Food Fight!
There is a food fight in my house EVERY DAY! My eldest daughter Yumna, who will be 4 years old next week, gives me a really hard time to eat. Ask her to eat healthy food, and you have a battle.. ask her to eat candy, popsicles or chocolate, and she can’t have enough. Her issue isn’t that she doesn’t like the food, because she does.. the issue is not that she isn’t hungry, because she is.. her issue is that she is a lazy eater!
She can sit in front of her food for an hour without a bite going into her mouth. No toys are allowed at the table, yet she can make a toy out of anything. She is so easily distracted and can just stare at the food without it going in her mouth, while the rest of us are finished. If I give up and let her leave the table she will ask me for some cookies or some junk less than an hour later.. so I have to have a battle with her every day. We sit down, first thing she asks for is a drink… so the negotiations start.. eat 5 bites and I will give you a drink… 3 bites Mom.. do you want me to make it 8?… okay 5.. maybe we get through 3.. and we have a 10 minute pause.. by this time we are all done eating.. just sitting at the table keeping her company.. do you want your drink now? yeah.. okay take two more bites and you can have it.. she shoves two bites in her mouth and I give her the drink.. now she drinks her water, juice or milk in less than ten seconds (I give her only about 50mL so she doesnt get full on her drink) .. and she stares at her food for another 5 minutes.. eat your food.. by this time I’m picking up the stuff from the table and cleaning up now.. nothing has gone in her mouth.. and then I start getting upset.. and the bribes start.. just eat your food and I will give you a treat.. that might get two more bites in her.. then the threats start.. if you don’t eat your food you won’t get to go with us out for a walk.. that might get three more bites in her.. then usually at this point I give up.. or give in and start feeding her, and she finishes her food.
I don’t want food to be a negative experience for her, but I worry that this daily battle is not good for her. I don’t know any other way to deal with this.. its so frustrating for all of us.. so any ideas on how to get her to want to feed herself. It worries me because she will be going to school in September and I’m going to be worried all day about whether she is eating or not. There will be tons of things to distract her at school, that she will probably starve.
Funny thing is that I witnessed the same battles I am having with Yumna between my grandmother and my sister. My grandmother used to live with us when we were young and she took care of my little sister during the day. Everyday the same battles would happen between them. My sister is the skinny one between the two of us so it didn’t do any damage as of yet to her.
Any thoughts? Any strategies?
Filed under: Kiddos
Well, with my son (who will be four in a couple of months), we’ve had to ‘ignore’ it. Our Dr. said that he was physically unable to starve himself and that if he was hungry he would eat. And if he missed a meal, it was fine. So, if we sit down to have dinner and he doesn’t eat, we don’t say anything anymore. If we get up and then he wants to get up, we let him. But then there are NO other foods allowed (not even gum!). If he refuses to eat dinner, he goes to bed without it. Very rarely does this happen anymore. He might fuss a bit and I say, “That’s fine if you don’t want to eat it, but if you don’t, there will be no cookies or anything else and you will go straight to bed”. Usually, he eats at least a few bites. But I refuse any other food. He has whined and fussed before, and I get his plate out of the fridge and put it on the table and said if he wanted to eat, he could eat that. Now, don’t think I’m an uber strict Mom — I’m not! I just got tired of fighting and throwing away SOOO much food! Good luck, and hopefully some other people will give some other suggestions.
My nephew was the same way at the same age. Pediatrition said the same thing. If he’s not going to eat it, then take the plate away and he goes to bed. It was a long battle, but eventually he connected the fact that going to bed early was because he didn’t eat supper happened.
It may only have been half of his meal sometimes, but he started eating.
If Yumna can make a toy out of anything, can you make dinner fun and creative? Have her make things out of her food to engourage her to eat?
My godson would only eat certain things if you made it fun. Like tomato soup. if we took crachers and floated them in the soup like little boats. He would eat it!
I’m going to have to do this.. its hard to be so strict though.. thanks for the suggestions!
Yeah I have to agree- she’s holding out because she knows you are going to give her a treat. Don’t do it. Just tell her “okay if you aren’t going to eat you may go” and leave her plate in the fridge. If she comes back later hungry pull out the plate and heat it up and tell her eat it. A night or two of an empty tummy won’t hurt her.
My brother was like this when I started taking care of him. I said if you don’t eat the nutritious dinner I made then you don’t eat period. He lost a lot of weight with me lol (he was 16 and very overweight) and learned to enjoy fruits and vegetables and other good foods.