Meal time

michelle615 · October 2013

Hi all - I'm mostly a lurker, but would love to hear your thoughts! DS is 16 months old. His dad and I work full time and he's in daycare M-F. I'm usually the one to pick him up and generally have him home by 5-5:30. He almost always immediately walks to his chair where he eats his meals. If he's not in his seat very quickly, munching on something like graham crackers while I try to fix him a quick dinner, he's very unhappy. Sometimes he has a mini-meltdown (or not so mini, ha!). I know he doesn't always eat the best at daycare. Anyone else have LO's that express very strong feelings when they don't get their way immediately regarding meal time? This does happen during the weekends as well, although we have a better understanding of what he ate for the day.

I guess I really just don't know at what age you can train your LO to wait for meals? He's on the tall side, but runs 50-60 percentile for weight. Thanks all!

michelle615 · October 2013

Obviously my use of the word train was viewed negatively.

greyt00 · October 2013

I understand the OP's wishes. Meals are social and it's nice when the family can eat together. I'm having the same problem with my DS2 (14 months old) and I'm not sure what to do about it. If you give in now, maybe the "waiting" can be learned a little later, when they are older, and you can eat as a family again. What I'm going to try next is just give him a tiny snack while I'm preparing dinner/waiting for the rest of the family to arrive home. When I say tiny I mean like half a graham cracker (I'm still breaking his food into VERY small pieces so that half cracker might last 10 minutes).

beccalee721 · October 2013

LalaMama81 said:

please search the archives, a million people have asked about this.

Would you like to be trained to wait for meals? I think you need to train yourself to make a meal the night before, do crockpot meals or whatever so that your kid can eat when you get home.

Every question people ask on these boards have been asked many times before.

@michelle615 I understand that you mean "teach" not "train". That word is for some reason negatively viewed on here like you're going to physically punish your LO if they don't do what you want. I'd like to know this too because my LO panics when she's hungry and I'm making her food and she doesn't have something like a cracker to munch on in the meantime. At some point they need to be taught that just because their tummies are rumbling doesn't mean they need to freak out. So is it something they just grow out of or is it something that needs to be taught at a certain point?

michelle615 · October 2013

Thank you for the responses. You both explained what's in my head way better than I did! :-)

jnnfrrose6 · October 2013

OP, my LO will play in a drawer or 2 that are accessible to him while I'm getting dinner ready (we get home similar timing to you) and I try to get something on the table quickly (nothing that can take much more than 20 min to prep). Sure, he'll get fussy if it starts to take longer, or he didn't snack well at DC before I picked him up, but I just talk to him and try to distract. I know he's still little, but I have no desire to establish a precedent of him getting what he wants as soon as he fusses, so I let him learn to wait and know that mom is taking care of what he needs. It's not like he's going to starve if he waits 10 more minutes for dinner to be ready.

KristinKWashington · October 2013

I'm in the same situation, but my daughter has me trained. When we get home, she says "baba?" Walks over to the couch and points at the seat. I then get her water and a small amount of crackers and place them where she's pointing.

emberlee3 · October 2013

DD is a bottomless pit. She eats tons of food at daycare but still comes home ravenous. She snacks while I cook dinner. I try to give her parts of the meal as I prepare them, or leftovers from the night before, or a bowl of oatmeal, or all of those one after the other as she screams "Mo! Mo!"

DH and I joke that she starts eating dinner 30 minutes before everybody else, then eats with us, and usually still hasn't finished until 20 minutes after everyone else is done.

amil798 · October 2013

Wish my LO asked for meals like this. He doesn't care for food. If we do sit him in his chair, he would hardly sit for 10 mins, eat whatever he can in that time and ready to start playing.

preggersin2011 · October 2013

I give LO a snack in the car on the way home every day. When I take a good look at her day care schedule, breakfast by 730 snack at 9, lunch at 1130, nap, snack at 3..... It almost is every 2 hrs they are eating. I would expect her to be used to eating every few hours and making her wait an extra amount of time isn't something I want to fight with at this age. I give her a small snack like cereal or some peanut butter crackers and it is enough to keep her satisfied until dinner.

singingirl96 · October 2013

jnnfrrose6 said:

OP, my LO will play in a drawer or 2 that are accessible to him while I'm getting dinner ready (we get home similar timing to you) and I try to get something on the table quickly (nothing that can take much more than 20 min to prep). Sure, he'll get fussy if it starts to take longer, or he didn't snack well at DC before I picked him up, but I just talk to him and try to distract. I know he's still little, but I have no desire to establish a precedent of him getting what he wants as soon as he fusses, so I let him learn to wait and know that mom is taking care of what he needs. It's not like he's going to starve if he waits 10 more minutes for dinner to be ready.

this! Children need to learn that they don't always get what they want at the exact time that they want. They can wait for a meal to be prepared. Its part of learning to be patient. And no, I don't think you need to prepare food the night before just so your son has his meal right away.. he can wait. Distract him in the meantime.

nikki_rob_weddingplans · October 2013

What we do doesn't help with the family dinner aspect, but it does help with the hunger and patience part. We have a similar schedule as you and found that if we give DD a snack after DC then she won't eat dinner. So we always feed her dinner around 5:30 when we get home. To address the time issue regarding meal prep, we simply warm up the leftovers from our dinner the night before.

We sit and talk with her so she still has some social aspect, but we don't eat until after she goes to bed which is usually around 7:30 or 8 depending on how involved the cooking is. We then set aside leftovers for her to have the next night. Some point in the future when she goes to bed later and can wait to eat a bit later we'll switch to family dinners. But for now this works out great and gives DH and I a relaxing dinner together too!

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