power struggles
ladybugpjb
member
We've reached the point where DS is seriously trying to exert control.
The worst part is that it coincided with the arrival of a heatwave, so we're all pretty cranky around here because it's hot. Oh yeah...and we're a bit sleep deprived because of DD - not nearly as bad as with DS, but you know how it is with a newborn.
The power struggle happens at dinner - last night, I just chalked it up to DS being extremely tired. He wouldn't eat one bite, and we finally just put him to be and he conked out. I mean, it was NOODLES. Plain old noodles. (We ate stroganoff, and I kept his meat/noodles separate.)
But then pretty much the same thing happened tonight. I think we managed to get him to eat one bite. It was the same as last night - as soon as it touched his tongue, he spit it out. He sits there joking around and playing (trying to put his feet up, twisting around in his seat, laughing hysterically for no reason) instead of eating.
What is this? Just a normal 2-year-old phase of trying to exert control over his own life? Crankiness from the heat? Needing an earlier bedtime? This is far worse than the 16-month picky eating phase. I can't reason with him at all, and I could back then. I don't want to resort to bribing him with fruit like I did before. I tried having ketchup for him to dip it in (it was an omelette) because he likes to dip things in ketchup. Nothing worked. I honestly don't know how DH got him to eat that one bite.
Do they understand consequences at this point? We tried "not eating dinner" = "no storytime/straight to bed" -- is that something they can even understand at this point?
How do you handle situations like this where LO is trying to assert control over something that is for his own good (ie, eating dinner)? I know he won't starve himself, but it's nerve-wracking and stressful for all of us.
And for the record, he didn't wake up starving this morning, and he ate pretty well for the rest of the day. I don't know why dinner is suddenly such a huge issue.
Re: power struggles
Good luck!
This exactly. If my kids don't eat dinner, they don't eat. We don't talk about it or punish them.
My boys are really really good eaters. If they try and make food a power struggle at all I offer one more healthy choice. Ex: if they didn't want the coconut chicken with rice noodles I made last night I would offer a string cheese.
As clarification, bedtime is right after dinner. Skipping stories takes maybe ten minutes off of that, so "going straight to bed" after not eating isn't a big change...just skipping a few books. The first night, he was so completely exhausted that he really needed to go to bed anyway. DH didn't make a big deal about it - just got him ready and put him to bed. Both nights he was out fairly quickly, so skipping storytime clearly wasn't a big deal to him either.
There have been times where he was still hungry when he went to bed (a long time ago), but he let us know he was hungry and we fed him. If he had woken up hungry, I would have given him something to eat.
Also, he's not playing with the food. He doesn't even touch it. I have no idea what is going on, so it's just frustrating.ust last week, I could fairly easily get him to take at least one bite of whatever he was refusing, but I can't even do that anymore.
And now I'm feeling like a bad parent.
The first night, putting him straight to bed seemed like the best choice because he was showing signs of being overtired...so "too tired to eat dinner" became "too tired for storytime."
He's not a snacker, and we don't do dessert, so there is no natural consequence of "you don't eat your dinner, you don't get snack/dessert."
I don't think I would be so anxious about it if I didn't have DD - there will be nights when I'm on my own, and the thought of having a hungry DS who won't sleep and a NB DD who wants to cluster feed gives me a lot of anxiety.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone.
You're not a bad parent.
I base not making my kids eat on my own childhood where my parents made us eat. We had the "clean plate club" books. We had to eat every bite. We were punished if we didn't eat. Now, we all struggle with our weight.
If you're afraid he's not going to sleep because he's hungry then give him something small and boring to fill his belly a little. Liam needs a bedtime snack, even if we eat late he always has a slice of salami or a piece of cheese.
1 - You are NOT a bad parent.
2 - The last heat wave we had, DD2 pretty much skipped dinner for a whole week. If you'll recall, DD2 is an ogre, an eating machine. So for her to suddenly not eat was unsettling, to say the least. But I figured she'd let me know if she was hungry, so every night, I'd save her dinner, expecting I'd have to reheat it for her later in the evening. That never happened. She'd wake up in the morning, eat her breakfast the same as if she'd had dinner the night before. She simply genuinely wasn't hungry. She started eating again once the temperature cooled down.
3 - I repeat, you are NOT a bad parent.
all of this exactly + pp hormones make everything waaay worse seeming than it is
This, especially the bolded!
If DD doesn't eat, oh well. I don't love it, but if I turn it into a battle, she fights me right back, and then things escalate into a tantrum. We're all much happier if I excuse her from the table after she has had an opportunity to eat with us. She'll let me know when she is hungry.