To offer him a banana?

[larrythelizard]

DS is 2 and 4 months.

Historically food and eating has been a battle but more recently he's been better and he's eaten what he's been given for meals (obviously he eats everything at nursery)

We're careful with timing and quantity of snacks (most of the time offering fruit/breadsticks etc).

Tonight he has decided against his dinner and would not try and mouthful of it. It was a creamy chicken thing with mash and grated cheese.

DH was adamant that DS wasn't to eat anything else however after 90 mins of ignoring the fuss he was making/cajoling him/trying the naughty step, DS has still refused to even try it (i offered a 'special spoon' to try and offer him a way to climb down from his protest without feeling he was giving in etc)

I've just offered him some milk and a banana as a compromise before bed as he's clearly hungry (I think dinner looks too saucy for him).

DH thinks I shouldn't have offered DS anything else.

WIBU to offer him a banana?

I'm all for setting boundaries but I've never made food a battle ground before and it sits uncomfortably with me.

What age do they understand consequence ie you will be hungry in the night?

Offer the poor kid a banana. He's just a toddler and it's cruel to send kids to bed hungry.

As for the naughty step for refusing to eat. WTF? Children should not be punished for not eating and as you said, food should not be a battleground.

YANBU to offer something instead.

What time are you offering him dinner? I wonder if he is too tired by dinner time... mine wouldn’t eat anything tricky or adventurous if they were tired. About 5pm is the latest I’d go at this age.

Your husband is going against any advise a healthcare professional would give, and I would argue is being abusive. At a minimum that's how y ou set children up for eating disorders.

Read a book by Bee Wilson called First taste, it gives a history of how humans learn to eat, and I found it really easy navigating how to approach picky eating with a child with allergies. Our dietitian echoed the approach. At that age, you want them to try things, you DO NOT EVER want to punish eating, or not eating. You need to stand up for your son here or your DH's attitude will have long lasting effects on him.

It really does depend on your parenting style to be honest and it would help to agree with your husband how to deal with these issues in future. I tend to be quite hardline with food so if my DD doesn't even try any, she doesn't get anything else until morning. If she says she's hungry, she's offered her dinner but that's it. If she's tried it and genuinely doesn't like it, I give her an alternative. If you don't feel comfortable with that, just offer him a banana but be warned he may shove his dinner to one side knowing he'll get a banana if he moans long enough. And I agree with PP, naughty step for not eating is pretty pointless.

Just offer a v small portion next time, maybe keep the mash/chicken separate on one of those compartment type plates/trays and have the banana in a separate bowl so he can feel safe to eat that?
It's the whole you can lead a horse to water thing. Offer the food, if he doesn't eat, he doesn't eat but keep a safe food on the side then he's eating something at meal time and he can pick and choose

So say jacket potato then have a pot of beans, a pot of grated cheese, a pot of whatever food he will always eat even if it's apple or banana

The naughty step because he didn’t want to eat and 90 minute meal. This is awful. He is going to end up with some serious issues around food.

Offer him food, make sure most of what is on his plate is he familiar and happy with eg carrots and sweetcorn. Give it to him, talk about what it is, the colours the texture but don’t comment if he eats it or not. Offer fruit and yoghurt for pudding.

I think you’re making a massive deal out of it.
Toddlers are terrible fussy little buggers who change their mind like the wind. One day they LOVE something and have 3 helpings and the next day they swear blind they hate it and won’t even consider a tiny mouthful.
It’s totally normal and the more you make an issue out of it the worse you’ll find it.

When my toddler doesn’t eat dinner then I always make sure he gets a slice of toast or a banana / yoghurt with some milk before dinner.
I would never let him go to bed hungry. It’s ridiculous to punish a young toddler by not allowing them to eat.
I wouldnt have allowed a cake or chocolate no - but a banana of course.

He would have just woken up in the middle of the night crying bc he was hungry anyway - what did your DP think? That he’d “learn a lesson” and eat his dinner up from now on? Toddlers aren’t that developed.

If my toddler doesn’t eat well I offer a slice of toast later on, I’d say a banana is in the same league.

Please don’t punish him - he’s two. He can’t explain why he doesn’t want it but clearly he didn’t,

You are not being unreasonable. I shan’t write what I think of your husband’s behaviour.

Try giving some control to your child over the food - put veggies in bowls on the table and allow him to help himself to however much he feels he needs. Try and always have something there that is safe. Have a pudding and don’t let having that be dependent on him eating his main. He might go back to his main after his pudding anyway. Let him know that if he doesn’t eat his meal, a banana is available as a substitute. Don’t let it become a battle.

I'll second Bee Wilson's First Bite: How We Learn to Eat. It's a very interesting read even if you don't have a toddler.

I don't think there should ever be punishments over food. I've just asked DH not to make spicy rice for dinner because I don't fancy it. If he'd made I wouldn't have eaten it but then I would have made myself something else later. Your son doesn't have that option. He shouldn't go to bed hungry because he didn't want saucy chicken.
Although instead of battling next time try to get him to identify what he doesn't want and try to adapt his meal. Scape the sauce off and chop it into a sandwich, or add ketchup kind of thing.

