For feeling like DD would be better at nursery FT?

[Warmcandlelight]

Feeling a bit low.

I am struggling with my two year old. She refuses to eat the food I make, she refuses her nap (but desperately needs it) so by the end of the day she’s ridiculously overtired and demanding.

Her night sleep is poor due to poor day sleep and hunger probably.

At nursery she eats brilliantly and naps for nearly two hours.

I feel like she’d be better at nursery five days a week as I know she’d be eating and sleeping properly. It’s really concerning me that she isn’t doing either with me.

Honestly if you're not enjoying her then put her in nursery full time. You can always drop some days later.

I look after my 2 year old granddaughter once a week and she won’t eat in the high chair, we have a picnic lunch on lounge floor using a tablecloth, food goes in bowls and we share and feed each other. It has made lunch fun.

Yes, this! Other things that have prompted DD to eat at home where mealtimes have failed:

Dinner cruise: food is served in a large cardboard box, which is a boat
Takeaway: food is served in a Tupperware
Dining out: food is served in a Tupperware, in the park

Sometimes even at 3.5 she’ll be too tired to eat but once she’s eaten that one small thing then it gives her the energy boost to tackle a proper dinner. So I’ll serve dinner and pudding (cut-up grapes, yoghurt, rice pudding, custard) at the same time. She’ll take the easy, semi-sweet thing – Bird’s Eye custard made without sugar is a huge hit – and it perks her up enough to realise that what she wants is the spaghetti bolognese, actually.

But honestly, nursery is a fine place to be. If that’s what would help, ignore the gloomy “what about her PRIMARY CARER” stuff.

You could send her every day but for a shorter day? So whenever she’s finished lunch and a nap? Honestly, if it works well, it works well.

Many children do full time nursery due to working parents and they are fine.

At home, could you get a low table and chairs for meals like they have at nursery? And maybe also mimic their mat situation for naps? Or a floor bed type thing - I think they sometimes call them Montessori beds? Might work better for her.

We have a small table and chairs thanks - she just keeps getting up and running around.

I think that one or the problems is that she just isn’t motivated by or particularly interested in food. This is why sitting at the table only works if a few people are there. She’s always needed quite a lot of encouragement to eat, but lately she has been existing on a tiny portion of cereal, a few mouthfuls at lunch and then refusing dinner.

Shorter days wouldn’t really work due to the way the days are structured and my work - I currently work three days a week and I could afford to send her an extra day which I’m considering at the moment. It seems crazy just to get her to eat and to sleep but she really won’t with me and I’m very, very worried about it.

Children are often better behaved at nursery and then let out tensions at home because it is their safe space. If that was the case, then upping nursery hours would be counterproductive and you'd see more poor sleep and difficult behaviour during the time she has with you.

Most two year olds i know have been picky eaters at home in phases. Most parent would say 'crikey what am i doing wrong against EVERYTHING in the daily diary for nursery it says ATE ALL or even HAD SECONDS'. It's maddening as a parent. Hence them all chuckling and asking the nursery to start doing takeaways so they all eat at home as well.

Im telling you this just to say its really really really normal. My kids tended to fight sleep at nursery a bit with so much going on. And at home was hit and miss.

I think you are doing nothing wrong and everything right and you have a very normal two year old.

The encouragement to eat is what I'd stop. Present everything, let her choose what to eat and how much and don't comment, talk about other things.

Eating with her helps because then you can say that she doesn't have to eat, she just has to sit at the table (or floor/box as PP suggest) while you do as it's a mealtime.

If she can eat with other people at nursery or when you have visitors, then she can eat with you. It’s not about “can’t” it’s about control! And I work in early years, I can assure you they all try it on at lunchtime with getting up and down, they are immediately placed back on their chair, even if we have to do it 20 times!! Oh and some will scream blue murder at nap time, but eventually learn that everyone naps, before long they are running into the sleep room to claim their bed!
If she’s truly ready to drop the nap then insist on quiet time on the sofa.
Don’t think nursery can solve the difficult bits of parenting for you.

Thanks @vivaespanaole

@MissyB1 can’t or won’t makes no difference here. She will not eat at the table and I have enough worries without forcing something that has never worked.

Quiet time on the sofa is a no starter, you can’t make a child this age sit quietly. You just can’t.

Do you work at Miss Minchin’s School for Girls?

Of course it’s about control but little kids have so little they can control – food and clothes are basically it; so why make food a battleground? OP’s job is to offer the food, her kid’s job is to choose what to eat. As a child who was forced to sit at the table and had food wars waged upon her, I’m firmly of the belief you offer the food and leave kids be – if they want to eat under the table like a cat, or subsist on ham sandwiches for three weeks before suddenly reverting to five fruit and veg a day, or not eat much at all, that’s fine.

