Food wasting despite much debate...HELP!

[GoBecGo]

So my DD will be 5 in April and we're having a problem with food.

I'm kind of middle of the road on food.  We don't have many desserts or junky stuff in the house, so i tend to consider every food request DD makes (like i don't think she's asking for her 3rd apple of the day due to the additives making her crave!) and usually give the ok.  But equally i don't let her just help herself to whatever.

But recently she keeps asking for things and not wanting them after.  This just happened.

DD: mama can i have some yogurt of my own...not the baby's (baby and i were sharing granola, sliced banana and my freshly made homemade yogurt)

Me: sure, bring the tub and a bowl and i'll pour for you.

DD brings the stuff and i carefully give her 3 tastes.  After each taste she rubs her tummy and says "MMM" and i say are you sure you like it, since we've had this problem before and i like to give her every chance, and she says yessss please fill my bowl.  I put a little, maybe 3-4 tablespoons, in the bowl and put the tub back in the fridge.  She doesn't touch it.

Me: DD do you not want your yogurt?  We can put it back...?

DD: no, i want it, can i eat it with dry pasta? (she loves dry pasta)

Me: sure

So she goes and gets a little cup of penne pasta and begins eating it, not touching the yogurt, but then begins blowing on the yogurt through the penne tubes, spitting into the yogurt inadvertently.  I begin to feel mad.  I can't put that yogurt back now!

Me: DD, you're spitting in the yogurt, i can't put that back now, so i hope you will eat it!

DD: i will Mama!  I like it (takes a millilitre of yogurt onto her tongue) MMMMM!

A few moments later she is still not touching it, and i glance at it and feel mad, though i say nothing but i'm sure she can tell.

DD: Can you grate my apple in it (note - the apple is on the sofa, abandoned after 2 bites, which i did not see until right that moment or i'd have told her to finish it when she asked for yogurt)?

I do so, because it will sweeten the yogurt (it's plain yogurt, all i added was literally 2 tsps of sugar to a litre).  A few more moments pass of her poking it around but eating nothing.

DD: Mama i have something and it will make you mad...

Me: what is it DD?

DD: i don't like this yogurt.

I told her to put it in the kitchen.  I don't know why i'm so angry about this!  But it totally infuriates me, WHY does she ask for food, try it multiple times before she's served and assure me she likes it and wants it only to completely waste it once it's out?  When i asked her why she said "yes, why" "i thought it would be delicious but it wasn't" etc.  she cannot explain to me what it is about it that changed between the 3 tastes and the bowl that made it from delicious into inedible.

I should say, my own mother was VERY controlling about food and weight, and would have said "no" right away to the snack suggestion, but now i'm wondering if she had the right idea...(kidding, but kind of not!).

Why does she do this?  SHe's really bright, so i don't think she's not understanding what "a bowl" of something will be/look like.  And i ALWAYS let her taste first so she can decide before it's put out if she really likes it.  I totally don't get it.  I will admit, with a baby to care for and a house to look after i do feel, when she does this, like she's manipulating me into wasting time and energy to prove something to her, that i love her?  I mean i think we are close and have fun and are great together, so she's no reason to doubt that (plus i say it 50 million times a day) but this is NOT a loveable habit, and i know she knows it makes me sad and mad.  I should note, we spent all morning doing playdough models and reading together, so it's not like "feed me" is the best way to get attention.

[jtbuko]

You have my empathy. One thing that has helped us waste less food and milk is switching from using bowls and cups to using 4 oz mason jars in place of both. Then whatever dd (also 5) changes her mind about or does not finish she can put a lid on and save for later without transferring to another container. Next time she is hungry or thirsty it is easy for her to take top off and finish.

Good luck!

[NiteNicole]

I don't think it's that deep.  She sees something, she wants it - even if it's just to make sure she can have it if she wants it.  And then she's done.  Impulse fulfilled, moving on to the next thing.  There's no reason for her NOT to ask.  There are no consequences as far as she can see...what does she care if a little yogurt goes uneaten?

I think it's a totally normal thing that a lot of kids go through, especially if there's no real schedule of feeding going on. 

For my daughter, we finally had to start having three meals and three snacks - for all of us.  If she saw me eating something, ten times out of ten she wanted it and that made ME angry because for goodness sake, can I have nothing for myself? This child even wants the food off my plate and out of my mouth if I have not swallowed yet? 

I don't ask what she wants for breakfast or snacks - I tell her what we're having.  It's always something she likes, and maybe something new to try.  If she gets her request in before I've made a meal or snack and we have the ingredients and I have time, I am happy to make what she wants.  I give her small servings of everything, she eats what she wants.  If she wants more of one thing, that's fine.  I only ask that she TRY everything (of course, I know that right now she is hating spinach so fine, we've established that.  If as an adult she chooses to revisit spinach, fine.  In the meantime, I get it.  She hates it. Makes her gag.  Point made.  She can skip it).