I would have offered something else.
It may not work but my DD is the same age and when she doesn’t want dinner, I give her something else (not a treat or a something sweet, something like banana, or a couple of orange slices, or some plain yoghurt) at the same time, so she has that and the main meal in front of her. She will often then eat more of the main meal after eating a little of the other thing. The other day this meant that she was alternating bites of banana, and forkfuls of chicken curry - not the mix I’d have chosen but she hadn’t touched the curry before and ended up eating quite a lot.
I don’t do it straight away, only if she’s not eating the meal. Some meals she eats easily so I don’t need to do this.

The way I tackle is (and I have 2.5 year old twins) is that if they refuse breakfast (rarely) then they don’t get offered anything else until mid morning snack. Same with lunch, if they refuse (rarely) they don’t get anything until mid afternoon snack. If they refuse dinner (often 🙄) then they’ll get a drink of milk and bread and butter before bed. I absolutely will not send them to bed on an empty stomach. I never ever offer an alternative at the table however, they’re not eating from a menu where they get to pick & choose.

We also try to do the 1 safe item on a plate, so even if they eat the safe food then that’s ok.

Eating should be enjoyable, why make it so difficult for yourselves? Naughty step for not eating is ridiculous. As an adult, how would you feel if someone punished you for not eating something you didn't like the look of?

My children get a choice. They get a choice of what's put in front of them, or a slice of buttered toast. I don't tell them off, I don't try and cajole them, I don't punish them. I just give them that option. It makes dinner time so much more enjoyable.

You put him on the naughty step for not trying his dinner?

I honestly cannot believe be some of the stuff I read on here. I hope this is fake.

At his age I would have given him the banana.

If my ‘battle’ was to get mine to taste the food one trick I found worked was to put only a fork/spoonful in front of them. That was less daunting that looking at a whole plate. If they tried it but didn’t like it, I’d offer them an alternative. Most of the time they liked it after a taste.

@SickAndTiredAgain

I would have offered something else. It may not work but my DD is the same age and when she doesn’t want dinner, I give her something else (not a treat or a something sweet, something like banana, or a couple of orange slices, or some plain yoghurt) at the same time, so she has that and the main meal in front of her. She will often then eat more of the main meal after eating a little of the other thing. The other day this meant that she was alternating bites of banana, and forkfuls of chicken curry - not the mix I’d have chosen but she hadn’t touched the curry before and ended up eating quite a lot. I don’t do it straight away, only if she’s not eating the meal. Some meals she eats easily so I don’t need to do this.

My little boy does this, apple slices or a clementine.

The naughty step for refusing dinner?? Perfect way to set up an eating disorder, besides being both cruel and stupid.

Food is a battle ground because you are doing things like using the naughty step because of it!

Kids are humans. They are like us - he may not be hungry when you are offering a meal. He may want a snack an hour later. I mean, even j do this.

Oh I don't agree with the naughty step but don't agree with undermining DH in front of DS - we will be discussing this evening. He's absolutely not abusive but took it too far this afternoon (by too far I mean 45s on the naughty step).

The 90 mins of refusal was largely sat on my knee having a cuddle but crying and wailing anytime it was suggested he should try a mouthful.

I'll look that book up.

DS helped me cook the meal and enjoyed the whole process - I actually don't mind if he doesn't like something but think he should try a spoon/forkful and then can move on to something else.

I don't want DS to think that he can choose not to eat dinner and demand something else, that's not ok - he usually has dinner then bath then banana and milk before bed anyway so wasn't that dissimilar tonight.

Good grief! Give him a banana!

Wow!

The ability to understand consequence is linked with the developmental milestone of being ready to toilet train, so unless he's already out of nappies and mastered the potty, nothing that you are doing makes any sense to him, other than he is hungry, doesn't want what you have given him.

Your choice to send him to bed hungry, but it doesn't seem to me that that would be in his best interests. What you do now has an impact longer term.

Toddlers are notoriously fussy and it is normal, evolutionary behaviour. Turning mealtimes into a battleground and/or using the naughty step is counter productive and the latter is a wildly inappropriate use of that discipline method.

My DS(6) became fussy from 14 months and it’s been very frustrating, he’s been under a dietician for two years, and the final dietician conclusion is he’s choosing to be fussy and all you can do is keep offering a variety of foods.

So, the dietician advice was when serving a meal always include one item that he likes such as baked beans, carrots, apple, whatever. Try putting food in the middle of the table and everyone serve themselves. Offer new foods outside of mealtimes so the pressure is off if they are hungry and feel
pressure to eat. Don’t offer milk between meals as it is a food and will fill him up too much.

Have a look at the book ‘Getting the little blighters to eat’ for simple advice.

Above all, don’t make a song and dance about eating or he’ll really dig his heels in.

2 is way too young for the naughty step, it's fruitless

@Namechanger20183110

2 is way too young for the naughty step, it's fruitless

That wasn't supposed to be a banana related pun by the way!