- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
landrews
member
toddler "eats what we eat" - what age did this happen?
landrews
member
I dream of the day when we can cook one meal and she will join us. My daughter is 19 months. She is a champ for breakfast, but what she will actually eat for lunch & dinner is very limited. She is at daycare during the week, and lunch is more successful those days.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: toddler "eats what we eat" - what age did this happen?
We started offering DD what we were eating from 7 months or so. Unless it was something spicy, I'd give her whatever we were eating minus honey and peanut butter which we started at a year. She was mostly playing with it early on and getting very little in her mouth..
I'm no expert but at 19 months I'd definitely give her whatever you're eating and not make a different meal for your LO.
Since 6months. We've never given substitutes. We'll give extra snacks in between as needed but she has never gotten anything special made just for her. She loves spicy food (as do we)...she hates bland food (as do we). She prefers full flavor. She has a strong preference for all meats.
We started the pattern we wanted so it's all she knows. Much easier to start them off that way then have them try and change later on. The reason children eat so much better at daycare is largely because it is expected of them and they know it. If you do the same at home they will eat just as good.
Natural M/c 12/13/08 at 8w5d
Totally agree with this. I don't comment on what she does or doesn't eat or get excited when she eats. Eating is just a normal part of life. By cheering them on for trying something you imply that they did something really big or special...and make the foods all the more strange or overwhelming.
It also gives them power and control over the food situation. In reality it is here is your food, eat and have a full belly or don't eat and have an empty belly. They figure this out quick without having an adult tell them to eat more so they are not hungry later.
You just described me to a tee! And DH thinks the same of me!! I started seeing a counselor just recently to help me with this issue, because I keep telling myself to relax and not stress about it and I do my best to not show it to DD but internally I am so stressed about all the things you mentioned.
The funny thing is I don't know Lalamama but I ALSO think of her when I am struggling at mealtimes..a while ago she commented on someone's eating related thread and said her DH and her are "just programed to not care" when her kids don't eat or something like that. I always think to myself "I wish I could just go to the store and buy this program and download it to my brain" so I could just relax and accept that DD is not going to touch this meal...
Of course those of us with children that are easy eaters don't understand what it is like to have a child that refuses to eat. Just like those with kids that naturally sleep through the night can easily say just lie them down awake and walk out of the room until morning.
But, children are very adapt at picking up on our emotions and they know if we are anxious and if a parent is anxious about food the child responds to that. The eating habits we set from a very young age (prior to a year) are very instilled in our children and can be very, very hard to change later in life (same goes to most things about raising children). Therefore we need to have this in mind when we set about our ways of raising our kids.
I have a pretty great eater. But I work with children and have a degree in child psychology and all my courses made it clear that food is the one thing that children have control over. You cannot make a child eat. You can shove the food in their mouth but you cannot make them swallow. Therefore we need to be very, very careful how we approach mealtimes. It is very easy to get into power struggles without having any intention of letting the child hold that power.
The younger we start the better. It sucks, I get it, but stopping having a child control what they are served at 15months is a lot easier than with a child at 5years. At 5yrs they have had 5yrs of pattern instilled and they have more verbal and cognitive combative techniques to break parents down.
There are children with severe digestive issues, that the above thread does not apply to. But these children are rare and they are malnourished, underweight and ill. It is easy to tell them apart from a regular child because they lose weight, not gain weight. They have thin hair, thin skin, ill looking eyes etc.
All I can say is hold strong, remove emotion from meal time, serve healthy well-balanced meals and let the child decide. One safe food per meal will get a bit of food in their tummy. Let them see the same foods over and over again until they accept. Try a meal rotation, 3 weeks of meals that repeat over and over. This provide a great variety of foods, keeps the parents happy with a variety of meals but still exposes the same foods over and over until they become familiar.
As I said though, I am not experiencing this first hand. I have worked with many families that do experience this first hand and I've seen now incredible hard it is on the parents (usually mostly the moms). I do truly believe that it is best for the child if the 'power struggle' is won over by the parents at a very young age though...not only in regards to the success rates for the parents but to set that healthy eating pattern earlier in life so it becomes fully engrained.
Yep, that's why I modify some foods.
Ditto this re modifications (another BLW household here). She doesn't always eat all of the things we're eating, but those are her options, and she doesn't generally get different ones. We also will give her a pouch sometimes as a constipation preventative...she thinks it's a treat, hah!