If she says she's hungry before a snack or meal, she can have it early.  If she abandons it and then is hungry again, she can have the rest unless it's a new meal time and then she can have that.  It sounds like math, but really I am just trying to minimize the number of things that get wasted. I'm not going to make her eat the two table spoons from breakfast if it's already nearly the time we'd eat a mid morning snack.

We don't really do variety.  I have a limited grocery budget.  I know what we like and we try new things seasonally.  I can not just let her randomly, impulsively grab whatever she thinks of eating when she's bored or when she sees someone else eating.  We would never have enough to cover meal plans and a LOT would go to waste.

"I don't like it" had become my daughter's way of getting out of eating what she had asked for.  I told her it was ok to tell me she just didn't want something or that she was full.  I don't get mad. But I had to get a grip on the food situation.

[D_McG]

It just sounds like it's a game to her. I wouldn't stand for it. Here we have to finish a snack before we get a new one (or you know, within reason. DS mostly likes the outside of apples and only makes a token effort at the good part so he'll give it to his sister or to me or whatever).

But yeah. I wouldn't overanalyze it but I definitely wouldn't put up with it. "You want pasta? No problem. After your yogurt". Be prepared for 'but I don't like the yogurt!'. "Well, maybe you'll like it later. I'll leave it in the fridge".

I would also stop with the multiple taste things. That's just feeding into her game, imo. Surely she knows what yogurt tastes like?

[ssh]

We do let DD get whatever she wants to eat whenever she wants it. If she wants something that needs cooked or cut up she asks, but otherwise she just gets it herself. We still have meals but snacking is when someone is hungry. We used to have left over fruit when she was smaller, but now at 5 she doesn't waste much. We also do use small containers and often cut up fruit so it's easier to store or share.

[GoBecGo]

Thanks for taking the time everyone.

We actually DO do 3 meals, and snacking is ad hoc but until recently she just had 2 snacks roughly when i did.  In a growth spurt she might snack all day long and i'm fine with that, it's just the NOT EATING that's driving me crazy.  At mealtimes i tell her what she's getting 90% of the time, the rest i'm open to suggestions, or i give her narrow options (like for lunch we had eggs and i offered her boiled-with-soldiers or omelette and she chose omelette).

She DOES know what yogurt tastes like, but this is the first time she's had my homemade yogurt, so it was "new" in that sense.  And we have had various brands of sweetened and unsweetened yogurt so it is reasonable for her to expect other than what she was going to be getting, hence the 3 tastes.

The thing about the pasta was that she already had it, in a little cup, from before, and she indicated she wanted to dip the quills in the yogurt.  The spitting in it was the most annoying thing - i'm actually relatively relaxed about putting stuff back in the fridge if she doesn't want it, but yogurt she's never going to "like" which she SPAT in...no.  That's no longer food unless it's for her.

Sigh...i really didn't want food to become a control point like it was when i was a kid.  I HATE the idea of that!  Having food from 3 meals past served up cold over and over until i "ate what i asked for" :(

There must be something else i can do that isn't dictating everything she eats and forcing her to finish stuff she hates...?

[hakeber]

DS went through a phase like this.

I stopped sharing my really lovely homemade foods with him.  It just annoyed me too much.

He has a supply of foods that I know he likes, and that he can eat when he wants a snack that are not expensive, labor intensive or hard to find/make. 

If he wants some of what I am having he can have a bite or two, grab a spoon and dig in...but for example, I know he doesn't want my rhubarb crumble really, so he can have some bites from my bowl until he's sick of it, but I'm not getting him his own portion so he can mix it up with milk and ruin it and then say "I'm not hungry."  No way on god's green earth am I sacrificing another one of my bi-annual supply of Quality Street chocolates when he SWEARS he likes the orange ones, or will eat it this time, and they are my FAVORITE and he is going to spit it out after slobbering all over it...No way.  And no way am I making granola bars or oatmeal snaps to have him leave them under the coffee table.

As he has gotten closer to six I have started trusting him a little more, but it was just not working for us before.

This system just helped me relax a little.

[skreader]

I agree w/ a PP who said she's treating it like a game. I think a combination of game and play for attention (you were feeding the baby when it happened). I think the suggestion of "must finish previous snacks first" would be a good rule to start to implement.

Do you have a "no playing with food" rule? Because I would have intervened the second she started blowing through the penne. "That's not eating, that's playing. You can have the yoghurt with a spoon (remove penne and hand spoon over)."

If you think it may be an attention-seeking game thing, maybe next time she asks for a snack, ask her "Do you really want a snack, how about a hug and a kiss instead?"  If she says she really wants one, then get her what she requests & tell her no other snack until she's done w/ it.

