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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:

Pikawhoo · 02/09/2016 20:23

If she was actively choosing not to eat, then she definitely wasn't starving!

Better to get this game out of the way quickly than to have an older child who thinks that restricting their food intake gives them power.

ShiroiKoibito · 02/09/2016 20:28

There's always food available to her, she'll help herself to snacks if she wants them

well there's your problem then, why is she allowed snacks when she wants them?

what you've shown here is that she can inconvenience you (eating your sandwich) and no real consequences

I agree with the 'server up lunch anyway theory

diddl · 02/09/2016 20:42

" and hasn't succeeded in her threat of not eating. "

Did she say that she wouldn't eat at all or just not the next meal (lunch?)

She didn't eat lunch & then as soon as she wanted something, (Op's food), she was given it & more.

What has that taught her?

Gottagetmoving · 02/09/2016 20:47

She wasn't given the choice of eating lunch. She ate when she was hungry.

OP did ok.
People are making this far more complicated than it is.

Mistigri · 02/09/2016 21:23

What has that taught her?

That food is neither a stick nor a carrot in the OP's house?

SleepFreeZone · 02/09/2016 21:25

I have no issues with it. I tend to say dinner or bed when my son is kicking off that he doesn't want to eat. That seems to concentrate the mind and he sits and eats his dinner.

george1020 · 02/09/2016 21:53

I don't think you were unreasonable but I'm not sure it was a win either.

I think if you had made her wait until her normal mealtime then it would have probably taught a decent life lesson for DD
But you know your DD best and if it has worked for you then great , maybe food and not eating as ransom is a slight issue (or could be) that's worth being a bit aware of sometime in the future.

StarryIllusion · 02/09/2016 22:27

Nope not BU at all. I wouldn't have given her any of mine though and certainly no snacks, she'd have waited until dinner. If she was still threatening not to eat then, she'd have gone to bed without that too. Kids who chuck a wobbly and refuse their dinner don't get snacks in this house. I can't abide parents who let their children manipulate them and pander to them. Missing a meal won't kill them.

Topseyt · 02/09/2016 22:31

I think you lost any gain you made when you let her have your sandwich. I wouldn't have let her have mine and would have made her wait until the next meal was ready.

She was playing power games, which she sort of won by getting your food off you.

MadHattersWineParty · 02/09/2016 23:22

I used to get sent to bed with bread and water when I was younger if I acted up/was a madam at mealtimes.

Never did me any harm, and I'd do it with mine if they really took the piss, but my DP was horrified at the notion!

Original poster

MomOfMoo · 03/09/2016 07:06

I have to say that there was no way I was going to refuse her a bit of my sandwich at 3pm after she'd only eaten a handful of strawberries since she got up at 5:45am! There's making a point and then there's full blown cruelty!

OP posts:

Yorkieheaven · 03/09/2016 08:22

what has this taught her?

That she does as she's told and refusing food doesn't get her own way.

Anorexic in the making? Sausage gate at 3pm? Grip please!

Well done op

BeMorePanda · 03/09/2016 08:36

Wow I think it's a dangerous game you are all playing around food. But I think you did the right thing op.

I'd be removing all snacks and not bring them back until she is back into eating at mealtimes and not making threats to starve herself to get her own way.

I hope this is just a stage and she passes through it ASAP.

BeMorePanda · 03/09/2016 08:40

She's 4 years old for christ's sake - she's not a psychological mastermind

Don't be so naive OP. She knows exactly how to manipulate her parents and seems to be doing it very well.

Gottagetmoving · 03/09/2016 08:58

All kids try to manipulate their parents. This one did not succeed.

hettie · 03/09/2016 09:03

Inmho your job is to provide 3 meals a day, then walk away. At this age the one thing children can control is what they put in their mouth. If parents care what they put in their mouth and Kids notice if can seem turn into a battle of wills (which exactly what happens over lots of things at this age in their development anyway). You have to learn not to care, your child will not starve, become nutritionally deficient in anything honest . Provide the meals, stop commenting, accept it's there choice.. The threats will become just that and it will stop (and you dh needs to grow a pair)

sleepy16 · 03/09/2016 09:11

Imo I think you did the right thing op, at this age they are testing out their boundaries.
My children used to say this sort of thing, and "I won't love you any more" Kevin and Perry "I hate you".
I aways used to agree with them and say "I don't like your behaviour but I still love you".
Tbf my children wouldn't last two hours on a hunger strike, and they soon wanted to eat.

