Good luck, ennay. I know it is hard to get the kids to try new things, but I am thankful that I didn't cave into their "I don't like it" banter. Sure there are a few things that the kids don't like and they have tried them, so I don't force those at all. After all, there are things that I don't like either!!!
Warning, Food Item Mentioned Below
Funny story, while visiting my sister in Dallas, she took us all to Krispy Kreme (we'd never heard of them). DS was about 3. We watched the doughnuts roll off the assembly line and a worker handed one each to DD and DS. DS tried to give it to me saying "I don't like it." I told him he had never had one and he had to try it before he could decide he did or didn't like it. You can imagine the outcome~four bites later he wanted another!! As he grew up, I just had to remind him of this event and he was more likely to try new foods.
lmao somehow my dd has an instinct for junk foods and doesnt hesitate to try those. Truthfully though, she has ALWAYS been stubborn about trying new foods. She wouldnt take a bottle, and even at 6 months she would refuse to try something that looked different. Even when she loved weird combinations like pear and spinach in yogurt, she wouldnt try peaches on their own. She would clamp her mouth tight and trying to force it in resulted in her going on a food strike for 3 or 4 days. As an infant. The sad part is she likes almost everything that she will try.
I'm really trying to diffuse the power struggle mostly right now. She is a dig in her heels kind of gal and the more power we give her over her food the less she fights trying things. I dont mean she gets to short order cook or anything. I present a meal with several healthy choices (and per the advice of a couple sources I respect always one food she is familiar with and has liked in the past) and let her serve herself and she chooses to eat or not eat, but there is no "other food". About every 2 months she has a 2-3 day span where she decides to try a bunch of stuff and then she gets stubborn again and wont eat even food I know she likes. One day she will eat an entire red pepper and then she wont touch one again for weeks.
I just remember my parents trying to force me to eat when I wasnt hungry and then one day I just flipped and gained 50 lbs in 2 years.
Yeah, I understand. And I would never force my kids to eat. I remember my folks telling me to clean my plate and all that. I am more of a "if you're full, stop eating" kind of person. DD has a little bit of weight problem--nothing more than 15 pounds, but she is self conscious about it. DS is a very normal sized kid. He seems to be on a bit of a growth spurt and is eating a little more than usual, but that usually only lasts a few days.
Oh, and I'm so excited I just had to tell someone. I was at Bed Bath and Beyond and got a digital food scale. It's so cool. I can't wait to start using it!!!
I have to tell you guys...Your stories have had me laughing for a half hour here! I am even smelling rotten food in my imagination, too!
I've been scouring my brain to try to think of a time when anyone made me eat something when I was young...Can't think of a single time!
One thing, though, is that my grandma and I usually did the cooking. My mom HATES to cook and would do the cleanup and setting the table etc. IF we agreed to cook. I have been in the kitchen since I was able to stand, helping Grandma bake and cut up vegetables and mash potatoes. Everything Grandma made was delicious! She used lots of creamy butter, made homemade bread a couple times a week and was an absolutely fabulous cook. Everything I learned about cooking I learned from her. There wasn't a BAD food that she ever made, and as I was helping her bake or cook, I of course was sampling and tasting as I went.
Maybe it would have been better if there would have been some foods I hated! Maybe then I wouldn't be battling this weight loss thing!
I have to tell you guys...Your stories have had me laughing for a half hour here! I am even smelling rotten food in my imagination, too!
I've been scouring my brain to try to think of a time when anyone made me eat something when I was young...Can't think of a single time!
One thing, though, is that my grandma and I usually did the cooking. My mom HATES to cook and would do the cleanup and setting the table etc. IF we agreed to cook. I have been in the kitchen since I was able to stand, helping Grandma bake and cut up vegetables and mash potatoes. Everything Grandma made was delicious! She used lots of creamy butter, made homemade bread a couple times a week and was an absolutely fabulous cook. Everything I learned about cooking I learned from her. There wasn't a BAD food that she ever made, and as I was helping her bake or cook, I of course was sampling and tasting as I went.
Maybe it would have been better if there would have been some foods I hated! Maybe then I wouldn't be battling this weight loss thing!
Cheryl
Nah, cause what I learned to do then was scarf down the awful stuff first to get it out of the way. well then, no way in heck was I going to miss out on the good stuff just because I was full, so by the time I was 10 I learned to override my hunger signals, eat til I was stuffed, eat til there was no more.
I still struggle mightily with stopping at satisfied because for me every single meal ended stuffed. satisfied is where I started eating "for real"
One of my brothers was really stubborn. One day he decided he was not going to eat bread crusts any more. We had french toast for breakfast that day, and he made a neat little pile of crusts on his plate. Mom told him to sit at the table until he ate the crusts. My brother sat there the entire day until it was finally time for bed. Mom wraps up the bread crusts and then the next morning pulls out the bread crusts from the day before and tells him he can't eat anything else until those are gone. Again he refused and sat there all day. She finally gave up and he started eating his crusts again the next day. Children can be so weird.
Yeah, I had a HUGE problem with soggy cornflakes when I was little. I loved my cornflakes, as long as they were crunchy. The ones that sat under the milk for too long were out of bounds. Mum wouldn't have a bar of it - one of her favourite sayings was "well if you won't eat it now, it'll go in the fridge and you can have it for breakfast tomorrow!" Of course, that NEVER worked...what is worse than soggy cornflakes? Day old soggy cornflakes!
My parents were fanatic about us at least trying, if not eating, everything on our plates. This was just not something you messed with my mom on. My sister and I never tried to hide our food because we knew she would find it and the punishment would be severe. She also refused to make anything special for anyone for dinner; so if you didn't eat what was served, you went hungry for the night. But the worst was the glass of milk we had to drink with dinner every night. I hated it, when it was warm it made me gag. To this day, I will not drink milk, I don't care how cold it is. I like soymilk, I think for the same reason so many people don't like it--it doesn't taste like milk.
I'm a much pickier eater as an adult than I was as a kid; I swear I was in my mid-20's before I figured out that I didn't have to eat food I didn't like anymore. But once I figured it out, all bets were off; now I don't eat anything I don't like and it turns out there's a lot of stuff I ate as a kid that I don't like.
When I was growing up my stepdad LOVED sauerkraut. Just the smell of it made me gag! He made us eat it anyway and I promptly threw up.............I never had to eat it again and never had to try anything I didn't want
I do try new things, but if I just KNOW by the smell of it that I'm not going to be able to get it down without gagging then I am better off not trying. And I make sure that my kids try new things because they love all kinds of foods that I just don't care for.
One day my cousin was babysitting me and my brother. I HATE apples. They're nasty, I can't stand them. Anyways, my brother had a sliced apple for a snack... and me being the big sister, felt it was my need to torment the child. So I licked one of his apples.
She made me eat the whole thing. I swear I still hold a grudge on her for that, lol.
Here is my story...
I was probably 5 at the time, and my family and I had sat down for dinner, and I would not eat! My mom was stern with me and said, "if you don't eat whats on your plate, you're going to have to live with the consequences..."
and I replied, "WHO are the consequences?"
Haha, I guess I didn't care if I had to live with them, I just wanted to know who they were??!
I remember "The Consequences"! I was going to have to pay them! Not only did I not know these people, the only money I had was my tithe money. I was really hoping that God wouldn't be mad at me for taking that money and giving it to "The Consequences", whomever they were.
