Withholding pudding if child hasn't eaten 'enough'

[Toriathebadger]

I'm a bit torn about this. DS3 (4) is becoming fussy, I think it's just a phase as he's always been a good eater and has plenty of fruit and veg. Just lately he's hardly been eating his meal and says he's gone off a lot of the food he would usually eat. His dad (ex dp) expects me to withhold pudding if ds hasn't eaten 'enough'. He does it with his dd (from previous) who is a fussy eater. He makes her stay at the table until she's eaten 'enough', and if she doesn't then she can't have pudding. It means she's often sat at the table alone shovelling food in reluctantly that she clearly doesn't want. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

I think there's a happy medium here, as I encourage ds to eat a bit more but ultimately if he's finished then I let him have pudding and don't make an issue out of it. Ex is horrified and thinks I'm ridiculous.

Who is being unreasonable? Either of us? Just different parenting styles?

@TheChristmasPrincess, well you are better at parenting than me then.

Because I’ve never been that accurate at establishing how much they want to eat on a particular day. That was true when they were 3yo and it’s still true now they are 17yo.
I’ve always hated people dishing up food for me for the same reason. Some days you will be more (or less) hungry than others.

In our house, the dish is brought to the table and each person says how. Much they want.
My parenting kicks in to ensure they’ve eaten enough vegs (or encouraging them to have some/ two mouthfuls was my motto for fussy eating), to ensure the meal is balanced. And that includes what they have for ‘pudding’.
What and how goes into my dcs mouth is up to them.

@Sally872

If my children aren't hungry enough for dinner then they aren't hungry enough for a treat after dinner. They don't have to finish it but they do have to eat a sensible amount.

What are the puddings? If it is fruit or a yoghurt I would be more flexible. If it is an actual cake or biscuit I wouldn't let that be instead of dinner.

This has always been my philosophy too. It does also depend on what they have eaten the rest of the day too as to how stick I am. As a rule they need to eat half their meal, especially the vegetables.

Your ex is wrong, he will make his daughter have problems with food when she is older by forcing her to eat and not leaving the table until she does.

Dinner time is suppose to be enjoyable, sitting down together eating and sharing the days stories, not a battlefield. As long as the dessert is not a chocolate bar and is fruit or a yoghurt I can’t see no problem with it. Don’t let your ex rule your house. Your house your rules. He can do what he wants in his own house. I’m sure in the long run your child will be more then happy to try foods at your house where there is no pressure.

@TheChristmasPrincess

I tell them what to do because I’m their mother? Just like I tell them not run across the road and put clothes on in the morning.

I am using my own judgement that 3/4 of the food will keep them full enough until their next meal. If I thought half a plate would fill them up it would be half a plate. If they’re not hungry that day, no problem, they won’t need pudding then, will they? Problem solved.

I'm my children's mother too, I just don't control what they eat.

I parent differently but I also parent.

There is an immediate consequence to running into the road.

There is no danger to my child if they eat four fewer mouthfuls of food. And so I don't need to control that.

I agree about over eating and unhealthy attitude to foods when you have to ‘finish what is on your plate first’. @PlanDeRaccordement

We don't tend to have pudding during the week but dd would def have to eat a decent amount of dinner before being allowed pud. I would just not offer it.

I was fussy when I was young and my parents used to make me sit at the table until I’d eaten the food, or as it more often went, until I’d got into such a state that they just gave up. It was miserable for everybody and it didn’t do anything to help my relationship with food. Now I’m an adult I’ll eat most things but I still won’t touch boiled veg, which I find utterly grim and which were the main instrument of meal time torture when I was a kid.

My siblings oldest DC is also fussy. They have decided not to make their DC eat any food they don’t want to, which is fair enough, I remember the misery it caused, but instead they just allow their DC to leave whatever they like on their plate and they’ll still get pudding and snacks no matter. Their DC will start asking what’s for pudding before dinner is even served, then cheerfully leave 3/4 of their meal, which we all know they like, then hoover up a massive pudding like they’ve never been fed before.

I can only conclude from these experiences that a fussy eater is a fussy eater, and neither free access to whatever they like or force feeding them cold stringy green beans will change that fact. From my own POV when I was a fussy kid I would have let myself starve before I ate what I didn’t want to, but I wouldn’t refuse what I did like, so my solution has always been to offer what my DC like. If I put them up a dinner of food they like which I reasonably expect them to eat then there’s nothing else if they don’t. If the meal isn’t very nice or there’s something in it I find out they don’t like then I let them leave what they want and don’t force it. I do not however have any truck with this ‘I’ve gone off it’ nonsense when they’ve eaten the same thing last week. My response to that would be ‘well eat it now and I won’t do it for you again.’

There’s no point making the dinner table a place of stress and anxiety, but at the same time I won’t allow my DC to just waste food because they’d rather eat cake. If they can’t manage their meal then they can’t manage pudding, I do not hold with the extra pudding stomach nonsense unless the main meal has been fully consumed.

@TonMoulin

I agree about over eating and unhealthy attitude to foods when you have to ‘finish what is on your plate first’. *@PlanDeRaccordement*

Yes, we seem to have similar approach to the subject. I always felt that eating healthy is something to teach by being a good role model, instead of forcing your child to eat specific amounts of certain foods. For us meal times are always enjoyable.

There shouldn't be any rewards and punishments associated with food, and certainly food itself shouldn't be used as a reward or punishment.

I'd still offer pudding if you were intending to at that meal, I'd just ensure I wasn't offering sugary puddings too often (which is sounds like you're not anyway). Our 3 year old is fussy and we're trying to follow the 'getting the little blighters to eat approach'. Not offering her fruit because she's refused to eat her pasta doesn't make any sense to me!

