Food Wars!

[haleyelianasmom]

My daughter isn't terribly picky about WHAT she eats (generally... yet... ) It's just a total fight to get her to sit and eat at meal time. It's just so frustrating because she'll nibble at her food and insist she's done, so I wrap up the rest and then naturally within the next 20 minutes when we're out or getting ready for bed, anytime it's inconvenient, she starts freaking out that she's SO HUNGRY!!!! So when we're out, she either goes on to be whiny and difficult because she hasn't eaten enough OR I pull out a snack, which, as healthy as I try to be, purse food is never as healthy as meal food. So then she has a day of eating nothing but snack food because she refuses to eat enough when we're eating. At bedtime, she does the "I'm hungry!" thing which means she either goes to bed "hungry" (in quotes because I wonder if it is sometimes a bedtime avoidance thing) or she goes to bed late as she takes an hour to eat lots of food, seemingly more than she's eaten all day. Then I'm exasperated with her "Just finish eating, we were going to start bedtime at 8:30 and it's almost 10! just finish already!!!!"

So now we're getting so fed up with it, it's starting to get not good. As in we're having to sit down and command every bite "take another bite, Haley. Here's your fork, take another bite! Haley, there's still more potato, take another bite. Haley, focus, eat more food, we have to go in a minute." etc. We've used a timer a couple times (as in, "you have 5 minutes and when the timer beeps, you're done and we're leaving")

And on a side note, yes we do keep some sweets around the house. Which is another issue. She won't eat much, but then will demand chocolate. So then I'm left saying "oh, well, you must not be hungry because you didn't eat much food, eat that first then you can get dessert" and then I feel like I'm bribing her to clear her plate or something. It's just that I don't want her to eat nothing but snack food and chocolate. argh.

[diaperqueen]

Originally Posted by haleyelianasmom

or she goes to bed late as she takes an hour to eat lots of food, seemingly more than she's eaten all day. Then I'm exasperated with her "Just finish eating, we were going to start bedtime at 8:30 and it's almost 10! just finish already!!!!"

Personally, I would tell her at dinnertime that she will not be eating anything at bedtime, and follow through. If she's THAT hungry at 8:30, then chances are, she was at least a little hungry at dinnertime.

[bunny's mama]

a good trick that works for us at dinner time is to say there's definitely no more food after they brush their teeth. so we have dinner, then go directly to get ready for bed. so a sort of simple solution to eating after dinner.

[mammal_mama]

Rather than making it a war, since you know she tends to get hungry right before bed, why not just get in the habit of offering her a snack right before brushing teeth and going to bed?

[AislinCarys]

Before my DD was born I nannied for a little boy for 2 years, and food was a huge issue with him. He was a tiny, skinny 22-month old when I started, who would eat only three meals a day - 1/2 toast with honey for breakfast, 1/2 pot of baby yoghurt for lunch, 1/2 tiny jar of baby fruit puré - but he was quite happy to consume chocolate and cookies in between!

I cut out the sweets while I was on duty, as I didn't want him to fill up on that - could you try keeping sweets for weekends or something like that, as special treats? And as total extras, not related to what she eats? That's what I'd do, once in a while (and, of curse, I know his parents let him have them).

The situation with this little boy was a lot more complex, as he had trouble with textures, so with worked on this on a number of levels (messy play, baking, food play, cooking together, finger paints, play dough - yep, this boy cried the4 first few times we did each of these things).

I would bring a lunchbox with snacks for him wherever we went - a small container of carrot sticks (once I got him to dare to try them...), a banana, a container of yoghurt (baby yoghurt mixed with plain full-fat yoghurt) with a small bag of mixed cereal to add, an orange, a peanut butter or vegemite sandwich, cubes of cheese etc. You could also try cold pasta or even a thermos of soup on a winter day.

[Tigerchild]

Perhaps it would be better for you to look at her eating pattern as 6 small meals instead of 3 large ones. Some people really don't like to eat large meals, or their bodies just don't operate well that way (and others who do better with larger, less frequent meals).

If you're worried about her filling up with junk, then get rid of all the junk for awhile. Serve 'meal food' at snacks. There's no reason to not make protein and veggies/fruit part of every snack.

And while I know there will be many that disagree with me on this, I actually totally support finite time limits on mealtimes and a closed kitchen IF it seems to be an avoidance behavior rather than truly hunger generated. I'd trust your gut on that one.

Is this a power struggle issue? I found that after I faked not caring if my kids ate some of everything at meals for awhile, I truly started to just let it go. When I've cut off my emotional involvement with it, the kids started to relax or listen to their body's needs as well. Sometimes my kids chow down, sometimes they don't. I've noticed one in particular even flips meal patterns seasonally (in the summer he goes to 6 smallish meals, in the winter it's back to 3 plus a good sized snack in the late afternoon.

