Always hungry. Won't eat. (Behavioural, not medical.) I need a sensible strategy.

[Lawks]

You know once in a while they come up with some new habit that really winds you up? This is what we have here.

Dd is 2.10. She is being a complete PITA about food that the moment. I am trying to keep in mind that she is just 2, and that in the big scheme blah blah blah, but this is really irritating me. And I keep snapping. And I would like

(a) a behavioural explanation (because I deal with things 100% better if I know why).

(b) a sensible strategy for dealing with it so I don't keep getting irritated and dealing badly.

She refuses to eat anything, and then whines that she's hungry all the time. She pokes her breakfast and barely tastes it, she throws her lunch on the floor, she has a tantrum because she "doesn't like supper" (before she even knows what it is). Then she's forever in the fridge looking for a snack, and complaining that she's hungry.

I get her something to eat but she doesn't eat it and 20 minutes later she's complaining she's hungry again.

It's partly because she wants to live on biscuits and milkshake of course. I don't offer particularly exciting alternatives when she's refused her meal or snack though.

I'm getting this all wrong and I want an outsiders persective to boot me up the bum and tell me what to do.

I would serve up meals at meal times, make sure that other people are eating with her so that she realises it is a meal and can copy. If she won't eat let her go and remove it without comment.
Don't offer snacks except for having cut up fruit and water available. Don't even enter into an argument about it-distract and do other things. Above all, keep her out of the fridge. Serve up the next meal and do the same again. Is she eating meals on her own? Perhaps she can't see the difference between a meal and a snack.

Lawks - do you give her a choice between 2 sensible options - ie 2 different breakfast cereals or penne/spaghetti at dinner - I sometimes find that a 'fake' choice makes them think they have the control back iyswim.

Also getting involved with cooking and/or putting out the breakfast things - pouring their own cereal like they do at nursery etc.

Apologies if you've tried all this already [racks brain for more suggestions]

She eats all her meals at the table with me, her little brother and (in the evenings) her father.

I don't want to stop offering snacks altogether because I don't think three big meals and nothing in between is necessarily a healthy way for a 2 year old to eat. The snacks she gets are usually fruit or yogurt or bread and cheese. Nothing exciting.

I agree I need to stop her getting to the fridge. She knows it's not on.

I think it is important to let children learn to recognise their hunger signals and respond to them. I would never make her finish everything on her plate if she didn't want to for example. I also don't use food as reward or treat, so she still gets pudding if she's not eaten her main meal.

I just want her to bloody well eat something when she's hungry and then be full and shut up about it!!

Yes, she gets to choose her breakfast every morning.

Getting her involved does work actually, maybe I could try a bit more of that. Although this morning for fun we were icing biscuits together; I had to go and change a nappy and when I got back she had iced my white curtains red. She knew it was a naughty thing to do. She just did it to see what I'd do. Argh!

Lawks - god thats really hard cos in a way she is responding to her hunger signals by going to the fridge - so what you really want her to do is be hungry at mealtimes which is something different - and am not having a go because thats what I want in my house as well.

The only way we achieved that was by eating at the same times each day - and having snack times at the same time each day - sad and very unMN but true.

sorry xposts there - but if shes pushing you in other ways then it sounds like a power struggle/control issue and the normal advice for that is just to pull right back from it isnt it - easier said than done though...
[sigh]

she's just trying to exercise a little bit of independence / control lol. it's utterly infuriating but totally normal. you just have to work out a sensible way for her to think she is calling the shots lol.

but she is very little - it's easy when you have an even smaller one to lose that sense of context tbh. she's just a toddler. read chris green's toddler taming - it kept me sane in my most infurated moments lol. and reminded what the 'normal' behaviour actually was, rather than the over excited expectations i had of my very small children.

i do wonder if you are giving her mixed messages by giving her pudding if she refuses the main though, but we are all different, and at one point ds1 lived on watermelon and cheese, so, what do i know?

they all eat a perfectly normal diet now lol...

... and of course there will a healthy amount of attention seeking going on as well - particularly with the 'i'm hungry' whining and not eating the snack when it's produced (or icing the curtains when you attend to someone else lol). is it a new sibling she has or are you a cm? either way, much of it could be a healthy dose of 'remember me', and if she's worked out that fussing about food is a good way to get your attention, then she's just a very bright (and ordinary lol) little girl

if i were you i'd make the fridge out of bounds and evey time she whines about being hungry, run distraction techniques. a couple of days of 'food when it's time' won't hurt her. we always had a very strict 3 meals and 2 snacks a day once they were past bf. if it wasn't snack time, they didn't get a snack. but then my parenting skills are rather less gina and more attilla lol.

