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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to call DD's bluff over food battles and let her starve?? (A bit)

99 replies

MomOfMoo · 02/09/2016 17:00

So DD's latest 'thing' is hunger strike. She's 4 and she's been playing this game for a couple of weeks and it's EVERY time I ask anything of her.

"If you make me do that/tidy up/go there/get dressed, then I'm not going to eat my breakfast/lunch/dinner."

Today, I called her bluff and told her to carry on and starve. I ate normally and didn't even offer her anything. She made it all the way to 3:00pm having had only a handful of strawberries and a glass of milk for breakfast before she caught a whiff of my delicious sausage sandwich and caved. She polished off my sandwich, then one of her own, and then helped herself to yoghurt and fruit out of the fridge.

Told DH what I'd done (maybe feeling a little bit proud of my small achievement) and he was horrified that I'd let her go all that time without food. I like to think she's learned a lesson.

Am I monster?? Does anybody else's delightful 4yo have any of these sassy little quirks? Tell me I'm not alone!

OP posts:

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 02/09/2016 18:21

Ds3 once threatened to leave home, because of some terrible parental crime on our part (making him tidy up, not letting him eat all the biscuits etc).

We asked him where he would sleep - at the side of the house, next to the wall, was the answer. And what was he going to eat? Dirt and worms, apparently - so dh said to him that we'd better make sure he was OK with that diet, gave him a spoon and took him down the garden for a quick snack.

Ds3 decided that staying indoors and eating proper food was a better choice!

YANBU - I think you did exactly the right thing!

GruffaloPants · 02/09/2016 18:24

Lots of armchair psychologists here.

I can easily imagine my DD (aged 5) trying this one. It's just about learning about bargaining and control, and testing boundaries. If it was always about food that might be a concern, but the OP hasn't suggested there are ongoing food issues.

My DD is always trying "I'll tidy my room but I won't have a bath" or "I'll brush my teeth but I won't put on my slippers". I don't engage with the bargaining and she soon forgets. She doesn't even have a problem with these activities! Sounds like you handled it fine OP.

RebelRogue · 02/09/2016 18:25

Threats dd(4) came up with
I won't love you anymore
I wont play with you anymore(god yes pleaseeeee)
I will punch you(seriously in trouble over that one)
I will run away from home
I will put you in the bin(wtf?!?)

They're 4! They'll try whatever shit that works and gets a reaction.

JudyCoolibar · 02/09/2016 18:26

Queen, it's not a win for DD because she threatened not to eat if OP made her do something she didn't want to do. OP must have made her do whatever it was, otherwise DD wouldn't have tried to put her threat into effect. In the event, she didn't succeed in putting her threat into effect and has therefore learnt that it doesn't work. So she did what OP wanted her to do, and didn't succeed in "punishing" OP for making her do it.

MagikarpetRide · 02/09/2016 18:30

My Dc go through phases of this from time to time. I just tell them now that food is at x time and if they don't want it then fine but if they get hungry tough, they'll wait until the next meal. And then follow through on that. They normally get bored of the not eating game fairly quickly.

Now if I could just get them to stop the knocking the crap out of each other every time I leave the room...

SaucyJack · 02/09/2016 18:31

Giving your small child food when they decide to quit their pointless strop and start eating again isn't "caving" FGS. It's acting like a parent, and not a concentration camp guard.

Seeing it as a loss because your kid asks for a meal and then eats it is seriously fucked up.

Blondeshavemorefun · 02/09/2016 18:32

offer food at meal times, if she refuses then fine but nothing till next meal, tho can have water, not milk or juice as may fill them up

not giving her lunch, then letting her eat your sausage sarnie , make her one and then yog/fruit just meant she was hungry a few hours later as didnt eat lunch

and proved to her doesnt matter if she skips a meal as you will allow her what she wants when hungry, rather then wait for proper meal time

if she had all that at 3, did she want tea ta 5/whatever time tea normally is?

KittyandTeal · 02/09/2016 18:38

My almost 4yo has pulled the 'if you make me I won't eat xyz'. It took all my nerve not to panic as a recovering anorexic (before anyone shouts about what dd1 is seeing in relation to food I am healthy now and meal/eating is no longer an issue apart from in my stupid head)

I called her on in and said 'that's fine, you are still doing abc' and she did.

Luckily she forgot about her threat and ate but I was fully prepared for her to be served lunch and eat nothing.

You said you'd tried that and it didn't work. You upped the anti, it worked. She now understands natural consequences. I'd have done the same tbh.

Oh and from an ed point of view; you have just taught your dd that food cannot be used as a threat or bargaining chip in your house and that it is not a way to exert control. If anything she's a step further away from anorexia.

Trifleorbust · 02/09/2016 18:38

No-one withheld food. The four year old said she didn't want food (using this 'threat' in a proto-power struggle with Mummy 😂) so her mum waited until she did. Absolutely reasonable.

