The average person eats the same six meals on repeat. They’re stuck in a rut eating what they know, using the same ingredients week in week out.

The problem with eating the same meals all the time is that not only are you likely to be bored of eating, your body isn’t going to be getting the wide variety of foods it likes to be fed either.

It also means that your little one isn’t exposed to lots of different foods, making it very difficult for them to learn to like new foods.

It’s tempting to only feed them meals that you know that they’ll eat because it’s less stressful seeing they’ve at least eaten something, but to support them to try more foods they need plenty of opportunities to explore a wide variety of ingredients.

They might not eat them at first but if you keep on offering them, if they see you eating them and they’re included in activities away from the table, a time will come when they feel comfortable enough to start exploring and trying them.

To incorporate more variety into your week, start with small steps such as picking one or two different ingredients each week to add to your usual shop and incorporate them into familiar meals or choosing one new meal a week, fortnight or month, whatever you feel is achievable.

But doing some meal planning, is an ideal way of ensuring you’re regularly adding plenty of variety into your week.