Toddler not eating

[mariiinaa]

Before any comments say it's my fault my son has gotten into this habit, im aware. i take full responsibility for the fact that my son only eats with the tv/ipad/phone on, i could use some suggestions however.

My two and a half year old is my first child, and you could say i did spoil him quite a bit. i thought it was cute to have the telly on when he ate, or when we went to places so that he didn't get as bored. the point is, it's become a habit for him to have youtube/netflix on whenever he eats, and refuses to eat without this.

This isn't an issue at home, though it's not great, i can easily access videos for him to watch; however he recently started nursery and doesn't eat anything.

I've tried to go cold turkey and take the telly off completely and he ate nothing but half a banana and a croissant all day. at dinner time, after crying for 45 minutes i had to give him cocomelon to which he then ate his entire plate and wanted more. he was starving but would rather go to bed hungry than not watch anything.

i have tried slowly take the shows off. he doesnt yet understand the concept of "we eat now, watch later" he has an appointment for speech and language therapy on monday. i've tried to speak to him and tell him the telly will come on right after eating but either he refuses to listen or doesn't understand.

does anyone have any advice? he went to nursery today at 8, didn't have breakfast/snacks/lunch there and was starved by the time we got home at 2pm. it's really disheartening but i know he needs to stop with the need to watch something whilst he eats.

suggestions?

How much TV is he watching a day? At 2.5 yrs I would say “food now, TV later” he should be able to understand unless he has more than a speach delay, however as every toddler knows understanding an accepting are two different things!

he roughly watches an hour a day sometimes an hour and a half, that is with screen time at meals. i've managed fine to keep him occupied with more activities and less screen time during the day, but he will not budge on screen time off whilst eating

Oh you’ll get loads of judgy comments here for screen time because it apparently boils your brain inside your skull and you can only eat at the table or you’ll immediately be smited. Please ignore them.

Dd is 8 and diagnosed with adhd - when she was the same age as your son would only eat watching tv. So I do wonder if you’ll see more adhd traits coming out in the future.

Dd has always been off the bottom of the chart percentile wise so one always thought I don’t care how we do it, as long as you eat!

Half an hour a day whilst eating is fine. If it works please don’t worry. It won’t always be this way, but when they’re little it’s ok to make a few bad habits. They do grow out of them! Dd can happily sit in a restaurant now without an iPad and have dinner with me.