I have a question about the offering food 20 times before giving up. I've heard this before (offering anywhere from 15 - 20 times) and it seems to make sense, BUT - what if your child won't even touch it? Does "offering" mean placing it in front of the child? Or is the assumption that the child will at least put it in their mouth to decide if they like it or not? I can offer something to my daughter every day for weeks and if its not something she wants to eat, she will immediately push it away. This has caused both of us lots of frustration! She will try new fruits and grains, but can somehow sense when a dish contains meat or veggies! Any suggestions or comments? Thanks!!
Kid not eating
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carang
Registered User
i now tell my son tha the has to choose ONE vegetable (we often have 2 at the table)... he MUST chose at least 1 of them. i then specify "how many" of that one that he must eat. not usually too many, say, 2 or 3 bites worth. his dinner is NOT finished until that is gone. he gets NOTHING else to eat until the next day breakfast if he doesn't eat it.
we also found that once he started full-day schoo, where lunch was served, he started eating more veg.
he now likes: carrots, corn and mushrooms....we can also get him to eat caesar salad, so long as it has one crouton for every bite of lettuce for him!
i got the book: DECEPTIVELY DELICIOUS that is all about hiding the veg and the kids dont' know it's there...
ie) pureed beetroot in pancakes, make the pancakes pink! the kids LOVED them! pureed blueberries produce blue pancakes etc
a little pureed carrot mixed in with mac & cheese or even pureed cauliflower
we also found that once he started full-day schoo, where lunch was served, he started eating more veg.
he now likes: carrots, corn and mushrooms....we can also get him to eat caesar salad, so long as it has one crouton for every bite of lettuce for him!
i got the book: DECEPTIVELY DELICIOUS that is all about hiding the veg and the kids dont' know it's there...
ie) pureed beetroot in pancakes, make the pancakes pink! the kids LOVED them! pureed blueberries produce blue pancakes etc
a little pureed carrot mixed in with mac & cheese or even pureed cauliflower
I actually got that book as well, but found that the actual amount of vegetables (in the baked goods anyway) was pretty small for the serving size (like 1/2 cup pured veg in a recipe that makes a dozen muffins) and so I wondered if it was really worth it...and when she won't eat mac and cheese, etc to begin with, most of the other ideas didn't work.
I have a 1.5 year old who does not yet understand reasoning - ie: choose one veg, eat 5 pieces - so asking her to decide doesn't work either. I put the food in front of her, she pushes it away without trying it. I do give her something that I know she will eat afterward - maybe she's anticipating this now. I just can't put her to bed without eating!
I have a 1.5 year old who does not yet understand reasoning - ie: choose one veg, eat 5 pieces - so asking her to decide doesn't work either. I put the food in front of her, she pushes it away without trying it. I do give her something that I know she will eat afterward - maybe she's anticipating this now. I just can't put her to bed without eating!
carang
Registered User
yep! gotta STOP offering other food... if she knows it's coming there's no incentive to eat anything else!
we've all been through these stages. my daughter, luckily eats almost everything... it's my son i have to watch.
i DID find that when i stopped stressing about it, it got better... but that is also when we stopped offering ANYTHING else.. NOTHING between meals and if dinner wasn't finished, then nothing until breakfast...
took a day or two of "hungry! i'm hungry!" before it sank in that if he didn't eat dinner, he wasn't eating anything else.
yes, you CAN put her to bed without eating! it's not like missing one meal will starve her. if you REALLY don't want to do that, then offer her the same food again, if she still refuses, she's not THAT hungry!
a child will NOT starve themselves...but if you want her to eat what you offer, then you hae to stop offering something else.
(one thing you can do is offer a slice of bread... nothing on it... just plain bread. if she doesn't eat dinner, she can have that...nothing else... i've done that withmy kids... sometimes they accept the offer sometimes they eat their dinner... just depends.)
it amazes me how early kids learn to manipulate us! they are msters by the age of two!LOL!
we've all been through these stages. my daughter, luckily eats almost everything... it's my son i have to watch.
i DID find that when i stopped stressing about it, it got better... but that is also when we stopped offering ANYTHING else.. NOTHING between meals and if dinner wasn't finished, then nothing until breakfast...
took a day or two of "hungry! i'm hungry!" before it sank in that if he didn't eat dinner, he wasn't eating anything else.
yes, you CAN put her to bed without eating! it's not like missing one meal will starve her. if you REALLY don't want to do that, then offer her the same food again, if she still refuses, she's not THAT hungry!
a child will NOT starve themselves...but if you want her to eat what you offer, then you hae to stop offering something else.
(one thing you can do is offer a slice of bread... nothing on it... just plain bread. if she doesn't eat dinner, she can have that...nothing else... i've done that withmy kids... sometimes they accept the offer sometimes they eat their dinner... just depends.)
it amazes me how early kids learn to manipulate us! they are msters by the age of two!LOL!
southside852
Registered User
my 2.5 year old is also a picky eater which I think is normal since their taste buds are constantly changing. sometimes he'll love 1 thing 1 week then the next will not even open his mouth for a bite. A few foods though that are our rescue meals are: 3 cheese tortellini in the refrigerated aisle, anything mixed with orzo/white rice, chicken stir fry, salmon stir fry, chicken pot pie and and almost anything with annabel karmel's white cheese sauce. we also now do dinner playdates like geomum mentioned above eating with another child. we do a 4 - 6pm playdate so the kids can eat together. This way not only do you get a break, but they also get see their friends eating and get to try new foods that you might not otherwise think about making.
nicolejoy
Registered User
We try not to have any snacks for a couple of hrs before dinner - and nothing after dinner. If she doesn't eat much of her dinner, I figure she'll make up for it at breakfast the next day. Kids eat when they're hungry and aren't going to starve themselves. I think that one thing is, if you want them to eat something in particular, but then you offer alternatives, then they know they they can pick and choose what they're going to eat. My 1.5 year old also can be fussy at time (each day last week she wanted pasta - and would cry if dinner was NOT pasta) - but we try to insist as much as we can that she does eat what we give her (ie, the same food as the rest of us). She often spits out her vegetables and doesn't like to eat them that much - but I figure if I cut it up small enough and stir it in with some of the other stuff, she'll inadvertently swallow a bit of it - and even if she chews them and spits them out, at least she's getting used to the taste of it. I don't make a huge deal about it at this age because you can't really reason with them. She does understand though if I tell her she has to eat one spoon of x before I'll give her y and she's generally pretty good at doing that... Overall, she's a pretty good eater, I'd say...
Shenzhennifer
Registered User
Can you imagine how much money we're throwing away by all this waste? I was just thinking about that today. I must waste $500-$1000 a month for all the stuff that my nearly 1.5 year old either won't try, spits out, or eats 2 bites of. Very frustrating. But we plug on