I have a dd with behavioural eating issues too. She has ASD (not suggesting your dd does, just setting out our situation)

we have taken advice, because, in dd1's case, it is not true that she will not starve herself. if she has decided she will not eat, then she will not eat, it doesn't matter how hungry she gets.

so, first things first, is there anything (at all) that you absolutely know she will eat?

we have been advised to do as follows:

serve up something that we know dd1 will eat (in our cas, at extreme times, that does mean that dd1 will sit down to a meal of biscuits). it is important to keep calories going in.

alongside this, serve up something (small portion) of one extra food. make no comment AT ALL. you might get lucky (after a few tries) and your dd's curiosity might get the better of her.

otherwise, it's down to the slow approach, so get her to touch/hold/lick/pick up/ the food. then get her to hold it in her mouth, then chew and spit out, etc etc. I o know how ridiculously hard this sounds. I have to do it with a child who cannot be reasoned with.

the most important thing is to remove the stress factor, which mostly stems form you knowing she is hungry. that is why you give her food she will eat, while working alongside that to improve the eating.

this may not be an approach you want to try, but it does work - dd1 has gone from eating 4 different foods (no joke, that was it for real food) to now eating potato, pear and apple within a few weeks.

I've always worked on the basis that ds can have pudding if he has eaten a reasonable amount of main course - he doesn't have to eat it all, and if he decides that he doesn't like one particular part of it, he doesn't have to have that either as long as a good proportion of the rest has gone. Its not that pudding is a reward - its that, if he is not hungry enough to eat a good proportion of his main course he is clearly not hungry enough to have pudding.

If I was dealing with her, I would make sure that 'snacks' were plain, and not too big, and not available for the hour before mealtimes, in the hope that she would be more hungry at mealtimes.

A few weeks ago we were having problems with breakfast - it was taking ages to eat a reasonable quantity with me having to remind him alot - not what you want first thing in the morning. We seem to have got over that hurdle - instead of giving him a 'normal' bowl with his cereal in, with a bit of yoghurt (his request), I gave him some cereal in a ramekin which looked significantly smaller than his normal bowl and told him that he could have his yoghurt when he had finished that small bowl. We are now back to a normal sized bowl (his request) and breakfast doesn't seem to be so angst-ridden any more - he just gets on and eats it. I don't know whether this would work for your dd - perhaps giving her a really small portion of things (eg 3 pieces of pasta, a very small amount of sauce, one sprig of broccoli) and letting her have another bit if she finishes them - it might help?

BTW if I'd let ds have his way he would just eat fruit and yoghurt and not bother with other things - those are his favourite things, even if its natural yoghurt!

Thank you. Some good advice here.

GKS - I want her to respond to her hunger on my terms! .

Madwoman - you're right, it is a power issue, and an attention thing. For some reason though this one really pushes my buttons! It's probably because I am so accomodating and laid back about food that it irritates the bejeezus out of me when she STILL finds fault and whinges. She should be down in the playground boasting to the other children about what a hip, right on, brilliantly attuned mother she has dammit! Gahhhh.

Silverfrog, your patience is impressive. Well done, it sounds as though you've made great strides. I agree that the idea of not commenting (or not making a song and dance) is a good one. Also, I do get stressed, like I'm worried she'll starve or something. As you point out, she won't.

Mt - good practical advice. I shall keep to not giving her anything in the hour before a meal. I'm sure sometimes she ends up with a snack shortly before a meal and then I wonder why she doesn't eat. Also, I think the little bowl idea is one that will really appeal to her. She wants to be a baby (has a younger baby brother) so I'll let her have supper in a baby bowl maybe.

All good food for thought (pun intended). Thank you.

lawks, sadly I do not have as much patience as I should have. A lot of this work has been done by her school (she has lunch there 4 days a week)

But, you have to get to the point where you do not care whether she eats what you put down in front of her or not. For me, that means giving her enough of the food she will eat (usually after she has tried - whether by looking at/touching/picking up, whatever stage she is at for that food - the main course) for me to know that she has had enough nutrients (dd1 also has a highly specialised supplements regime, so i know she is getting all the vitamins.minerals she needs).

The biggest corner was turned when i stopped encouraging her to eat, or bartering with "one more spoonful, then pudding" or similar.

Honestly, not caring is the key, and so you have to find a way that suits you (and your family) to get to the not caring point.

good luck

Lawks - the breakfast thing also pushed my buttons - which is why we tried a different tack and why I was determined not to be drawn into the 'I'm too tired to eat' routine that he can get onto (he wants to be fed instead).

Definitely no snacks for an hour before - 'its nearly supper time, you can wait until then, shall we read this book together?'

Another thing that ds always eats a lot of is pizza that he has chosen what to put on the top - we make from basics - bread dough pushed out on pizza stone (great for small children), I add some tomato - he now spreads it out himself - then he puts on the mushroom, sweetcorn, peppers and cheese himself - we did this for one of his parties and all the parents were amazed at how much pizza was eaten by each child (we did small individual ones they could put what they wanted on the top)