SeenYourArse · 03/09/2016 09:14

Some people just do! My DH is an average bloke goes to the gym,so he can eat and drink what he likes,won't eat 'healthily' as he 'goes to the gym so he doesn't have to' eats what he fancies no thinking about food it's just fuel. However if we row or he's annoyed at me he doesn't eat the meal I prepare! I don't care and just make it and leave it on the kitchen side and if he doesn't eat it it goes into Tupperware for his lunch at work the next day,but if he is annoyed/stressed or unhappy his appetite disappears and he won't eat.

dazzlingdeborahrose · 03/09/2016 09:15

No four year old ever voluntarily starved themselves to death. Ensure healthy food is available to her and step off the battlefield. You're not withholding food. Food is available should she choose to eat it. She'll soon realise this gets her nowhere and channel her energy into something else to annoy you

PansOnFire · 03/09/2016 09:15

Yorkie 'sausagegate

OP my almost 4yo is very similar, when he says he won't eat his dinner/tea etc I just don't respond because I don't want to give leverage to his threats. I've also stopped asking what he wants to eat or if he's hungry, I simply plate up his food and give him it at a mealtime and I say absolutely nothing, the same with snacks and drinks. If he doesn't eat it I take it away, if he eats it I take away the empty plate. There is no discussion about food anymore because he can sense my anxiety and knows it's a way to control and bargain for what he wants. Psychological genius, maybe not but he's bloody clever and it sounds like your DD is the same.

So far it's working, he still makes the threats and if there is any mention of specific meal times it sets him off but he's actually eating the food that is put in front of him if he is hungry. Once it's all calmed down we can go back to using names for meal times and talking about them like a normal family. Until then I can only see it making the situation worse.

Ignore, ignore, ignore.

PansOnFire · 03/09/2016 09:17

Oh, I should probably add that since the food threat doesn't seem to be working he's decided he no longer knows how to put his own shoes on...

toomuchtooold · 03/09/2016 09:27

Sounds like if the little girl has picked up the impression that eating/not eating is an effective weapon, she's picked it up from her DD not her DM. He seems to think there's a parental responsibility to ensure she eats something every x hours. I mean, if she'd gone a day or more without eating anything and wasn't ill, maybe it's an issue. Or you have an extremely absentminded kid like mine, who'll swerve food in favour of playing until she's so hungry she's in a bad mood (think Joan Collins in that snickers advert) then OK, you need to pay it a bit of attention. But otherwise? He's just making a stick for her to beat you both with. I think you handled it great.

(My daughter's threat of choice is to uninvite me to her wedding. She is also 4. I go on and off the invite list average twice a day.)

GoblinLittleOwl · 03/09/2016 09:34

Very sensible approach; that sort of calculated blackmail needs to be knocked on the head now.

DonkeyHotay · 03/09/2016 09:40

She was never going to starve and food was available to her.

I'd have made her sit at the table with a sandwich at lunchtime. It would be taken away after 5 mins. No reaction to eating or not, just it's lunchtime so we'll sit at the table.

I wouldn't have given her my sandwich. I'd have served her the missed lunch. Or eaten mine then made her something (maybe). I'd be more likely to offer a lighter snack/fruit and wait for dinner.

DS was on a football camp over the summer. He didnt eat a scrap of his packed lunch because he was too busy playing. He was ravenous when he got home around 3 and just wanted biscuits or sweets. DH and I both just gave him his sandwiches. He ate those and then ate dinner as normal

My DH doesn't agree in letting DC miss meals. I'm less worried tbh.

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