Holding food in the mouth for hours - please advise me before I marmellise the little urchin!!!!

[whomovedmychocolate]

DD (2.10) has started holding food in her mouth after meals. For up to four hours! She secretes it in her cheeks like a fricking hamster. It's driving me demented. She won't eat it either, eventually we lose it and tell her to spit it out and I've tried ignoring it but it doesn't seem to help.

She barely eats anyway (though you wouldn't know it - she's the size of a four year old in height and weight) and what she is eating is being digested mostly in the mouth and not the stomach it seems.

Anybody solved this? It makes me physically nauseous when I see it. And quite cross to

I don't want her to teach DS (1) who is copying everything to do it as well!

Oh, wmmc, I have no advice to offer but am PMSL at 'marmellise'. There's another word terribly underused in everyday conversation

Why thank you Poledra it is exactly the right word isn't it - for use with toddlers.

I'm more of a lurker and hardly ever post, but I had to on this one.

Baby GoodBits is 3 and does this too. It feels like he has been doing it since he was weaned. It is probably not that long, but boy does it feel like it!

I haven't yet come up with a solution - so will be interested in any ideas too. The only thing I do is to minimise my fustration with him and once he starts I just ask him if he is hungry. 100% of the time he will say 'no', so the food he removed and it is made clear that he will not get anything else until X o'clock. It is incredibly annoying when he does this after only a couple of mouthfuls.

Sometimes he will ask for biscuits, crisps etc, but I just tell him that has he hasn't had any lunch he can't have any. At the stated time I give him fruit or some other healthy snack. Isn't it amazing how they will say they are not hungry yet can put away a whole load of junk like nobody's business?!

Most days I do despair though and it is very hard to keep my anger in check, so I know how you are feeling.

This thread really tickled me! I know food causes a lot of anxiety, but its something I try not to worry about with my DD (4) although she has the same habit of keeping food in her mouth for hours.

I have had no explanation for this until recently when she explained that she likes to get the juice out of food. This could be anything, rice, pasta, grapes, ham you name it she will keep it in her mouth and suck it for ages! Go figure.

I would say don't stress too much - I used to but now I just remind her to chew, which can get a bit tiresome during meals but I've come to realise its just a habit she's developed much like sucking fingers. I know this isn't a solution but the older she gets the less she keeps the food in her mouth. Maybe she will grow out of it eventually.

Well I hope she does grow out of it - otherwise her dating life will be ahem eventful

LOL !!

bumping to see if any night time mummies have any ideas? Please?

how about asking her to spit out the food in her cheeks just before she gets down from the table? You can't prevent her from doing it. She doesn't eat it. All it does is raise your bp- so don't wait till you're annoyed.

re actually helping - sorry - i have no idea how to prevent this. Would drive me doo-lally too!

DS1 used to do this - and keep shovelling more food in until he gagged and was sick. It drove me demented. We tried all sorts - star charts for eating his meals nicely, only having treats (a biscuit or something like that) at the end of meals if he ate well, eating with him, getting him to help prepare meals - and nothing worked so we gave up and made a concerted effort to be chilled about it. Then all of a sudden, he stopped doing it. I think it was a control thing for him - he's now 3 and a half and still a really picky eater who messes around at meal times but we're just being miles more chilled out about it and now he's old enough to understand cause and effect just explain to him that if he doesnt eat his meal that's fine but he will be hungry later and wont be able to eat anything till his next allocated mealtime or snacktime.

drinkyourmilk - she gets down from the table when she's finished. We ask her if she's finished and she says 'yes' and there is no way to tell she is pouching food.

dinkystinky - yes, she doesn't do it if she is really hungry (incredibly rare) and I think ignoring is the answer but it just drives me nuts! It's just so gross to find your child regurgitating a chewed up lump of bread an hour later. And what's worse, because it's so chewed up, when she does spit it out on our instruction, it always comes in waves of icky sticky yuck which splatters.