My 2 year old ds is quite often a bit of a horror at mealtimes. There's a lot of acting up, shouting, mucking about. He won't use his spoon or fork for the main meal even though he can use it perfectly for yoghurt. There's a lot of cajoling although I try and do this as gently as possible.
However, sometimes he is really poorly behaved. I know he's still small so I don't want to have unrealistic expectations about what he should be doing.
For example, dinner today was a write-off.
He has tea at nursery at 3, so on those days I try and give him a snacky dinner (cherry tomatoes, homemade mini pizza bits etc). He refused to sit at the table and was running around like a maniac. I left him for a while thinking if he saw me feeding his baby sister he would join us. He didn't but was getting more manic. I told him to come and sit down and try some food. He just refusing and running round. Eventually I said the choice was to come and sit down to eat and we could watch something after or that he could keep playing but we wouldn't watch anything afterwards. At which point he had a screaming tantrum.
I understand he won't always be hungry. I'm not expecting him to eat everything. I just hate the constant battles and acting up.
I don't think I'm particularly uptight about my response when he's like this. I praise him when he eats well etc, but I'm obviously going wrong somewhere.
Any advice?! Please!