Friday, January 18, 2008

Eat your dinner!

Any suggestions on how to get a strong-willed, carb loving 2 year old to eat a well balanced dinner??

We are all ears!

8 comments:

Kelli said...

the only thing that seems to work with Rachel (but not all the time), is to not let her have the carbs (potatoes and bread are her favorites) until she has eaten the other things on her plate. Rachel is generally good about eating her vegetables though... she likes them, she just doesn't eat them. so we have to tell her to eat them or else she won't get what she is begging for. like i said, it doesn't work all the time and there have been some times when she has gone to bed without eating much, but she is starting to get the point.

you could also use the sneaky chef or deceptively delicious recipe books, that mix in the vegetables with other foods so the kids get the good stuff without knowing it.

jaime s said...

Thanks, Kelli! We actually have tried this (and it worked for one day). Now she is lock jawed when it comes to trying the food on her plate. It's definitely a battle of wills and so far, she's content to not eat anything (if it means she doesn't have to eat her dinner). She likes fruits and some veggies but virtually NO PROTEIN (besides peanut butter). So dinner time is our biggest struggle.

I should've included that I have structured her day better (including her meal and snack times) (Thanks to advice from her dr.) So she knows the "time" to eat is not all day whenever she wants a snack. It's set and she has an appropriate amount of time to eat. If she doesn't, then she has to wait until the next meal time. This has worked fairly well EXCEPT for dinner. She just won't budge! (and now she's begun to wake up in the middle of the night).

Eli has just started sleeping through the night so we are MORE THAN EAGER for Faith to return to the good little sleeper she's always been!

Heather said...

I may not be a parent yet, but my best friend has had this trouble with her almost-five-year-old. He won't eat much of anything (and hasn't since he was about 2). She's convinced that toddlers can live on air! Anyway, she just fed him what he would eat and didn't worry about the rest. He continues to grow and gain weight as he should and the doctors aren't too concerned because of that. As long as your doctor's not concerned, you should be okay. (Of course, as a mama-to-be, I can say that now. When it's my kid, I may feel differently!!)

Jerri said...

Oh...boy...been there! I got most of my boys to eat broccoli by calling them "little trees" and eating them in front of them. Also, "dip" in the form of yogurt or low fat Ranch dressing...for carrots, cucumbers (those taste like rain, I told them). But Steve was my hold out. He is 26 and just now started eating vegetables! Protein is harder...what about barbequed chicken legs? Sliced turkey wraps?
Those little vienna sausages aren't bad except for sodium and look like little hot dogs. I think your idea of meal and snack times is the best idea. She'll eat when she gets hungry. One of my boys (Don C.) went on a "thank you" strike when he was Faith's age. He almost skipped a whole day of eating, because he refused to say "please" and "thank you". Finally, at dinner, he got over it.

Amanda said...

Delaney went through a period of time where mealtime easily became a battle and she usually won. She would absolutely refuse to even try many things, even things I knew she would like if she would just put them in her mouth. We finally decided it was not worth the battle, so we just stopped making it an issue. I put a healthy variety on her plate and let her eat what she chose to eat. I would encourage choices she wasn't interested in trying, but not fight her about it. At the end of the meal, Aidyn would usually have a small treat of some sort. If Delaney asked for one, we would tell her she hadn't eaten enough healthy food to have a treat and she usually didn't care at all. More recently, she has become much more open to a lot of things. If it looks weird to her, she still won't try it (things like casseroles), but if I tell her she needs to finish her carrots or spinach or other familiar items that may not be favorites, she's usually pretty willing to do it. We have a one-bite rule with Aidyn, meaning she has to at least try everything on her plate, but we're not quite there yet with Delaney (unless we want to make mealtime into a battleground). Baby steps, I guess. Good luck with finding a solution that works for Faith:)

Amy said...

Asher's a big bean eater for his protein. He likes hummus and black beans best. He has a lot of hummus sandwiches for lunch. Maybe that could work.

jaime s said...

Thanks for the tips! We'll keep pressing on and try some of your suggestions and hopefully something will click soon. Her weight percentage (25%) is WAY below her height (90%) so we're trying to fatten her up a bit. I wish I could switch percentages with her :)

Jerri said...

Hey, I'd give anything to have those percentages--like my mom always has! (And she's a redhead, too!)
Someday you'll laugh at your food battles....when she's towering over you. Two year olds are fun--just remember that you'll welcome her independence when she's having to face peer pressure as a teen. It's a good thing to learn to say, "No!" and they're so good at it at 2! :)