DS is 4 years old and going through a phase where he is eating terribly. I battle with him at every MEALTIME...not just dinner, breakfast and lunch as well and I am so sick of it.
At breakfast he takes FOREVER to eat a bowl of cereal when I'm usually trying to get him ready for pre-school, and dinner, more often than not he sits there pushing his food around the plate.
I find it so frustrating as I usually make an effort to cook something delicious from scratch and I can't help but take it personally when he doesn't touch it or points out all the things he doesn't like. And then when I give him fish fingers he eats the lot, ha ha!
When he eats well he eats really well and I go so OTT on the praise, but it doesn't seem to encourage him to eat well again next mealtime.
We've recently had another baby (6 months ago) and I do wonder if it's some kind of attention seeking. He doesn't appear to be jealous of her in any way...he's wonderful with her and loves nothing more than playing with her and making her giggle. We had the odd dinnertime battle before she was born but it's been a lot harder since. I have to admit I had a meltdown at the dinner table when DD was a just few weeks old as she was VERY high maintenence in the early weeks and I had had a particularly hard day. When DS started playing around with his dinner and barely ate anything, I really lost my temper with him and shouted "FOR GOODNESS SAKE, JUST EAT IT". It shocked him and made him cry. I'm not proud of it and it hasn't happened again, it was just one occasion when, hands up, I lost control. But sometimes I do wonder whether he's trying to push me into losing it with him again.
My strategy with his eating at the moment is I put the plate in front of him, and set the kitchen timer to 20mins. This is the time he has to finish his dinner if he wants dessert and/or to watch a bit of TV before bed. While he's 'eating', I'll either be pottering around in the kitchen (where he's eating) or I'll be feeding DD at the same time. I'll praise him if he eats a mouthful but otherwise try not to give him too much attention other than occasionally tell him how much time he has left. It started off working really well but has lost its effectiveness now.
Does anyone have any tips that worked for them on getting their fussy eaters to eat?
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Aaaaaaaargh! Fussy eater driving me crazy!
22 replies
CoffeeChocolateWine · 12/01/2013 18:44
OP posts:
Adversecamber ·
13/01/2013 16:35
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