3yo's eating habits

[TrinaLuciusMalfoy]

Is anyone else still having to feed their three-nearly-four year old? She knows HOW to use a fork etc, but every mealtime is a battle with her dancing round the room/chasing the dog/scratching her arse/doing ANYTHING other than eating. If I do not physically put the food on the fork and into her mouth, she wouldn't eat. Breakfast she's fine with, it's just the other two meals. I know it's the whole 'rod for my own back' thing, by carrying on doing it I'm making it worse, but I've tried letting her go hungry and she wouldn't cave, and there was only so long I was prepared to try it! Most mealtimes the food will be on the table for an hour before we clear it away - at which point she throws a major tantrum and demands to eat it. Naturally though as soon as it's put back, she won't touch it.

At my wits' end here, if anyone has any suggestions - even if one person can pipe up with 'oh god me too', that would make me feel better, even if it didn't solve anything!

hhmm my DS who is 3.5yrs can be similar. He refuses to sit in a boosted reined in chair, so after he has a couple of mouthfuls he is off to play. No amount of trying to getting him back to the table works. And then he is hungry an hour later when we are putting him to bed, and demands snack after snack (which we give because don't like him going to sleep hungry). We always tell him, that he will be hungry later if he doesn't eat dinner, but what can you do, if he is not hungry at dinner time, he is not hungry I guess. Everybody else is hungry though, so I'm not changing mealtimes.

I don't feed him though. He was BLW, so never spoonfed.

Why not try giving her 30 minutes to eat, then clearing it away. If she is hungry at the following meal she will eat. Or if not at that meal then the next one.

No healthy child will starve themselves.

We don't give in on snacks, if she wants something later she'll be given her meal back. I don't always feed her, sometimes she just says she 'needs help' and wants me to put the stuff on the fork for her, she'll then put the fork in her own mouth. I just feel like a mug doing this for someone old enough to switch the computer on, log herself in and fire up word so she can do some typing!

If you stop doing it though, what do you think will happen?

What Rubirosa said.

You are in a vicious circle. Tell her at a certain date you are stopping feeding her and she can decide for herself if she wants to eat. Use a timer for all mealtimes and start clearing and ignoring her when it goes off. Give 10, 5 and 2 minute warnings before it goes off.

If she's hungry, she'll eat. Let her be hungry for a few days of messing around - this in the long term is far better for her, so she will learn to regulate her own appetite. She has made food a source of power and she is in charge. You aren't a bad parent to let her go hungry, you are a bad parent if you don't put food in front of your three year old.

LOADS of children go though this. She might just grow out of it. What happens if someone else is looking after her at a mealtime? Will she be starting full time school in September, what then?

re needing help and loading up the fork

you do one, she does one
next mealtime, she does 2 you do one
and so on till you only do the last one or something