Today DD threw a massive tantrum in her high chair. She wanted to get down and had not eaten any food. We eventually let her down because we were afraid she would tip over the chair. Now what would you do in this situation? I don't want to teach her that all she has to do is throw a tantrum and then she gets to go play.
Re: how do you deal with tantrums?
I would have let her down.
I don't insist the children stay at the table until everyone has finished (although I do have DD1 ask to leave the table now she's older.)
Gnerally LO can eat as much or as little as they choose. However, this is dinner, there are no different options. Also I generally make them wait until the next meal before there is any other food.
However, if LO is sick, teething, or perhaps I know I messed with her meal by allowing a snack too close to dinner time then I might be flexible on the next meal time thing.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
This, word for word. If she doesn't want to eat, oh well. She waits until the next meal. I would have taken her out before the tantrum.
I also would have let her down.
At 2.5yrs, we have a "you get two breaks" policy. She can get down from the table and go play twice in the middle of dinner. If she gets down more than that, dinner is over and the food is taken away. (We really started doing this because she often poops in the middle of dinner, and not only won't poop sitting but prefers to be by herself when she does it. So, we needed something that encouraged her to be somewhat respectful of the table, but also gave her some freedom to make choices.)
Also, I have no desire to make food a power struggle. If she's not hungry, why force her to eat? If she's not going to eat, why force her to stay at the table? My daughter gets to make the vast majority of choices about the food she eats, within reason in the options I give her, and "you have to eat even if you're not hungry or hate this food" is simply not something I can require of her. (Of course, she has to live with her own consequences - if she really was hungry but wanted to go play and missed dinner, well, she missed dinner.)
Edit to add: to clarify why this is a response to your original question, one of the ways we deal with tantrums/meltdowns is to avoid them whenever possible by giving her (appropriate) choices ahead of time.
ITA.
Tantrums are just starting for us, but really the times I've noticed he melts down is when he's overtired and/or hungry. Unfortunately dinner time usually means both those things are coming to a head. And since I work FT I'm usually tired/hungry at dinner time too!
I've found LO wants me near, but not necessarily touching when he's really upset. Leaving him or ignoring isn't going to work. I actually tried that and he followed me and screamed louder but then ran away when I tried to hug him lol. I just sit close to him and offer empathy and give him words "I know you're frustrated because of x". Then when he's calming down I'll offer him a hug and we'll go play or read a book together.
If LO truly doesn't want to eat, than I don't force the issue. Like PP we only make one meal for everyone, usually there's a variety of foods throughout the day. He eats what he wants to and typically feeds the undesired parts to the dog lol. It seems like sometimes he only eats his meat, then the next meal it's all fruit or whatever. But over the day/week he eats a bit of everything.
I've been working on telling him to say "out" when he wants out of his highchair instead of screaming/throwing his food around. And making sure I quickly respond to his request when he says out so that he doesn't feel the need to escalate to get a response from me. If he truly doesn't eat a thing at dinner, I will save his plate and ask him in 1/2-1hr if he's hungry. He knows the sign for eat and sometimes he just wants to eat later. I just have to accept that maybe he truly isn't hungry at 5p that day, just like I'm hungry at slightly different times on different days.
I'm also very cautious about respecting LO's control over food and only eating when he wants to. My H has a very weird relationship with food because his parents used it to bribe him for good behavior. It's something he still struggles with as an adult. I really don't want LO to have a negative relationship with food so if he tells me he doesn't want to eat then I respect that.
Kids tend to need lots of smaller meals every 2-3 hours vs 3 large meals spaced 4-5hrs apart. So we try to offer LO small snacks a few hours in between the larger meals to keep him from getting super hungry and cranky. HTH!