[D_McG]

Originally Posted by skreader 

Do you have a "no playing with food" rule? Because I would have intervened the second she started blowing through the penne. "That's not eating, that's playing. You can have the yoghurt with a spoon (remove penne and hand spoon over)."

agree. even my 2 year old wouldn't get away with that!

[ghostlykisses]

 IMHO that was total attention getting behavior. The baby was enjoying yogurt with you and she needed to make sure she was not left out of the fun even though she did not want the yogurt.

 When there is a question of if one of my kids will actually eat something and not waste it I will give them a TINY bit. I know you only gave her a couple TBS but I would have given even less, one small spoonful in the bowl at a time until I knew for sure she was going to eat it all. This way she is getting the food if she really wants and likes it, but only a couple teaspoons are wasted if it turns out she just wanted to be part of the crowd.

 I hate food waste too so I understand how frustrating it can be. My mother never forced me to finish food and I usually don't either so I just try to give small portions and allow my kids to ask for more.

[GuildJenn]

For me, waste of small/tiny portions (which is what I give out) are not a big deal. It's part of learning about food. I think 5 year olds do experiment with 'currency' - sometimes that's food, or compliments, or straight out money. They also are, according to one book I've read, at an age where they are really starting to eat socially. Before about age 4 or 5, kids' portion sizes are internally driven. But after age 5, they start to adjust their portions the way adults do, to match more closely those around them or the length of the meal or the amount offered. Note the word start. :)

I think I'd've just mildly said, "it bothers me that this yoghurt was wasted" as I washed it down the sink. That would set up the conversation for next time. And the next time she asked for something similarly I would state I didn't want waste. And do a tiny portion.

I also do have the rule that you finish one snack before you get another. Meals kind of "reset" the snack meter - like a few slices of leftover apple from 9 am don't kibosh a 3 pm snack. But I have no trouble saying "you haven't finished your apple yet" if it's a mere hour later.  (I know you hadn't seen the apple.)  The whole sequence sounds a little chaotic to me, between the apple (I know this wasn't clear) and the penne being out in a bowl and the yoghurt. Is it common to have food out constantly? I might stop that. It gives the impression that food just can be there, if you know what I mean? For us the snack is served, and then it's either put in the fridge or cleaned up or finished. It doesn't sit there...most days anyway!

[GoBecGo]

We do often have food out right now yes, mainly because she is hungry all the time (she has eaten 2 meals and 5 snacks today and is currently nagging over and over for something to eat).  She's grown 3cm since November though, so i'm sure she IS hungry a lot of the time.  But i wonder if the habit of asking for food has outlived the need to eat more...?

Today has been better, i have been more on top of what she is eating and when/whether she finished it.

I'm worried how to deal with the irrational anger i think i've inherited from my mother without dealing with it by using the same horrible techniques of control.  Like i don't make DD sit at the table for a snack (though we sit together for meals) because i have bad memories of every mouthful being made into a performance and a lot of "you're eating AGAIN!?" (NB i was in no way overweight) which led to my sister secretly eating herself into quite a serious weight problem (i mean morbidity, not mere appearance).

Urgh.  This is hard.  And my mother is dead so i cannot talk with her about this.

[hjdmom24]

I think as far as the yogurt incident your daughter just wanted to be included...I clearly remember doing the same thing as a child..pretending to like a food just to be included. For me it was my way of getting approval which does not seem to be necessarily the case for your daughter though. But a thought I had was maybe you could invite her to help feed the baby?

Really I wanted to respond just to commiserate with you. I have major issues around food because of how much it was controlled when I was a child....so I opted to go the opposite way for my kids and that has turned out badly too :( I too get very frustrated at waste but don't want to force my kids to eat because I remember being told "I will cram it down your throat with a broom handle if you don't finish" and even saving the snack to make them eat it later makes me feel as if I may make my kids feel the same way that made me feel. I think we have to remember that those our our feelings and experiences but if we set limits in love we are in no way repeating the mistakes of our parents. I have recently started an eat only at the table rule..which my kids fight against daily but has really eliminated the waste and mindless snacking...because they would rather be doing something else then sitting at the table. All this to say that this is something I struggle with daily and you are not alone in being at a loss of what to do

[D_McG]

I don't think it's controlling to get a grip on the multiple snacks situation. I think it's practical. 5 snacks by lunchtime? how big are the snacks? I give decent sized snacks. Eat it.... finish it later.. whatever. I'm not getting 5 different things in a couple of hours in addition to meals. That would drive me nuts and is a waste of energy for all involved, IMO.

[GoBecGo]

I'm in the UK so it was 2 meals and 5 snacks by dinner time, but still!

