why does my 13mth old eat more than my 4yr old?!?

[blossom2]

what is it about eating?!?!

my 13 mth old will pretty much eat anything and her portion size is the same as my 4 year old.

the 4 yr old does spends the whole time delaying putting food in her mouth. it takes ages and often ends up with me shouting at her to eat. her diet is varied though with lots of veg, fruit, not much meat but thats okay.

what am i doing wrong?? its driving me crazy, i've tried not caring and sometimes she does go to bed without much dinner. it doesnt make her more hungry at breakfast either.....

Your 13 month old is growing at a faster rate than your 4 year old.

My two are exactly the same, 18 month ds will scoff everything (nearly) and ask for more and dd, age 3.5 wil pick at her food and then say she is full up when she has barely touched it, it's like she can't really be bothered eating. Drives my chef dh absolutely bonkers!

exactly the same behaviour as my 4 yr old lilliput. DH is feeding her in order for her to eat, but i disagree with this because i dont want to be feeding 2 kids, with no3 on the way.

why do you think they dont want to eat? is it really a control thing??

It's totally a control thing with dd, she stopped breastfeeding at 10 months and shortly before that would not eat anything much, she was also tiny, on the 5th centile and as a first time mummy I was really stressed about it and she really picked up on this. I totally pandered to her and would give her the rubbish she wanted because I wanted to see her eat something. I now realise that I have in a way created a little girl who is not that keen on food because it is linked with my stress. This realisation is thanks to watching Little Angels and House of Tiny Tearaways.

they are different people with different appetites.
ds1 would eat all day and night if I let him. it really is a job to persuade him not to eat. ds2 is much smaller in build and has no interest in food whatsoever. he will sit and watch ds1 eat his dinner and then push his own full plate over to him to finish.
i don't stress about it though. i'm more worried about ds1's eating habits than ds2's.

ds is giving himself nappy rash and bad poos at the moment because he wants to eat fruit all day, like chocybickie it's hard to get him to stop sometimes. I have learnt to at least try to be more relaxed, food it so important in our house as we run a restaurant, chef husband too. I am constant reminded by MIL that my dh was a terrible fussy eater when he was child and now he could not be more into food if he tried, it really is his life now.

my dd used to eat more than my ds when dd was 18m and ds was 5, now dd is 3 and ds is 7 and they eat about the same size portions!