Toddler teatimes: from heaven to hell

[hobnob57]

Just wondering if any of you who have Been There Done That (and come out smiling ) would like to share their experiences with me?

My 23mth old who is very articulate and a bright spark seems just too bored to sit in a chair and eat for more than 1 minute. She squirms around, tried to climb out and resorts to pushing away food and having a temper tantrum. If I do manage to calm her down and distract her enough to have some more, she will often eat quite a bit more so I don't think she's full.

This has come on all of a sudden and has become a depressingly regular feature of our lives. I'm just wondering how much do I try to stick to principles (i.e. if I say she needs to eat 2 more mouthfuls before getting down, is it actually counterproducive to have a WW3 battle over those 2 mouthfuls so that I can make the point that she doesn't get away with her whims?) as opposed to calmly taking away the plate and letting her away to do whatever she wants to do without having eaten? Does that give her the message that she can do whatever she wants regardless of my wishes?

Have resorted to raised voices this week so I'm not happy with myself. It'll be force-feeding soon and I have unhappy memories of that myself...

We have had dinner time battles in the past and still get the odd one. We resorted to 2 methods.

Firstly the reward chart. This depends on whether you think at 23 months she'd understand the concept. DS1 was fine with it at that age, but some mums think it's too early. If DS1 stops fussing over his dinner and eats a good half of it or more then he gets his much loved yoghurt and if he eats both lunch and dinner without fussing then he gets a star. 7 stars get him a treat.
This stops most arguments and tears.

If that fails and he still faffs around, getting down, trying to throw bits 'accidentally' on the floor etc... then we start with "you can eat some more if you want or I'll throw it away now". If then that doesn't work I tell him he doesn't have to finish but no snacks later and there won't be anything till dinner, and go to move the plate away. If he protests he gets one more chance, then it goes in the bin. I'd then usually bring his dinner forward a bit so he doesn't actually get too hungry. This ploy again tends to work most of the time but we still get the odd real battle where no-one seems to win. The fact that it's so much better than it was though makes me not stress over the odd occasion.

He's 2.10 though and probably understands me a bit better than he did at 23 months, but I hope it's of some help.

some good advice was posted on this thread a month or so ago.