I think we are going to change to the few bites rules. I like the rule one bite for every year they are old. So in this case it would be five bites. I'll keep them very small because she's not one to stuff her mouth full. I'm even willing to give her a toddler spoon, which is slightly smaller than a teaspoon but not a baby spoon. She eats with these anyways. Still waiting to hear what everyone thinks about food afterwards. Do I allow her to have desert or snacks if she only had her five bites? Remember this isn't about her eating stuff she really doesn't like. And I don't want it to be a punishment to have to eat. But I also don't want her using this to fill up on snacks. Although most of our snacks are either fruit or crackers. So thanx to all for sharing. Take Care joanan
Joanna, we also used to use the "bites" rule, but it was a single bite (of a size appropriate to the age). However, if the child wasn't hungry enough to finish all of her dinner, there was no dessert. I don't know if that was the best idea or not, but it worked for us.
BTW, when I took students to Europe every couple of years, they also had to follow the one-bite rule. I told them that they were welcome to
*quietly* not finish something they'd tried and honestly didn't like, but that they were not to make a fuss about it. They were awfully good about it -- much better than one adult who went with me one year and spent the whole trip complaining about food and generally embarrassing all of us.
I am NOT going to eat 5 bites of rutabaga, chopped liver, sushi, lamb, anything with raw onion and with apology to my British friends, Yorkshire pudding. Joanna, reading back, it appears that she likes: peanut butter, jam, fruit, crackers and hot dogs. For Heaven's Sake, why don't you just feed the child what she likes? It's not like she wants you to roast a hog in an earthen pit 3 times a day. I don't see anything noble about being willing to eat everything. Family meal times should be happy times. It is not a battleground. So she goes to China and won't leave McDonald's ? So what? Polly
No filling up. Eats lunch: apple or banana mid afternoon... Doesn't eat lunch: isn't hungry so no snacks! If you find she wants a snack mid afternoon, but is then fussy at dinner that evening, cut the snack and bring the evening meal forward a bit.
NOTHING in the hour and a half before lunch or evening meal. Whining that she's hungry? Say Oh, good! Soon be lunch/dinner/tea time!
Eats her mouthfuls - gets pud, but no second helpings... Eats a whole 5 YO portion of meat, veg and stodge (rice, potatoes, whatever), and of pud and wants second? Ok, but no sweet snacks later. If she doesn't like the pud on offer, there's always an apple or a banana, if she's eaten the rest of the meal... But NOT an alternative pud unless EVERYONE is getting the same choice.
Don't make a fuss: just lay down the rules, stick to them, and ignore any whining, weedling, and crying. Behave as if they are not happening. Gagging noises I draw the line at. If that started (James only tried it twice!), I removed the meal and he missed everything from there on for that meal. There were NO snacks available between then and the next meal, either. Like I say, he only tried it twice!
James's tummy takes a while to wake up in the morning (bit like the rest of him! He's 14... ), so I often make him a fruit smoothie for breakfast: 3 small bananas, a splosh of vanilla extract and half a pint of milk. Slides down easy and has plenty to keep his brain going until lunch time.
I've always found that fresh air, plenty of exercise, and sweets as a very occasional treat (once a week or less at that age), and introducing them to as much variety as possible was the key. Not that I ever had much problem with James... What he doesn't like:
Baked beans! Aubergines (slimey) Courgettes (soggy and not interesting!) Porridge (MU-um, it looks horrible!)
He'll try almost anything, and loved things like rare steak, mussels, garlic, olives, goat cheese, smoked salmon, and so forth from the moment he had enough teeth to chew them.
The way to keep him really happy? Roast dinner, plenty of thick dark gravy, piles of green veg, and apple crumble with cream to follow!
I have had to feed other people's fussy kids at times. My way is: this is it - eat it or leave it. You are welcome to try something and then decline a portion, but there isn't an alternative that is not on the table. If you ask for it and then leave it, no pud! If you get REALLY hungry, there's always dry bread... Never really had a problem.