She'll often declare that she's finished after a mouthful or two, or indeed declare that it's too yucky without even trying it. We just say ok, but she has to stay at the table until we've all finished, and if we're having dessert then that's also when we've all finished. Normally she'll end up eating a bit more then. She even ate some spinach the other day! We did things DH's way for a bit, which sounds similar to your DS's dads approach, it was awful, and when he forcefed her whilst she was crying and she almost choked is when I put my foot down and we switched to this approach.

My DC are 3 and 6 and I do a bit of bribery via pudding, but I try to make it reasonable.

They know vegetables etc are healthy and pudding is not, and that it’s important they have a balanced diet. So I’ll expect them to eat some veg before they have pudding.

I also won’t give them pudding if they’ve not made a decent stab at their dinner (the old “I don’t see how you can be hungry for pudding if you’ve left so much dinner?”)

But I don’t make it a hard rule they need clear their plates or anything like that. Basically I try to encourage them to try more, eat a range of food including healthy choices and “pudding bribery” is one tactic I use amongst many.

The 6 year old in particular is a fussy eater, easily distracted from eating and very skinny so if I didn’t operate a bit of gentle cajoling he’d just pick at the least healthy bit of dinner every day.

In my experience I would say around 7ish. That’s around the age I was allowed to assess what I was allowed to leave on my plate as well as when my nieces seemed capable of making an informed decision and understanding that if they left their dinner they wouldn’t be getting anything again until the morning.

If DC told me they were finished and had only eaten half of their food, I tell them “you do understand that if I take your plate away, you won’t be getting a pudding?” I think there has only been one time where they have said okay and been happy to leave the table. The rest of the time they have kicked off because they had wanted to leave food in order to get their pudding quicker. When asked if they wanted to resume eating and then having a pudding, they begrudgingly eat until they’ve eaten what I deem an acceptable amount.

The grandparents and eating question is a source of great contention at the moment 😆

@flaviaritt

I must say, the horror of “pudding” on this thread is very weird.

👍

If they aren't hungry enough to eat dinner - provided the food is reasonable - then they don't get any pudding. Otherwise they learn to push away veg and meat and then get a dessert. However, I'd never make them eat "enough" but no snacks between meals. If they complain then they should have eaten more at the meal table and will do so next time as they'll be hungry.

@TonMoulin
I think that parents making children eat more food than they want to eat in order to be allowed dessert is one of many causes of childhood obesity. The U.K. is the fattest country in Europe! There is nothing wrong with eating a light dinner, say half a plate of food and then some strawberries or mango for dessert. Why force a child to eat yet more food in order to have dessert? All this parent judgement just trains the children to ignore their own bodies cueing them when they are getting full. They develop patterns of eating that center around eating more than they are hungry for, this then leads to over fed children who become over fed and obese adults.

For any 4 yr old to eat at least all vegies if not all fruits good luck with that.
your child will never starve themselves
Offer and leave it
Perhaps look at the type of food on offer
I wouldn't make a child sit to finish a meal I hope she vomits over him!
Besides the endless will make them have a eating disorder comments how about a
Another evening of being bitched at to get all my tea.. yuck
I noticed puddings a taboo word
My pudding varies from cheesecake slice to fruit to ice cream,, we are not all obese to do this either

When you make children eat vegetables you set up a negative attitude towards those foods. It is so counter productive.

I wouldn't force my child to eat if they are telling me they are full but I also wouldn't give them dessert.

That being said it's important not to put too much food on their plate that it makes it unreasonable to expect them to eat it all.

Wasting food then being given treats is a big no from me.

your ex is an idiot.

You are right.

@PersonaNonGarter

Stop offering puddings at all.

This. If they think there’s something ‘better’ they’ll just fill up on that instead. But I accept I’m old fashioned. That said I’d never make a wain sit at the table alone being practically forced to finish their food.

I still remember being made to eat a grapefruit, which I absolutely hated (and still do - far too sour for me) by my aunt about 35 years ago at breakfast time. It is so vivid still. In your situation I'd make sure puddings had real nutritional value, so were fruit based. My one nutritional success with my kids was natural yoghurt instead of fruit yoghurt (in the sense that they didn't really realise fruit yoghurt existed..). If you add your own fruit-based flavourings you can vary the taste without being as sugary as processed yoghurt often is.

And on following rules set by other parent, I always tell my DH they have to be agreed by us both if I'm going to support them – and not just invented on the spot.

I suspect the non-puddingers will have bigger portions of main course. In the long term, you might get used to thinking that your larger portions are normal size, thus leading to a distorted sense of a proper portion size.

Doesn't all this eating everything on your plate thing come from a history of post-war rationing that's no longer relevant now? Another good tip I've heard – from someone who has hosted students – is to let everyone help themselves from the serving dishes. Better to come back for more than have to chuck food out because they had too much. Appetites can vary enormously.

Absolutely Lemon The main cause of obesity in the UK is not eating enough pudding.

@TantieTowie I would love to get to the stage where we can do that with the kids. At the moment though I imagine they would just serve themselves mountains of potatoes to go with their protein and zero vegetables 😆

I can only dream (although I personally hate serving myself when at other people’s houses as I don’t want people thinking I’m a greedy cow!)

My parents used to do this, I was a fussy wee bugger. Didn't have to eat everything but it had to be a good attempt - if you barely touched your meal then clearly you weren't hungry for dessert.

Looking back on it it was the right call, I would have gorged on ice cream (or whatever) and then snuck bread out of the kitchen to snack on.