When is a child old enough to "go hungry" if they don't eat what is on their plate?
I am so done with spending our entire dinner time trying to coax Alex to take just one bite of what we are having. We tell him that if he'll just taste it, then he can have his rice, or spaghetti, or yogurt, or whatever it is for that night. He is soooooooo picky and he used to be such a good eater.
Any advice would be welcome, and no, I won't be offended.
11 comments:
This is a big one! My only advice is stick to your guns. Luckily my girls have never really gone through this phase, they love their food! With daycare kids it was one of those things that I made one thing, if they didn't eat it, they didn't get anything else (disclaimer: I did okay this plan with the parents). They WILL get hungry and will eat, eventually. Good luck! Food and potty are the two things they have power over and, man do their little minds figure out how to use that power to push some buttons!
By the way, give Alex a big WHOOOO HOOO for me on the potty training! That is AWESOME!!!!! We are soon to start with Ally, she is just starting to show interest.
Love ya!
Lindsey
Warren is going through the same thing. One night last week he sat at the table until 8PM until he took ONE bite. He then had the choice of going to bed or taking a bite. He chose bed. We sent him there without dinner. He was alive the next morning. He ate a lot of breakfast. :)
Do it Brazilian style and only serve him rice and beans...try this for...oh...18 months...and then when you reintroduce other foods he's bound to be excited! hahaha. Boa sorte amiga! Saudades.
Read "Coping with a Picky Eater" by William G. Wilkoff. I loved it. I don't think you can find it at the library but you might want to order it online. I borrowed it from Jackson's and now Chelise is going to borrow it, so it might have a waiting list if you want to borrow, but it is GREAT.
I am no expert by any stretch, but I know that Dan and Katherine have started sending Hailey to bed with nothing but milk if she throws her food or plays with it too much or won't eat it. They say it works.
Hi Heidi,
I still read your blog, even though I hardly comment! I decided when Brooke started eating solid foods that I was never going to stress about how much she ate.
Once she started eating solids and was able to handle table food I just gave her small portions of our dinner. Sometimes she likes it; other times she doesn't. I just don't worry about it! Is that mean? Now she only eats what we eat for dinner. Of course, I always try to plan at least one thing that I'm fairly certain she'll like (she'll eat most fruits, veggies, and/or bread) and I hardly pay attention to how much she eats. She won't starve herself, right?
Plus, I figure that for breakfast, lunch, and snacks I'm always feeding her things I know she'll like so she's getting what she needs.
She hasn't really gone through a phase yet where she rejects food so it's been easy to stick to this. Good luck with Alex!
Heidi, You are an awesome mom! I loved watching the potty training graduation. That was so cool. I hope someday I can potty train Spencer. So I know you already received a book suggestion, and you have like no freetime anyway, but if you have a sec to check out "How to get your child to eat...but not too much" by Ellyn Satter, it is wonderful. I actually haven't read it cover to cover, but in the dietetics program at BYU they taught us about her philosophies on feeding and had us read portions of it. All of her books are great. You can read a bit about her on www.ellynsatter.com. Good luck! I'm probably going to need to check that book out in a couple of months and refresh my memory... Ahh, the joys of parenting!! :o)
oops.. the title is actually "how to get your KID to eat...but not too much"
I agree--we have the same policy, no short order cooks live at our house!
However, I haven't had to fight quite so hard, all my kids have been fairly good eaters.
Good luck. I know the food battle can be a tough fight.
PS, Send me your email address and I'll send you an invite to my blog.
heatherware@hotmail.com
Wow, your post looks strangely exactly like my last post! I have not advice, no ideas, no thoughts. I'm fresh out! Evan goes to bed hungry at least 3 or 4 nights a week. And he was not a picky eater up until recently. I will read the books your friends suggested though!
I realize that you may never see this comment since its from a while back but here are my thoughts. My family is big into nicknames. Green beens can be green fries. Peas are bullets. whatever soup is superman soup. my own boys are too young to try this on, but it seemed to work on my brothers and their sons.
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