Yeah that would well at nursery wouldn’t it?! A class full of kids crawling around on the floor under the tables at lunchtime! 🙄

OP seemed to want her child to do what she’s capable of at nursery, I explained how we did it.

I’m clearly suggesting it’s what OP does at home but do carry on, Miss Trunchbull

There is no way for me to replicate what happens at nursery - there are more staff, more kids, the whole routine and structure is different.

I love my child very much, but I’m finding this stage quite hard work dealing with long awake periods at night and meal refusal is stressful, and I’m just trying to think how best to manage it.

OP, you're just dismissing/rebutting any advice/suggestions.
If you want to send her to nursery FT, just go ahead and do it.

So what did you actually want from this thread?? Just a moan? Or hang on… did you want everyone to tell you to out her in nursery full time? Hmmmm

What do you want from the thread? Do you want to be helpful, kind, supportive? Or to give me a kicking?

Of course advice is warmly welcomed and I would love to hear a range of views - and I have done so. I haven’t made any decisions yet, so I am not sure why you are responding so confrontationally. The post you have quoted says nothing about having made a decision to put her in full time, so as well as being rather unsupportive in your responses, you also don’t appear to have read it.

Actually I gave you good constructive advice. You didn’t want it. You wanted a magic wand I suspect.

@MissyB1 please don’t fall into the trap of thinking that because someone politely says something doesn’t personally work for them that they are rejecting or ignoring the advice.

It was great advice. I’ve seen similar recommended on here over the years and I’m sure for lots of children it works well. Equally though, there are a lot of children my DDs age that just wouldn’t get the concept of quiet time - I’m not sure any of the other children in my NCT group would, to be honest - and for whatever reason she really doesn’t like sitting at the ‘big’ table and at the little table it’s just too tempting to keep getting up!

That isn’t a personal rejection of your advice, it is simple explaining how things are.

Wondering she drinks more milk or has more snacks at home so isn't proper hungry for lunch? Then isn't proper full for a sleep?

Thank you - she doesn’t, no. She only has two snacks: one mid morning and one before bed, and this is either fruit or a cereal bar (the Ella’s kitchen sort of thing.)

A few things. It is soooooo much easier to get kids to do things in a group. If you had 3 other children there the same age, they would all just follow along. 10am in the golden time to introduce concepts for most children. Pick one concept at a time. And make it about you. "I'm so excited I'm going to try chicken today" She says "i hate chicken" you say, " oh yes, that's right, I forgot, i'm going to try a cheese sandwich". Don't try an exhaustive list but be realistic. And each day may be different. Then at 11:30 am. "I can't remember - did I say a cheese sandwich or a chickamadoo sandwich". Okay, hopefully she takes the bait and cheese sandwich is eaten. I find gouda the lightest cheese.

Naps - My DC2 never ever had a nap at home! she gave it up at 1 1/2. She is almost 3 and still naps at nursery and not at home. It's a tough one. Luckily she has never seemed to miss it much. Sorry I have no advice here.

Not sure what you can afford but could you try a class in the morning? It makes them hungry then they're desperate for a plain cheese sandwich on the go. Then you can try to walk back from said activity in a very cosy cosy buggy that can lie flat and try to achieve a nap this way?

Also, do what is right for you and your little one. Whether that be new strategies or going for the more days at nursery route. It takes about 2-3 weeks for any new routine so if you try something, you have to keep going and going for a good few weeks before it really does prove to not be working.

All the best

Thank you for such a kind post

I think one of the awkward things about her is that she isn’t fussy - to give her her due, she eats most things, but it’s just that she doesn’t seem very interested or motivated by food. She would rather play, I think!

Language wise she can’t really express herself brilliantly yet so we do have tantrums as she can’t say she is full or feels sick or just doesn’t feel like whatever is on the menu.

She is a complete pain with sandwiches - always has been - takes out the filling and throws the bread around.

It is a phase I am sure, she’s eaten brilliantly today at nursery so I’m hoping she’ll sleep better tonight.

I think they all do that with sandwiches tbf! DD is reasonably easy around food but she was still peeling the bread off and picking out the filling til 3.5. They like all the components separately.

Do you bake and cook with her? I think helping prepare the food is a useful activity: even if at first it’s chopping a banana with a play knife, or spooning yoghurt absolutely fucking everywhere but the bowl.

That’s a great idea, thank you