Her daughter eats well during the week at nursery, but how can this working mother extend that healthy diet to the weekend? Dr Pat Spungin has some suggestions.

Raisingkids member's problem
I'm a mother to an 18-month-old daughter and I am concerned about her diet. When she is in nursery she has home cooked food all week which is nutritional and healthy but at the weekend when she is with me I just can't think of what to feed her

My diet consists of a lot of junk food and I have no cooking skills whatsover but I am desperate for my daughter to continue the healthy eating she has through the week. With time being a major issue I have been resorting to feeding my daughter childrens microwave meals (which I am ashamed to admit). I have tried cooking home made shepherds pie but it took me so long to prepare that I can't see me having the time to be able to that every weekend. I'm starting to feel like a bad mother for not feeding my daughter properly.

Dr Spungin's advice

If you want to have your daughter eating healthily when she's at home with you, then I think you know that it's down to you to set the example. If your daughter sees you eating junk food then she's likely to model her eating habits on yours. She needs to see you preparing and eating good food and sitting down to eat with her. If you don't adopt a more healthy diet yourself, you're simply asking your child to 'do what I say, not what I do!'

How about making batches when you home cook and freezing individual portions? That way you only have to do the hard work once and you can have home-cooked food at the ping of a microwave! Equally, think about store cupboard basics which will help you put together healthier meals more quickly. What about pasta? Most kids like it and with a tomato sauce you've made yourself and frozen in advance it can be ready in minutes.

If you're feeling brave, we have some basic recipes on Raisingkids.co.uk which you can try (click here to see them). They also illustrate how much cheaper it is to home cook rather than buying ready meals in the supermarket.

Finally - once you do manage to introduce some home cooking of your own– don’t fret too much about the odd ready meal. After all we all (and I do mean all of us) use them!

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