Today she had in total:

Breakfast (cereal, with milk), glass of water (i'm not counting the water as food, just noting when she ate)

Apple

Banana

ice cream her papa brought her (he does this every Tuesday, it's her weekly treat)

lump of cheese, glass of water

Lunch (peanut butter sandwich on seeded wholemeal - thick sliced bread and thickly spread PB AND dairy butter too, satsuma, raisins), glass of water

cup of dry penne pasta (half of this got dropped and i took them off her at this point)

1.5 slices of toast (same bread as before), mug of hot chocolate

cup of frozen sweetcorn and peas (her request)

Dinner (french toast and bacon), glass of water

Now she's gone off with her bio dad for tonight/tomorrow.  Everything on that list she ate every bit of, except the dropped penne, and she asked for that back before asking for the toast, i'd binned it due to it being dropped on a none-too-clean floor.

She is 115cm and 21kg, on the 70th%ile for BMI, where she's been pretty much since birth.

[D_McG]

That seems like a totally normal and healthy day!

[GuildJenn]

Originally Posted by GoBecGo 

I'm worried how to deal with the irrational anger i think i've inherited from my mother without dealing with it by using the same horrible techniques of control.  Like i don't make DD sit at the table for a snack (though we sit together for meals) because i have bad memories of every mouthful being made into a performance and a lot of "you're eating AGAIN!?" (NB i was in no way overweight) which led to my sister secretly eating herself into quite a serious weight problem (i mean morbidity, not mere appearance).

Urgh.  This is hard.  And my mother is dead so i cannot talk with her about this.

I get that - my mother was very controlling about food too, and other things.

I still feel okay putting some limits around snacks as I said, like we either eat them at the coffee table downstairs or in the kitchen upstairs. I truly believe the spirit in which the limits are given is important. My son can eat if he's hungry, but he might get questioned about whether he really is or can wait for lunch or whatever - but pleasantly and respectfully and in the context of his answers being important. That is the difference.

I also do believe the wastage (in small amounts) is the price of letting him learn, sometimes. I don't like a lot of wasted food, but seriously - for me it is worth a small amount of waste to give him the space to learn. I repeat that to myself. However I do bring it up the next time.

Your day sounds fine to me. :)

[hakeber]

I don't think you need to force her to eat a snack she asked for.  I used to, but I have been down that road it's just not worth those sort of struggles, but I do think it is okay to not give her her own portions until she starts proving she can and will eat it. That way you're only giving her what you would feel comfortable eating should she change her mind.  Especially with the special stuff that will really burn if it gets wasted.  I don't know about you but if you waste a piece of toast, eh, I can get over it.  If you waste an entire serving of homemade yogurt...I'm steaming mad, no doubt!

[mamazee]

I handle this kind of thing by just giving tiny portions so I'm not throwing away much food.  There will be food waste with kids, and I think it's more about minimizing how much.  Also, if you put the leftovers in the fridge and then point her to leftovers if she's hungry again.  But I wouldn't make a huge deal about it because it's a power struggle and the two things kids are in complete control over are what goes in and what goes out, and they know it.  Short of starving her unless she eats all of the yogurt you gave her, you can't win food power struggles.  I'd try to take away the struggle.  Give her a tiny bit of yogurt, and if she finishes it, give her a tiny big more.  When there aren't power struggles, it'll be a lot less fun for her, because power struggles are fun for kids, and once the fun is gone the game will be gone.

[coffeegirl]

Originally Posted by D_McG 

It just sounds like it's a game to her. I wouldn't stand for it. Here we have to finish a snack before we get a new one (or you know, within reason. DS mostly likes the outside of apples and only makes a token effort at the good part so he'll give it to his sister or to me or whatever).

But yeah. I wouldn't overanalyze it but I definitely wouldn't put up with it. "You want pasta? No problem. After your yogurt". Be prepared for 'but I don't like the yogurt!'. "Well, maybe you'll like it later. I'll leave it in the fridge".

I would also stop with the multiple taste things. That's just feeding into her game, imo. Surely she knows what yogurt tastes like?

I agree with the above post. Also, I can totally see why it frustrated you, mama. Sounds like you were trying to have a snack or lunch or whatever with the baby and your daughter sent you scurrying around to prepare 3 different snacks that she just kinda played around with....I'd be frustrated, too. It's just not necessary to cater to all these whims IMO. I hope that doesn't come out as harsh to your DD-- I really don't mean it that way. I have a niece who I love who's the same age and does very similar things with food. When she's at my house we deal with it by giving her only a VERY SMALL amount of whatever food she asks for. If she asks for something else when she hasn't finished the first thing, I tell her she needs to try to finish the first snack first and if she's still hungry I'll give her whatever the second snack is. I tell her that I'm doing it that way because it's wasteful otherwise. She never has pouted or fought me on it so it may be worth trying?