Toddlers: 24 Months+
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2 year old will not eat dinner
Instead he sits at the table screaming bloody murder and proclaims, "all done", over and over. I really don't know what to do anymore. It's not like we eat liver and onions for dinner. Tonight it was home made Mac n cheese, ham, and applesauce.
What I really want to do is send him away without dinner. However that backfires on us because come bedtime he won't sleep because he's so hungry. He's a big boy...26 months, 40 pounds, 40" tall, and he's always been a good eater, just not at dinner.
I will happily welcome any suggestions!
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Re: 2 year old will not eat dinner
Probably not recommended, but this works for us: if dinner is reasonable for our one and three year old (like it's not something we know they really dislike) then they can be "all done" at dinner time and the food will wait. If they're hungry at some time before bed, dinner gets pulled back out. They don't eat anything else until dinner is eaten. Or they're really not hungry, and they don't eat.
I think this would not be the route some go because it doesn't teach to sit at the table until you're done, etc. however is is a battle we don't fight.
Ditto - he's a good eater, and growing fine, so why does he have to sit at the table and eat dinner when he doesn't want to? If your husband really, really didn't want to have dinner, would you force him to sit there while you did?
Toddlers are funny - they are hungry when they are hungry and they aren't when they aren't. And they don't eat when they're not hungry. I wish this lasted into adulthood, for my own waistline's sake!
If my daughter isn't hungry, we don't force her to eat, or to stay at the table. Her food remains at the table until she's ready to eat.
because we are teaching him that he needs to stay at the table until everyone is finished. If we were in a restaurant we wouldn't want him getting up from the table and wandering around just because he's finished. We certainly don't make him clear his plate (we believe that sets up for a whole other host of problems later in life), but we know he's hungry, he just won't eat. Instead he says he wants gummy bears, candy canes or cookies, which of course we don't give him at dinner.
I love your suggestion of keeping the food at the table until they are ready to eat it later on. I'll give that a try tomorrow!
I've done this when DD1 was whining about some treat food we had in the house. The whining went on and on and on, and I'd told her no.
So then I told her, if you keep whining about the treat food, I'll throw it out and not have it in the house. She said I should throw it out, and so that's exactly what happened.
No more whining.
We've since re-introduced treat food back into the house, and she knows not to whine when she's been told no.
Also I leave her food out too. I know what it's like to not really be hungry for dinner. So I'm sympathetic towards her not being hungry at dinnertime, but I'm not sympathetic towards not wanting what's been offered to her.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
We do this as well. Or sometimes I just sit it on the coffee table in the living room and she nibbles. I don't offer any other foods though. She's just busy and this is not a battle I feel the need to fight at this point.
I think it's a slightly unreasonable expectation to make a child who is barely two sit at the table to engage in adult conversation until both adults are done eating when he's not ready to eat dinner at that time himself.
I do agree with leaving the food at the table until he's ready.
I kind of have to agree with this. When we are at a restaurant we bring crayons, toys, etc. At home there are not toys allowed at the table. When the kids are little I do what PP said, if you don't want to eat now, that's fine, I leave it out for later. As they get older (2-3 years old) we enforce the "eat what's put in front of you" rule. They get a "no thank you" portion (3 bites of chicken, 1 scoop of peas etc) of all the foods we are eating for the night, and they are expected to eat it. They are welcomed to ask for more of any of the items once they have cleaned their plate. DH is a VERY picky eater, and it annoys both of us, we want our kids to learn to eat anything when offered. When our kids finish dinner, they clear their plate/cup/utensils to the sink and they can have dessert. Once they are done with dessert, they clear that as well and can go play.
Charlotte Ella 07.16.10
Emmeline Grace 03.27.13
I agree with PPs- this isn't a battle we fight. We put out small portions of "good food" and if he asks for more, we give him more, if he says he's all done we leave it out until it's time to brush teeth. He knows he can't have a "treat food" until he's eaten the good food- some days he eats tons of good food, asks for more, and never asks for a treat, some days he barely eats anything and just has a good breakfast the next morning.
Our pedi said to try to make sure he has a well-balanced diet over the course of a week- he said at this age, they're not going to eat 3 square meals a day, so as long as he gets some protein and a decent amount of fruit/veggies over the course of a week, we should be good. This usually pans out for us- the good days and bad days equal out over the course of a week and he's growing just fine and is healthy.
With all of the battles you could pick with a 2 year old, this isn't one we're willing to fight. When we go to restaurants, we do bring plenty of activities and a bag full of food we know he likes to help keep him in his seat.
click the pic (blog)
At two, it's developmentally unreasonable to expect your kid to sit at the table - bored, and not wanting to be there - for as long as it takes for you guys to eat, even if it's only 20 minutes. 5, maybe.
As others noted, restaurants are different, but it's still not developmentally reasonable to expect a 2 year old to sit still in one place for 20 minutes against their drives. Even at a restaurant, even when we bring her things to do, her little body needs to move, and so I expect to take her outside of the restaurant to walk around.
The sort of self-control you're looking for comes MUCH later. Don't get me wrong, it's great to work on it right now, but in toddler sized doses, not adult sized ones. 5 minutes, then 10, and so on. I'm not sure what is an appropriate age to expect them to sit at the table until everyone is done - 5yrs? Though, honestly, if I'm sitting at dinner with someone who eats much slower than me, I don't really want to sit there for 20-30 minutes after I'm done eating. So, can I really expect my daughter to?
My daughter likes to poop in the evening, right around dinner time. Often in the middle, actually. Because of her tendency to do that, we instituted a two-break rule. She may get down from the table and go play/poop/whatever two times and we leave dinner out for her. After she gets down for the third time, her dinner is over and we clean it up. That's a refinement of leaving her food out that we had to make because she would want to take a bite, then go play, then take a bite. That isn't something we thought was ok, especially as she doesn't have to stay at the table after she's done eating (at home, anyway), but we also don't think it's fair to make her stay seated the whole time.
It's great to work towards particular eventual behaviors, but it's important to go in developmentally appropriate intermediary steps (even if they aren't very close to the desired end behavior).