I hear you on the "You didn't eat your meal so you don't get dessert" being an uncomfortable thing to say. Generally what I've done with the kids is that they can pick one serving of a 'treat' food per day. I don't care if they have it with breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. But after that they can demand all they want, they're not going to get it. Everyone in the house pretty much follows this rule. Sometimes the kids talk me through when *I* am feeling really crabby and whiny because *I* want an extra treat.

But my kids are older, too. The concept of 'you can pick one time to do this, once you use it up, it's done until tomorrow' is firmly established. So perhaps that wouldn't work well with a younger child or one who doesn't have a lot of time-fluid thinking yet.

[ewe+lamb]

My ds is the same - he enjoys eating but only in small amounts, I do smaller meals a day - as suggested above and it really works and then just before bedtime and brushing teeth he has 1/2 a banana which tends to fill him up enough that he can make it into about 5 hours of sleep and then he comes through hungry and we nurse - it's not easy and getting him to 'sit' is just impossible or practically impossible!!

[TinkerBelle]

I also wonder about a control issue. Even a 3 yr old can have those issues.

I fully believe in finite meal times and not being a 24 hour a day short order cook.

However, I would try the snack before bed. Maybe that would head off the other times she whines for food, after the meal is finished.

[azmomtoone]

.....DS often doesn't sit well for meals either....we've recently started putting out a muffin tray of healthy snacks for him to graze on through the day, and it's working wonderfully...he can eat what he wants, he's eating healthy food so nutritional needs are met (along with nursing)....some of the things we've put in it our: pretzels, raisins, cranberries, grapes, PB/cheese crackers, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, plain cheerios, zucchini chips (homemade, dehydrated), mulit-grain crackers, .... we also have free access to fruit throughout the day (bananas, oranges, apples, pears, kiwi, etc in a bowl on the table that he can grab...of course we still have to peel stuff for him).

Since he's eating "good" nutritious (sp?) food all day I don't feel bad if he doesn't eat alot at meals....somedays he does, somedays he doesn't, either way he'll get what he needs.
I do push a bit more for him to eat at dinner time, to try to reduce the number of times he wakes up to nurse, but not enough to make it a fight. (just repeated offerings).

[Llyra]

I think that we make a mistake when we make food into a battleground. If you're begging a child to eat, or bribing a child to eat, the child isn't learning to listen to her own body's signals for hunger. But I think that a little structure, consistently enforced, can really help. Here's what I'd do: set specific mealtimes. Offer three larger meals, and three smaller snacks, a day, at designated times. Offer only water in between.

I offer breakfast at 8, snack at 10, lunch at 12, snack again at 3, dinner at 5, and a bedtime snack at 7. Plenty of opportunities in there for a hungry child to eat, and no longer interval where a kid is going hungry.

When you serve the food, she can eat or not eat as it pleases her, with free choice from what's available at the table. After a half hour, clear up and put it away. Don't offer food again until the next meal. Freely allow drinks of water between meals and snacks.

At each meal/snack, offer a few choices of things that you know are generally liked, as well as a few unfamiliar things. If what's offer isn't appealing to the child, the child can wait until the next meal, or make do with what you're offered.

When you do offer the food, be very blase. Act like you don't care if she eats or not, and definitely don't react if she refuses. Don't praise when she does eat. Just leave it up to her. Put your attention on behavior-- common courtesy and table manners. How much she eats is entirely up to her, and even whether she eats or not.

A healthy child will quickly realize that attempting to maneuver for control isn't working, if you're consistent, and she'll go back to eating exactly what her body needs. And that may be much less than you think she needs, but that's okay. She won't starve herself.

Anyway, that's what we've done around here, and we've had a lot of success with it. Mealtimes are enjoyable and pleasant now, and it's a big improvement. Just my 2 cents.

[mama_mojo]

You cannot MAKE someone eat, you can only control what you offer. Once you've offered, it's all up to her. We did two snacks and three meals a day until the youngest was 3.5, then we cut out one snack.

Also, I have always eaten with my kids, and when I'm done eating, I clean off the table. The meal is over. Now, I don't rush through my food and swipe their plates away from them. I sit and chat with them, and hear stories from their play, and talk about plans for the rest of the day. I am socializing them to the community activity of meal times. I honestly do NOT care if they eat. VERY occasionally, I will simply cover a plate that I believe the child will come back to, but this is a once a month occurrence and is almost always tied into some other problem, like difficult wake up or an attack of the sillies. Sweets are not tied to other eating at all. We've even noted that serving dessert first often results in better meal eating than the other way round.

A child truly deserves at the very least the space of her person. Her mouth is part of that holy space and we must respect her right to control. However, she must also learn to follow the customs of our family, like, we don't only eat cookies and bread, and mama does not stay in the kitchen all day.