Mistigri · 02/09/2016 18:45

Getting drawn into using food as a weapon in a battle with your children is always a bad idea. It sounds like you handled it perfectly.

Small children don't need to eat all the time, and most (not all) will eat when they are hungry.

RichardBucket · 02/09/2016 18:46

YANBU and please don't turn it into a proper battle as some posters have suggested! My mother did that to me and I have an incredibly fucked up attitude to food.

Carry on as you are.

JudyCoolibar · 02/09/2016 18:49

and proved to her doesnt matter if she skips a meal as you will allow her what she wants when hungry, rather then wait for proper meal time

The issue was not the child skipping the meal. The issue was the child trying to manipulate OP by the threat not to eat. She didn't succeed either in getting out of what she didn't want to do, or carrying through on her threat. She's now learnt that that's a useless threat and won't try it again, so the whole issue of skipping a meal is almost certainly now history.

Yorkieheaven · 02/09/2016 18:50

Think that was great op. Well done.

Liking her style. Roll on the teenage years.

BooBoopBeep · 02/09/2016 18:51

You didn't refuse her food did you?

If you didn't then don't worry, you did nothing wrong

ButtMuncher · 02/09/2016 18:51

There is some seriously over the top pearl clutching/histrionics on this thread. OPs daughter is FOUR and she's doing that thing kids do, testing boundaries!

YANBU and I think you handled it fine. If you'd prompted her to eat all day she would have likely remembered the strop she was in and refused to eat - we've had that with DSS before, if you leave it long enough they 'forget' what they were even annoyed about. Allowing her to come to you (as in, she caved) is in part her way of resolving the strop.

ChatEnOeuf · 02/09/2016 18:51

Sounds entirely reasonable. Especially the mid-afternoon sausage sandwich (tell me you got to eat one?!).

DD is almost five and her current threat - always related to tidying or not getting the chocolate biscuits she needs () - is "Well I won't invite you to my birthday party". I point out to her each and every time she says this, that I am arranging and paying for her party, so if I'm not invited, I shan't bother. Usually sorts her out.

GDarling · 02/09/2016 18:52

Kids will fight you for power, nip it in the bud as young as possible, you are in control, not them, you are her Mother not her friend, you are in charge.
She is only testing you, quite natural, we have all done it to our parents, good on you, as if you listened to yr DH you would eventually have a little princess on yr hands, which is not conducive to a happy home/life.

Farmmummy · 02/09/2016 19:03

Haha Rebel do you have my DD1? I got the bin one too and also I won't ask you to my birthday party. (Responded with the incredibly mature and sophisticated who says you're having a birthday party anyway?) have to say though she's too greedy to have thought of refusing to eat though.

Gottagetmoving · 02/09/2016 19:06

Bloody hell,..people are obsessed about their children getting an eating disorder.
Don't do this,...it may cause an eating disorder...don't do that etc etc.
Everything a child does is analysed and then a terrible outcome predicted.
Kids are quite straight forward,clever and manipulative. Far too much is read into everything they do.
YANBU OP.

gillybeanz · 02/09/2016 19:06

YANBU at all.
I did the same with fussy eating and friends thought me mean.
They ended up with fussy eaters, but hey presto out of all 3 of ours not one bit of trouble.

I'd take the food away when they didn't like it (they did really) put it in the fridge and serve it up for next meal, or the next if it continued.
Obviously a taste issue is different, I wouldn't expect them to eat anything they really didn't like, but wouldn't give it to them.
One doesn't like peas another swede and I don't like pineapple.

WorraLiberty · 02/09/2016 19:19

All the child has done, is eat the sandwich (when she fancied it) that her Mum made for herself, as well as the one her Mum made for her.

Kid 1 - Mum 0

OrsonWellsHat · 02/09/2016 19:22

Some hysterical posts

JudyCoolibar · 02/09/2016 19:22

No, Worra, that isn't all that has happened, because Kid has had to clear up the Shopkins and hasn't succeeded in her threat of not eating. Mum 2, kid 0.

RebelRogue · 02/09/2016 19:29

Farm haha. Even though she is very fussy, dd did say she keeps me around to make her food(and carry her suitcases..gee thanks kid) so i must be doing smth right.
99% percent sure she wouldn't try this as meal times are non not negotiable in this house...too much of a slippery slope and bad memories

WorraLiberty · 02/09/2016 19:32

Yes but the kid knows it bothers her Mum when she refuses to eat her lunch, regardless of whether she cleared up or not.

So she's still punishing her Mum.

The OP has said I have no idea where it has come from but I imagine it's stuck because she knows it bothers me.

Her DD knows it still bothers her. Even enough for Mum to hand her the sandwich she made for herself and another one after that, that she made for her DD.

My Mum wouldn't have shown she was bothered at all and if I'd have asked for a sandwich (let alone her one) at 3pm, would have been told "No. You chose to skip lunch so now you can have an apple and wait for dinner".

Which is pretty much what I would have said to my DC too.

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