9M old, to pud or not to pud…..?

[ShleepyMumma]

In the depths of weaning, hating it!
Never the less, we crack on. If my 9 month old eats fairly well at the meal, lunch or dinner, I offer a milky pudding (Greek yog or maybe an Ellas kitchen rice pudding thing).
My question is, would you offer a pudding if she doesn’t eat the dinner?
Tonight she was given a piece of chicken, piece of potato, parsnip fingers, and then some mashed up chicken stew. She had some parsnip, and some of the stew spoon fed (7 baby spoons maybe). She put chicken in mouth but took it out and wasn’t fussed. Didn’t try the potato. To get the stew spoon fed in I gave a slice of avocado and some blueberries as they are like safe food and thought it might encourage her to try the other stuff. Don’t want to be doing that, but sometimes you just think oh I give up! Anyway, all in all very little actually eaten. I didn’t give dessert as I want her to know that it won’t be given if she doesn’t eat the main.
Is that right? Is she too young to even recognise that? Would you have given it to just get something in her? Guaranteed she would have eaten yog or rice pudding, always does.
What do people think? She will have a bottle
of milk before bed but we are in that interim time between dinner and bed she’s not happy!

She’s fat to young to understand pudding as a reward for eating her dinner.

I’m also sceptical about pudding being used as a treat when you’ve eaten your dinner generally.

Far! Not fat!

Pud

Otherwise you start the journey off with eating loads just to get a reward rather than eating until she has had enough

She is too young for that, you can’t punish a 9 month old. However I wouldn’t give a pudding after every meal anyway personally, it doesn’t seem necessary to me and it could encourage them too eat too much sugar in the future because they will always expect pudding. Not sure there’s a right or wrong way though, we all just have different ways of doing things.

Just see it as one of the components of the meal. Would you withdraw the veg because the carb didn't get eaten or vice versa? It's as silly as that. Dont ascribe a moral value to food. Ever.

Her main source of food should milk at this age, filling her up on sugary foods really isn’t great and 2 courses at 9 months old is a huge amount of food.

Also equating sugary foods with behaviour rewards is a burgeoning disaster as to her relationship with food.

Relax, offer her the food, if she eats it great if not she will being having her main source of food (milk) later, this will help her to learn her hunger cues and start the foundations of appetite regulation.

Pudding is completely unessecary 🙄

So is rolling your eyes at someone asking for parenting advice on a parenting forum @kitcat15

I’m in the no pud camp. I try very hard (and admittedly often fail) not to offer pud as a ‘reward’ but also think it’s just another type of food - nothing bad in Greek yoghurt but also it’s just another food to be offered a few times a week, not every day as otherwise your DD will reject trying other foods in favour of the creamy thing.
One thing I’ve seen done successfully was tiny bits offered at the same time as other food, not after. Ie there’s your yogurt (small portion) next to your chicken next to your broccoli type thing. Once yoghurt was eaten no more offered so it wasn’t a reward it was just another thing to eat. Seemed to work but has to be a very small portion that won’t fill them up so the DC in question would eat the yogurt then eat the other things until they were full. No drama made about what they didn’t eat - never any more of the thing they particularly liked given if the other things weren’t eaten.

We generally serve all food together, eg offering the main and yoghurt altogether. Then it’s just part of the meal, not a reward

I wouldn’t offer pudding every day but agree with pp not to make it conditional on eating dinner- it sends the message that veg is something you have to slog through and that pudding is the goal, plus it encourages children to eat past being full.

Ellyn Satter is a dietician who does a lot of really interesting work on feeding kids. She talks about something called “division of responsibility” which is that parents decide what the food is and when it’s served, but kids get to decide whether they eat it and how much.

I don't believe in rewarding with food. She's not a dog.

If she's not hungry, she's not hungry. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Nothing wrong with a pudding.

I don’t agree with pudding as a reward because I think it’s good to encourage kids to regulate their own appetites. That said, a 9 month old doesn’t understand so I’d probably assume if they’re refusing the main they’re not hungry and I wouldn’t continue to try to stuff them!

I don’t personally agree with making kids eat their dinner. Just because she’s 9 months old doesn’t mean she will like everything, be particularly hungry, want what’s for dinner etc

@IDontDrinkTea

We generally serve all food together, eg offering the main and yoghurt altogether. Then it’s just part of the meal, not a reward

That's what I did when weaning too. No judgement that any specific part of the meal was better than another.

I hate using food as reward/punishment, and have horrible memories of food battles with my parents. If pudding’s on the menu, DD gets pudding regardless of what she’s eaten.

At 9m I think I put everything at once on one of those divider plates with the compartments and didn’t distinguish mains/puddings, so she could just choose and pick up and mush whatever she wanted. Even now at 3 she’ll quite happily dip broccoli in yoghurt, or request gravy with her trifle

I don't think you should use it as a reward / punishment but don't get sucked into the trap of having pudding after every meal. As an adult, it's a very dangerous association that you 'have' to have something sweet after your meal.

We have very sporadic puddings here

Thanks for the suggestions!
For those who offer the yoghurt with the main meal, how do you do this? Spoon feed some yoghurt, then switch to the chicken stew/whatever else? Feels a bit like trickery and I don’t want her to feel like she can’t trust me around food, that’s a slippery slope.
I would also say it’s not a case of her not being hungry so doesn’t want to eat, because if the Greek yoghurt was given she would eat an entire tub. And if I had given more avocado that would have gone down no problem. I’m trying to offer a variety of foods so she has a balanced diet, rather than just 5 foods she eats. It’s not always at easy as put broccoli down and she will eat if she’s hungry, as I’m sure some Mums can testify to. Some babies don’t take to weaning like the Instagram accounts sometimes imply.

I’m trying to offer a variety of foods so she has a balanced diet

You have to offer a food lots of times before it’s accepted in some cases. I think it’s great to offer a variety but don’t make her eat it or withhold food she likes. Give her the yogurt and try chicken again in a few days.

I am fundamentally lazy so I would let my kid eat an entire tub of yoghurt if that’s what they were into at that moment. Ditto avocado. DD ate an entire punnet of raspberries yesterday. The goal is calories and nutrients across the entire diet, not just one meal.

Put down the spoons and just give her a selection of things on a tray and see what she shoves in her mouth, and chirps for more of.

I always offer fruit and yogurt as part of meal. It’s after, so a pudding, but it’s plain Greek yogurt and fruit so I’m happy for him to have after every dinner as dairy, protein and fruit. He gets regardless of what he eats beforehand.

Don't make food a big deal.
Offer a selection of healthy stuff and she eats what she eats.

Food is just for fun and exploration at that age. Offer it to her, let her eat what she wants with her hands (good for fine and gross motor control), give her 'pudding', clean her up and then give her a milk feed to fill her up. Eventually they eat more food and drink less milk.

You can stress over food as much as you like (I did) but actually, generally it turns out all right if you don't make a fuss (unless your child gets diagnosed with food adversions which is unusual). By 6 most children eat most things if it's part of the families menu.

It's a bit like when new parents stress over their child being a late crawler or walker. Given time it just happens, if you eat a varied diet so will she.

She's 9 months, she doesn't have the intellectual capacity to understand that she needs to eat her dinner for a pudding, and even if she did, this is an outdated mentality.

She's tried her dinner, wasn't impressed, fine, give her a rice pudding if you want or just make it up with a bottle.