Help with dinner time

bethann3181 · October 2013

I need advice on dinnertime with 3.5 year old DS1 - most nights he refuses to eat, or will only have a bite or two before he's asking to be excused. Is it better to have him sit there until he's finished a few bites of everything (which has been leading to a lot of meltdowns), or allow him to decide when he's done even if he barely eats anything, but if he's hungry later, he only gets to finish his dinner? My only issue with allowing him to decide when he's finished is 1 - I'll still enforce him to sit with us for a short time, as dinner is family time, but I see this being an issue, as he has a hard time staying seated. 2 - He always eats very healthy snacks before bedtime. I would prefer for him to have his veggies at dinner, and then a second serving of veggies for his bedtime snack, rather than skipping the veggies at dinner, and only getting that one serving in at snack time later. KWIM?

Right now we're forcing him to sit and eat (a few bites of each item) for dinner, but it's making all of us miserable.

Thoughts?

meg1974 · October 2013

That's a tough one, and one that I have struggled with as well. I agree that dinner is family time, and I feel like everyone should sit at the table until everyone else is done. That said, DH can be a really slow eater, and there are times when the kids and I are done way before him and they're both squirming and begging to play. So, we have gotten kind of lax on the rule lately.

That said, we still don't let them get up from the table until they are completely finished eating. If they say they're done but we know they aren't, we'll make them eat a few more bites. Sometimes I'll keep the food around for a little while in case they come back to eat it, but they hardly ever do. But, we don't do snacks before bed so it's a little more important for us that they eat everything at dinner time.

Have you considered eliminating the bed time snack? If he knows he's going to get that later, that might be why he isn't as motivated to eat a full dinner.

AZ123 · October 2013

At that age, have him sit for just a few minutes with him. When he asks to be excused tell him no snacks until he finishes his dinner. If he doesn't want to finish dinner and doesn't get snacks then let him go to bed hungry. He's probably in the habit of eating later bed time snacks and he should have dinner and then if he's hungry have more but you need to set his internal food clock to want food at dinner time - not later.

WhitePicketFence · October 2013

We don't force DD1 to eat but she knows that she will not be getting any more snacks after dinner. If she doesn't eat enough of her dinner, we might try to encourage her to eat a few more bites and remind her that there will not be any snack. She's starting to learn that if she doesn't eat enough, she'll have to wait until tomorrow morning for breakfast.

74dragonfly · October 2013

WhitePicketFence said:
We don't force DD1 to eat but she knows that she will not be getting any more snacks after dinner. If she doesn't eat enough of her dinner, we might try to encourage her to eat a few more bites and remind her that there will not be any snack. She's starting to learn that if she doesn't eat enough, she'll have to wait until tomorrow morning for breakfast.

This is what we do. I'd eliminate the bedtime snack.

neverblushed · October 2013

I am the survivor of two kids who were both VERY picky eaters through preschool and even kindergarten years.

We found that it was best to do what you suggested: allow the child to decide when he/she was full. For example, if my son only ate 3 or 4 bites and said he was "full," we'd set the plate aside. If he said he was hungry later, he had to return to his dinner -- not eat a substitute or a dessert. We didn't engage in any negotiations, cajoling, or scolding -- we just said, "Okay, you can get down, but if you are hungry later, you have to eat this dinner before you can eat anything else."

Later, he could decide to eat the dinner or not. We found that when we tried to pressure him to eat more, it became a gigantic battle. The battle itself became an exciting pastime for our kids. When we set limits but kept ourselves calm and low-key, it didn't take long for them to decide that eating a decent dinner at dinnertime was really the way to go.

Also key to making this work was limiting the snacks.

VTbride05 · October 2013

When my kids fight meal time I save their meal for their next snack time or meal time. Often the idea of this motivates them to sit and finish their meal the first time.

My children have always had 3 meals and 2 snacks a day but lately I have been limiting snacks and I have seen them eat greater at meal time. It doesn't matter too much, they eat as healthy of snacks as they do meals, but the togetherness of mealtime is special and I don't want them eating all day. I limit morning snack to 1 fruit or veggie and in the afternoon it's the same plus one other thing like crackers, pretzels, cheese.

Why am I rambling?

Set the tone, sit as a family, try a bite of each item, sit until everyone is done eating, share stories of your day, no snacks after dinner.

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Help with dinner time

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