lollardfish | (no subject)

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My son's eating hygiene has collapsed. He now only willingly eats edamame, green beans, plain noodles, yoghurt, fruit, cottage cheese. He used to eat many more things. Like, over the last weekend. It's very frustrating.

Edit - Sweet potatoes back on the menu. Fish sticks and chicken nuggets, spaghetti-os (indistinguishable from the food he ate from jars) still off, fruit-and-nut bread still on.

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At least there's fruit, vegetables, and protein . . .

Yeah. The problem is that I am fairly certain he believes that if he holds out, he'll get one of the things he likes best. Which is true, as we aren't capable of starving our child, and when we do withhold food (for 30 minutes, an hour), it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Might as well feed him what he'll eat, as long as you keep offering tastes of things he used to like, and things that are entirely new.

K. [this isn't a battle that you will win]

It's the randomness of rejection of that which he loved a few days ago that makes it hard to handle.

[laughing hysterically]

Ah, you've reached another step in the parenting process.

He could adopt the eating characteristics of

pegkerr's daughters...

whimpering is appropriate, right?

You DO get to whimper, yes. Try to do it where he can't hear you; he's trying to be In Control of something, anything, and if he knows it bothers you it may just make him more determined.

Good luck...

i have no children and you can laugh at me in three years when i am doing the same thing but: what i have heard and what i am going to try is that as long as they're getting enough calories and a wide enough selection of nutrients (not going to die of scurvy or anything), let them eat what they want to eat, and eventually they'll come back to eating a wider variety of things.

i also have a horror of giving godot food issues, so that's why i'm excited about this theory.

We try hard to subscribe to this theory. The difficulty is when it turns random. Five days ago eating chicken, now hurling it and sobbing when it appears.

The truth of the matter is that he's turning two, emotionally, but lacks the two-year-old communication skills (such as they are).

yeeeeah. that's hard.

are you a computer gamer at all? someone i used to know used to refer to things like this as her children levelling up. right before you finish a level of, say, diablo, you have to do something really super hard. seems appropriate and also geeky. not that that's a bad thing.

Hah. Yeah. Except that for Nico, the moments of leveling up last twice (or more) as long, are much more challenging than they are in general for others, and he handles it with pretty good humor.

They're longer because he's multi-class. That's what the extra chromosomes are for, right?

There's a theory floating around that parenting a 2-year-old is training for parenting a teenager. "Loved it five days ago, now hurls it away and sobs when it appears" is a great description of teens...

Hah. Yeah.

Fortunately the raviolini are being shoveled in right now.

probably tired of chicken. I know I would be. Toddler can not live on chicken alone.....hehehe....

I think when he flings the food off to the side I can hear him loud and clear. Not as verbal as we may prefer and yet gets the message across.

Plus we get kids who are more likely to have food issues. they may be picky eaters and feel the need to hoard food all in one! Hooray!

Me I'm not afraid.

this is after all why Ghod gave us vitamins in tablet form.

Which Nico conveniently now will just pick up and chomp.

There are two amazingly counter-intuitive facts of child rearing that should be printed in giant red letters on the first page of every book on baby and child care. This is one of them.

Babies start out eating just one kind of food and not very much of that. As they get bigger they eat more and more, at the same time increasing the variety of what they eat. A pattern has been established, and it seems perfectly natural. You think you know how this works.

Then at about 18 months the appetite stops increasing and that seems a little weird. Then they start eating LESS. Then they start getting picky about what they eat, and dropping foods from their diet. As the months roll by, both trends pick up speed until, by the age of 4, your child won't eat anything except bananas and Cheerios. This just feels SO WRONG. It's even stranger if you happen to have a baby in the house at the same time, and you realize that your great big 4-year-old is eating approximately half as much as your 9-month-old.

The growth spurt has slowed down and you will be absolutely astounded how little he will be eating over the next couple of years, and how your baby who used to live for putting strange things into his mouth would now rather die than swallow a vegetable. They all do this. It's okay.

Feed him one thing with each meal that he will typically eat and then try feeding him whatever you want or better yet what you are having. And start eating with him. He needs to see how you do it. What manners etc are expected. If it's not really your dinner make it a snack for you. This is what I do. I just have a very little bit of each thing I am serving kids when trying to work on such issues, and take very small bites. Get everything together first before starting him on anything so he doesn't have the chance to toss it all. At least this was my prevention method.

Use positive re-directive language whenever possible. You want to minimize his opportunity's for ditching his undesired foods. And you want to give as little attention as possible to any behaviors you do not wish to see repeated. Encourage him to try a bit but then if he is still uninterested let it go. If he tosses it say something like "If you don't want that lets just set it over here instead of throwing it." Ask him to hand it to you and then praise and thank him when he does. Try to remember you want meal time to be fun, relaxing and nurturing not just the food part of it but the entire mealtime.

If he rejects everything then maybe he just isn't really very hungry. Assuming his thyroxine levels are adequate which presumably if they weren't the dr. would up it so you don't need to worry about how much he's eating.

His tastes will change and I do believe he will be more inclined towards foods that have something in them his body needs. Taste buds change around 2yrs and when their hormones change which starts when they are little.

I know I kept wanting to feed him something with more fat or protein.

Edited 2008-11-22 07:00 (UTC)

"Know he will eat" is a non operative statement alas when what he eats is non-predictable from day to day.

This is all good advice and agrees with what we read. I haven't noticed any of them working so far, alas. It's not so bad - I read about a family whose daughter had to throw food on the floor and would eat it off the floor ... unless her parents were watching or even close to the kitchen. Awful!

He's also becoming different around his parents, or at least me. Shannon said he was perfect over the weekend, so it may just be my fault.

On the other hand, he had a great dinner last night, inhaling raviolini to the extent he even pushed edamame to the side.

My point is even if he doesn't eat it that's okay. You don't have to find something he will eat. I mean you can but until he has words or you find a sign he can use for refusal or he can clearly chose between two choices which he may be able to do now I don't know you will have some of that attitude and tossing of things he doesn't want.

It really is a matter of do you cater or not and either one is ultimately fine. It's a matter of how you want to handle it. And I know it's not easy to just have him not eat I also wanted to find something he would eat. It's very ingrained in us I think to nurture by providing food they like and I think sharing the food we like with them and wanting them to enjoy that with us.

Just you wait we are likely to struggle with food issues as well. Plus we have to start by feeding them candy. Which feels so wrong I can't even tell you.

Probably if he has one good meal a day he's fine.

eating off floor.....see it could be worse.

What is it you want to see happen at mealtime?
How does this differ from the reality of mealtime?
Why does this stress you out? (me assuming from reading this this is stressful to you)
What do you do at mealtime that works?
What makes a mealtime great?

Those are good questions non-logged-in-MizzLJ.

I don't want to cater - it's antithetical to my parenting strategy. But it feels like the options are to cater or to see Nico not eat. And that's what stresses me out.

At least Nico has a somewhat varied acceptable diet -- I had a nephew who for seeming YEARS subsisted entirely on mac-and-cheese. :-)

Nico won't touch mac and cheese! It's incomprehensible. :)

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