I resorted to laying on the floor crying please advise me!!!

[Jaynee]

I am mum to dd (3 1/2) and DS(1) I work pt 3 days a week. today was a day off and awful. I once taught in a failing school and today reminded me of my days there. My dd is such a bad eater that each meal is stressful have been trying the 'if she doesn't eat it she gets nothing' approach but she now has an awful cold and I'm worried that she isn't getting the nutrients to help her build her immune system as she is always ill. Tonight I cooked her dinner and arranged it as a face which i thought she would like but she threw a tantrum because she wanted to arrange it as a face. I put her in her room as I was so angry I couldn't be near her. I then cooked her another dinner which later i let her arrange as a face which she ate but i had to feed her. Meanwhile ds does blw and made such a mess throwing it everywhere. In the end he dropped his drink on my toe and it hurt so much i just lay down and cried. What have i done wrong? why cant they just sit and eat nicely like I had to when I was a child? any advice welcome

[girlsyearapart]

Feel your pain!
I wouldn't make another dinner though. I think they totally pick up on any chink in the armour and push you as far as they can. We were expected as kids to sit and eat and to ask to get down from the table when we finished too. Hard to know what to do with the fussy eaters of now?
There is a thread which I'm on for people with 2 or more pre schoolers.
Come join us on there to rant. Some clever person can come on and link you to it hopefully x

[Jaynee]

ok i'll have a look thanks feeling like doing such a bad job at mo. x

[whomovedmychocolate]

I have a 3 year old and a one year old and they are ALL like that

I've pretty much accepted DD being a little sod at mealtimes, the only time she eats more than a few mouthfuls is if it's got chocolate on

May I suggest: plenty of milk, Abidec or similar vitamin syrup and don't pay any heed. Very few tots get rickets you know, and as for their immune system, afraid it's the time of year.

Another tip, spread newspapers on the floor and put the highchair in the centre, you can fold them up and put them in the bin and not deal with all the stuff - or get a long handled broom and scoop (that's what we do).

NB they do get better at the throwing food thing- DS is 14 months and he's already getting better

[kateGB]

I should think we've all been there ! I once got so frustrated with DD1 when she was about 20 months old that I threw her porridge across the kitchen. Have you ever tried getting ready brek off a venetian blind? I think some of it still stuck to the wall like cement nearly three years later.

Your DD is competing for attention with your DS in one of the few ways she knows how - and it is working.

Personally, at 3 1/2 i would cut up the food for her so it is small enough and then leave her to it. If she doesn't eat then she goes hungry. If you are worried about her nutrients then get some vitamin or syrup stuff (can't remember what its called) whilst she is ill.

Its a cycle of attention seeking that needs to be broken. Can you feed them at different times so that who ever is eating gets your attention whilst the other one plays ?

I also think, personaly, that when you work you (I!) build up my non-working days to be such a wonderful mother / child fun bonding time that kids being kids (i.e. bloody hard work) and me being knackered leads to such a huge disappointment that everything horrible becomes magnified with a 'must be a better mummy' next time attitude.

When I was a kid I was a slow fussy eater and had to sit there until I ate my dinner. I also went on a diet of beans and sausages for a week because it was all that I would eat and my mum got totally sick of me (the diet ended when I threw up!)! I didn't starve and I didn't become some food crazed weirdo so ..

A bad day, poor you. You're not alone!

[whomovedmychocolate]

My brother insisted of living on fried egg sandwiches for six years - he is both still alive, well and very successful (though he smells better now he eats a more varied diet )

I found getting DDs friend to come to tea quadrupled the amount both of them ate!

[waitingforbedtime]

I soooooooooo now how you feel and I only have one kid!

Ds was a terrible eater, at the start of this year he was eating a yogurt and maybe some organix crisps in a day. That was it.

Now, he is still very fussy (and sometimes "needs" fed unfortunately!) but will eat more fruit and some veg and eats cereal, carbohydrates etc. I thought Id never be tough enough to do the whole 'its that or nothing' thing but it IS the right thing to do. we did do the 'soft version' of it though. So our routine went like this...

8am - breakfast, cereal first then toast (so kind of giving 2 options there but he got the second even if he had eaten the first)

lunchtime - main option (eg sandw) THEN yogurt then offered other things on a 'snack plate' so things like cubes of cheese, banana, dried apricots, ham, crisps, apple etc etc (again got this snack plate regardless of whether ate main bit)

dinner - main bit (usually some kind of pasta tbh) followed by yogurt/ fruit.

supper - anything from crumpets to toast to roll to tomatoes, apple, crackers etc etc

Sorry this is a long post but basically he got other things to eat such as yog or snack plate or supper or whatever even if he DID eat lunch or whatever meal. Therefore he didnt see it as an alternative but it still gave him the opportunity to fill up iyswim? Also, it meant he didnt think he was 'winning'. I never offered him something like a different main meal (eg pizza instead of pasta etc).

Ds still has crappy eating habits in other ways but in terms of actual amounts and variety he has improved. Oh and we cut out snacks until he improved.

Dont worry about teh nutrients thing too much - you could give tonic / supplements??

[cory]

are you sure that you always did sit and eat nicely when you were 3 or 1 years old? I have memories of being very well behaved and competent with all sorts of things, but a quick cross-check with my mother has revealed that my memories probably date from a later period. Some of her memories of my early days are a bit more unsettling...

[MunkyNuts]

If DD won´t eat her dinner, calmly remove it and don´t offer anything else. Toddlers can go for a long time without much food and then will refuel when they need to. I´d supplement her diet with vitamins for children, I use Abidec with my DD and DS and they seem to like the flavour (you can get it in Tescos) but there are quite a few different ones to choose from. There´s a thread about mealtimes that offers loads of advice for making mealtimes bearable with toddlers, well worth a read. Good luck with it all, very trying times when you´ve got two so young - Im in a similar boat with two close together, slowly, slowly it´s getting slightly easier (don´t want to tempt fate - touch wood etc).

[MunkyNuts]

"look at this thread.

[bodiddly]

if your dd throws a tantrum I would simply tell her that if she doesn't sit nicely and eat properly you will take the food away and she will not get ANYTHING until next meal time. If she persists I would take the meal away and send her off somewhere to calm down. If she then wants to come back and sit down nicely and eat she can .. .if not then that is it until the next meal time. I would probably make the next meal a little early and give her something I know she likes (though not a treat) in case she is genuinely hungry by then. I wouldn't get involved with making faces, trains, shapes etc. Just cut the food up in a relatively small portion and let her get on with it. If ds so much as started to play with his meal the whole plate was taken away until he was prepared to eat nicely.

As for your ds, at 1 he sounds about par for the course! Good luck. I think being really strict is the only way to go .....

[Danthe4th]

I agree with bodiddly, no messing, no arguing and definitely no cajoling or gimmicks.

[kateGB]

I think Shineoncrazydiamon has hit the nail on the head. It will improve "but only when you stop caring so much". With DD1 I was desperate to make sure she didn't somehow starve and ate the right stuff (hence the porridge incident referred to earlier :0 ). It was only when I stopped being neurotic about it and let her get on with it that things improved. With DD2 I learnt my lesson and she gets given what we are all eating, if she doesn't eat she doesn't eat , 'shrug shoulders!'. Experience has shown they wont starve themselves.

Can't get dd2 to eat carrots though....