of vegetables and we have organic veg boxes delivered on a regular basis, as well as growing some in the garden, which Benjamin loves helping with! I do like to think that this has contributed towards his healthy eating habits!

The research mentioned above recommends using all the senses to introduce fruit and vegetables to your children. Some great ideas for this are getting out in the garden and growing a small vegetable patch together, cooking and preparing food together, playing with 'toy' fruit and vegetables (there are some adorable wooden sets available these days) and telling stories and singing about different types of fruit and veg!

To give Mummies a helping hand the lovely folks at Ella's Kitchen have teamed up with Celeb Mum Rachel Stevens to record 5 'tasty tunes' set to the melody of popular nursery rhymes! These include In the fruit bowl, on the tree, Yummy, yummy, yum! Eat to make you Feel good, Veggie Hokey Cokey and Fruit and veg are great to eat! Each song has been specially written to get tiny taste buds excited about munching and crunching on healthy fruit and veg and all five of these are free to Download from Ellaskitchen.co.uk!

We have been listening to these this week and think they're great! Ben has now learnt most of the words and sings along while Elizabeth has started bopping away when they come on, which is so cute! Our personal favourite is the 'Veggie Hokey Cokey' which is rather catchy (I caught myself singing it to myself on the bus the other day!) Ben has been teaching Elizabeth the actions too!

I think this is a lovely idea, and will will continue to listen and bop away to them! Hopefully they will help Elizabeth develop the same healthy attitude to fruit and veg that Benjamin has.

Don't forget that if you're not already signed up as a 'friend' of Ella's Kitchen by signing up here not only are you able to download these fab songs but you can also get a free weaning guide, a voucher for 50p off New Nibbly Fingers, plus the chance to get a fab free TerraCycle lunchbag!

So why not have a listen and and a dance with your little ones to Yummy, Yummy, Yum! or the Veggie Hokey Cokey and let me know what you think?

Competition to win Germ Defense Placemats from Tredykid!

Competition now closed! The ten lucky Mummies are....

Congratulations please email your address details to mymummyspennies@gmail.com and I will pass them on to the lovely folks at simplylily/trendy kid! If you like the idea of these fab placemats please take a luck at the new facebook page for TrendyKid here. They have lots of other great products and will be giving away pacimals to 3 of their lovely likers! 

Watch this space for a review and giveaway of the fabulous Lilypadz coming in the next few days...

Mummies you will probably know from reading my posts that I breastfeed my daughter Elizabeth. I really love feeding her and will continue to do so for as long as possible. There are many breastfeeding products that I have found invaluable over the last nine months; however one breastfeeding essential that I don't get on with very well is the breastpad! I hate 'disposables' for many reasons, but don't find the cotton washable ones are absorbent enough! I recently discovered a different type of breastpad called Lilypadz and I will be sharing a review and giveaway with you very soon!

In the meantime Trendy Kid, (the UK Distributors for Lilypadz) have offered Mymummyspennies readers the chance to win one of ten packs of the fantastic 100% biodegradable Germ Defence Placemats!

Germ Defence Placemats are a fabulous idea! How often when eating out do you worry about your children eating from a table that may not have been thoroughly cleaned? These not only stop you worrying about those hidden germs, but also entertain the little ones at mealtimes too! These handy placemats are made from environmentally biodegradable calcium material, they stick down & wrap around the table edge and act like waterproof paper but can be coloured on! They come in a pack of 20 along with four triangular anti-roll crayons! All for just £5.99!

And we have ten packs of these up for grabs!!

For your chance to win pop over to www.facebook.com/simplylily 'like' their page and share with them your top weaning tip! Then come back here and comment with a way of contacting you (fb name, twitter id or email address)

You must comment on Simplylily's wall AND on here for your entry to be valid!

