A week ago one of the "mommy bloggers" everyone reads, whether they're willing to admit it or not, posted about her toddler and his eating habits. She posted a list of the 5 things he ate right up until she wrote them down at which point he threw #3 on the list at her head. I commented on that blog saying my toddler will eat anything save beans, provided she's actually hungry. I said I don't care if my toddler doesn't eat for three days. I know she won't stave and she will, eventually, eat.
Oh, how the cocky stings.
The two year old is making me CRAZY with the food. Not because she will only eat 6 items or because she refused to eat before sunset. She is making me crazy because she is constantly. asking. to. eat. and then will not eat what I give her. Even if it's what she asked for. It doesn't matter what I serve her, outside of chocolate which she'd happily eat for breakfast. 9 times out of 10 these days she wants to eat eat eat. And then pushes the food away the second I place it in front of her. "Here Mama. Take this. Don't want this." Rejects the pizza and the apple and the pasta. The cheese omelette I made specifically for her even though she just ate half of the omelette I made for myself and requested more. More mama! And then no eating. Won't eat the pancakes she was sure she wanted. The pancakes I made at 6:30 in the morning from batter I made from scratch at 6:30 in the morning. Not interested after convincing me she was, in fact, interested.
I am sick of making food only to throw it away. I'm also lazy. I don't want to spend an hour offering cereal and banana and left-overs from dinner and cheese sandwiches only to throw it all down the disposal and wash more dishes.
I'm trying something new today. After first serving her pasta and sauce with a side of corn and fruit salad (she didn't eat any of it, 'natch), I'm trying a trick I've heard of from other mothers, possibly even another commenter on the aforementioned blog. I put a muffin tin of snacks on her table. I'm not serving her anything else until dinner. I am lazy and she has burned me many times already.
The muffin tin caught her eye today, at least. She ate something.
I'm not banking on this working tomorrow, however.
Comments (2)
wow, that's a brilliant idea, i hope you have luck with it. i think it will help her decision making process. it's much better than what my mother & stepdad did to my stepsister - if she didn't eat breakfast, it came out for lunch, if she didn't eat lunch, it came out for dinner.
Posted by blue | March 20, 2007 6:23 PM
Posted on March 20, 2007 18:23
woah! love the muffin tin idea! i just recently read in a book (Becoming the Parent You Want to Be) that a study showed that babies and toddlers who were given healthy food choices and then left to eat or not eat, would, over time, eat just the right combination of foods to meet their nutritional needs. so i guess the muffin tin makes our job of providing those healthy choices easier!
Posted by sarah | March 23, 2007 12:39 AM
Posted on March 23, 2007 00:39