‘I feed my toddler dinner when she wakes from her afternoon nap, highly recommend’

A mother of four is being called a “genius” for potentially cracking the code to getting kids to eat their veggies.

Getting kids to eat a well-rounded diet can be one of the most frustrating parts of parenting.

Dinnertime with toddlers rarely goes off without some complaints, food flying or flat-out refusals to eat.

One Aussie mum thinks she’s worked out a way to make dinner as smooth as possible - by bringing it way forward in the day.

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Aimee serves up a 3pm dinner for her two youngest kids. Source: TikTok @aimeelco

"They're hungry, happy to feed themselves"

NSW mum-of-four Aimee Connor has gained a following of more than 500,000 people on TikTok with her parenting hacks, relatable chats and easy recipes.

In one video this week, she shared one of her favorite tricks for beating the dinner time battle and people are calling her a “genius” for it.

“I feed my toddler dinner when she wakes from her afternoon nap. It’s the optimal time in my opinion to feed a toddler,” she says in the clip which has been viewed 141,000 times.

She then lists why a 3pm dinner is a winner.

“They are hungry, they’re not in a shitty mood, they’re quite happy to feed themselves, they are willing to participate in any activity after an afternoon nap, so why can’t it be dinner?”

Aimee Connor loves an early dinner for her four kids. Source: TikTok @aimeelco

Younger two get a second 'meal'

Aimee also decides to feed her one-year-old son, and they are both done dinner before sunset.

 “It’s four o'clock, both babies have full bellies, with vegetables, all the nutrients,” she says.

The busy mum then moves on to making dinner for her two older daughters, and her and her husband.

She explains her two youngest children will sit with them and eat a snack.

“The babies will sit up with us, and have like a second dinner, they don’t eat much but they sit with us,” she says.

Like most things with kids, dinner didn’t go entirely to plan, and they ended up splitting up the kids. Aimee had a relatively peaceful dinner with just two kids - while her husband sat with the other two downstairs.

Other mums also feed dinner way before bed

Other parents in the comments commented that the idea was “genius” and a “queen” for the idea, while many said they had always done similar with their children.

“I feed my kids as soon as they get home from school or daycare,” one mum wrote.

A second said, “It wasn’t unusual in my house that dinner was ready when the kids got home from school up until their late teens! They snacked later but ate their dinner.”

Another parent admitted, “I do this sometimes, we just give a good snack later before bed and it's fine.”

Someone else shared, “Love it. I used to always make dinner super early for my son when he was younger. Then snacks later if he wanted something before bed”.

Originally published as ‘I feed my toddler dinner when she wakes from her afternoon nap, highly recommend’