10 Winners will be picked at random on 11th September 2011.

t's and c's

• winners will be selected by random draw
• open to residents of UK only.
• Facebook is in no way affiliated with this competition.
• If the winners do not contact me within 3 days of their name being chosen another winner will be drawn.
• Competition will close 9pm 11td September 2011..
• Only entries that have complied with the rules of entry will be valid.

The Fabulous Coolfan - A Mummy Saving Buy!

The Coolfan was designed by a dad who got fed-up standing outside blowing on his impatient daughter’s food. It's an award winning funky fan that cools food quickly and hygienically.

Benefits of the Coolfan include...

Hygienic - Blowing on food is a well-known method of transferring bacteria via saliva.

Hands-Free - Giving the adults time to dish-up their meal while their children's food is cooling.

High-speed - Quickly getting food to a safe edible temperature preventing hot-spots and scalding.

Fun! - Helps picky eaters by providing a welcomr diversion. Let the kids cool their own food!

The lovely Mark, creator of the Coolfan kindly sent Mymummyspennies an Izzy coolfan to review.

I loved the idea of this funky new gadget. I have an almost 4 year and an 8 month old who both LOVE their food and get very impatient when it's waiting to cool! When the Coolfan arrived and Ben saw me taking it out of the box, he was immediately fascinated and asked what it was. When I told him it was a special fan for cooling his food he got very excited and couldn't wait for dinner time!

The fan we were sent was the IZZY, the website describes this design as the cool, calm and sophisticated member of the team with a laid back style. The IZZY has a funky purple hat and is a great design that will appeal to both girls and boys alike! There are three other designs available to choose from and they can all be found on the website here.

The fan unit itself is in a plastic 'head' with a small easy to use switch at the back, the hat unscrews to replace the batteries and the blades that are attached to the bottom of the 'head' are actually made of foam so if inquisitive little fingers get in the way they wont be hurt! The base of the unit is a good size so different plates easily fit on it and my daughters baby bowls fit perfectly in the middle. The base unit easily detaches from the fan so that it can be cleaned separately and then simply pops back in when your ready to use it again! The unit requires 2x AAA batteries and these are provided with it.

So at dinner time (slightly earlier that day as Ben just couldn't wait!) I served up Ben's steaming Tuna Pasta on to a plate and placed it under the Coolfan. Instead of the usual moans of I'm hungry, can I have it now? Is it ready yet? Both Ben and Elizabeth (looking on from her highchair) were fascinated by Izzy and watched it with interest. It worked perfectly and in only a minute or two the food was the ideal temperature for Ben to tuck in to!

Because I didn't have to stand over the plate blowing (like I usually do) I was able to sort out drinks and dish up Elizabeth's dinner while the little ones were watching Izzy! I then cooled her's down with the fan too! After I had cleared up the plates I couldn't believe that we had had a meal time without a single moan or whinge from either of them! I could get used to this!

Another time I have found this product to be invaluable is when making Elizabeths breakfast, I often giver her porridge that has to be mixed with boiled water and of course this usually takes ages to cool down, so now I simply mix the porridge with the hot boiled water and pop it under IZZY to cool while I prepare Ben's cereal.

At first although I thought that the Coolfan was a great idea, I did wonder whether it was one of those gadgets that gets used lots at first and then gets put in the cupboard and forgotten about. But I can assure you it's not! We have now had the Coolfan for a month and we use it everyday, it's simple to use, easy to clean and I get reminded by a certain 3 year old if I forget to get it out (he even made me use it on a salad last week, he kept saying 'It's too hot' and refused to eat it until I had put IZZY over it for a minute!) The only negative point I would say is that it does go through batteries quite quickly (it's on it's third set) but then most fans do and we get an awful lot of use out of it!

The Coolfan retails at £9.99 plus P&P and is well worth it! Even if you don't know it yet if you have impatient little ones or fussy eaters, Mummies you need a Coolfan!

Check out the website www.coolfans.co.uk to find out more about the how the concept came about and to choose which one to buy!