Vegetables are problematic for some kids, so I usually have quite a variey on the table and let them choose.
I hear you but I would never dream of serving that stuff. We're pretty much meat, potatoes, rice, and pasta people. I'm not living on hotdogs for ever, forget refuse. Don't mind once or twice a month and sometimes I let her some for lunch while I have something else but I think even once a week is too much. It's processed food loaded with lots of not good for you stuff. Just like everything is ok, in moderation.
That could work aga> I am NOT going to eat 5 bites of rutabaga, chopped liver, sushi, lamb,
You seem to worry a lot about what "might" happen. Kids are funny. They'll eat stuff at other people's house that they won't touch at home. Our neighbor boy is a good example--when we have the DGS's for 3 weeks in the summer, he eats a lot of meals with us since he's here most of the time playing with them. He ate salmon and loved it--when his mother asked why he'd eat it here and not at home-"because nobody said I had to". I have a feeling if you'd just stop with the pushing at meal times, things might improve. Gen
In the US, aubergines are eggplants, and courgettes are zuchini. I make killer parmasanas out of both vegetables, but nobody else in the house likes them because of their texture.
We have a lot of the same rules at our house as Kate has. If they hate something, they do not have to eat it. But they do have to be polite about it. Impolite behavior gets you sent away from the table with the verbalized hopes that you will be more civil at the next meal. Politeness, by my observation, is best instilled soonest. Five is old enough to be polite, and intentionally gagging is _not_. I am willing to fall back on peanut butter if a child can't stand supper, so long as they eat it at the table. Suppertime is suppertime and they will by gosh eat with everyone else. But they will neither eat nor sit at the table if they are being rude.
Ash is a bit of a problem because of communication troubles, but even he has learned to try something before he decides he does not like it, and he mostly sits at the table for meals. Like all kids he is a work in progress, he just takes a bit more work on our part. (G)
I talked with DD about this just an hour or so ago. She made a VERY valid point -- peanut butter, jelly, crackers, hot dogs, etc. are GOOD food choices. It's the TYPE of peanut butter, etc. that can cause a problem. If you feed the kid a PB&J use whole grain bread with as few additives as possible, use natural PB and J that is natural with a minimum of sugar, etc. Serve kosher dot dogs because they don't have a lot of junk in them -- and so on for just about any food that most kids like. I think the problem with letting any child eat only what s/he feels like eating is asking for trouble -- it's not a 5 year olds prerogative to determine what s/he gets to eat -- assuming of course that the food being served is something the parent knows the child eats and accepts. If you make meat loaf for dinner and you know your kid likes meat loaf then the kid either eats the meat loaf being served or gets to go hungry. OTOH, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having the kids help decide on what will be served for dinner. DD will often give Raechel & Steven (DSonIL) a choice of food for dinner and let's them decide. This is an option that seems to work well with most kids because they feel they have had input and they got to make a choice -- AHHHH the sweet smell of control -- sort of -- LOLOL. CiaoMeow >^;;^<
We had one VERY fussy girl come for the day when we were all kids. At lunchtime, she 'didn't want any lunch...' (i.e. had never had whatever it was and wasn't going to try without lots of coaxing). My bro got to the end of his, looked at hers and said asked 'Are You going to eat that?' When she said 'No', he took her whole plate and ate the lot! Come dinner time she ate everything without a word. The effect lasted for about 6 weeks! After that. when she started getting fussy again, her mum would say, 'I think it's time you went and stayed at Auntie L's again', and the problem vanished for another few weeks. My mum had never even said a word... Her attitude was like mine: this is what I've made: eat it or don't!
The one time we had a battle over food was with my dad, and I won. I just could not take the feel of fried eggs during puberty, and one Sunday morning I especially requested not to have one. He forgot and it appeared on my plate. Luckily, the other kids had all heard me say it, but he wanted me to eat it, so I sat and stared at it for over an hour, until Ma appeared... Her attitude was 'For goodness sake, she never eats the damned things, and asked not to have it! Kate, get this table cleared and start the washing up!'
No Idea. Nore what they did during the war here, with everything on VERY strict ration...
My father had very few food fads. Never ate bananas, and displayed very few other dislikes. Wiuld never choose to eat rabbit, as he ate too many (unrationed, you see) during the war. Hubby Alan was brought up in a family where money was often tight, so they didn't waste food either... We just don't do fussy eating, but do allow genuine dislikes. And as we have some serious diet requirements, we do have to be careful. I HATE having to be that careful, goes against all my life philosophy, but there we go: if I'm not, I'm in agony! And I really love some of the things I have to avoid, like red wine, rare beef, strong black coffee, chocolate, butter (and all other fats: got to replace tablespoons with teaspoons in cooking!)...
I made mousaka the other day. It was lovely, but contains two elements that James dislikes: aubergines and the yoghurt stuff on the top. He picked the aubergines out, but ate the rest. He did ask that when we eat the other three portions that went in the freezer, please could he have something else. That will be fine, as there are other things in the freezer, so when we have a 'freezer day', he can choose what he likes. Alan will very occasionally ask me to make the meat/fish/whatever into something else next time... Has happened about three times in 27 years. I can cope with that.
A work in progress.......that's me, too! I admit that 64 years is a long time to be "in progress," LOL! The fact that I seem to keep improving a little bit each year gives me hope that I might become a nice person before God takes me home.
The only time I consistently took input from kids was when my first husband's parents passed away and his two younger brothers came to live with us. A little personal control over meals, bedtimes, clothing and TV watching seemed to help the boys. No wonder they felt the world had gone crazy, the bottom had truly dropped out of their world! The next few years were not without problems, but we got through them okay. They were good boys with a lot of common sense, so I felt that if they asked me to make meat loaf and scalloped potatoes (comfort food, for them) or asked that the chicken be Southern-fried instead of broiled, or asked me to rice the potatoes instead of mashing them, it was okay with me. It was still good basic food and the only vegetable I remember them backing away from was Brussels sprouts. Lots of kids don't like them, so I just didn't prepare them often while the boys lived with us. The only way they would try them was when they saw their older brother (my husband) gob up the sprouts with butter and pour on the malt vinegar--they thought that was cool and would always eat a few sprouts if they could have lots of butter and vinegar.
They preferred to wear jeans to school, rather than dress pants, but it was their choice and did not offend the dress code. No problem. They loved detective and police shows, so we watched quite a few of them while the boys lived with us. They were teenagers, and I saw no reason why they couldn't stay up until 10:00 if their homework was done and they could get up on time in the mornings. Our son was much younger, so he had to learn about appropriate bedtimes and TV shows for his own age, with the promise that when he was older he would have the same privileges as his uncles.
Another time that personal control came into play was with the younger boy, who was a bedwetter. We tried a couple of traditional methods, such as rationing beverages after supper and a plastic cover for his mattress. But my husband heard a radio show child psychologist say that if the child handled his "accidents" by stripping the bed himself and laundering his own bedding and wet clothing, and remaking the bed himself, it would help by taking the shame and guilt out of the situation and letting the child deal with the problem himself. After a visit to the doctor to make sure there was no physical cause, we did exactly that. He not only followed through by taking responsibility for the clean-up and laundry, but within a year his bedwetting was a thing of the past. I still think the root cause was the loss of both parents within a year and then having to move to a different state. And I'll always be grateful that my husband heard that radio program, it allowed the boy to regain his dignity and take control of his own problem.
Blended families, no matter what the cause of the blending, can be a blessing and an incentive to learn--both for the children and for the parents! I never regretted our years with those boys, except the failures on my part to provide the support they needed. There weren't a lot of failures, true, but they still cause me to wish I had been a better surrogate parent. Still, I will always be grateful for all I learned. The boys came into our lives after we had experienced several miscarriages and the loss of premature twins. I suspect God put us together to help and comfort each other.
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