I am the worst mum in the world - just sent ds2-2y 4mo to bed hungry

[BlueSmarties]

I'm not fussy about food, never try to force feed or anything like that. we just have one rule in this house. If you don't eat your dinner there isn't anything else.

So ds1 [4] sat in front of his dinner sulking for approx 10 mins then tucked in heartily and had his after dinner treat.

ds2 [2] not interested even with gentle persuasion. So he went up for his bath,no fuss or anything. Came downstairs and said he was hungry but still wouldn't eat his dinner. I relented and gave him a banana but once he started asking for biscuits it was time for bed.

I feel like such a b1tch. he's never seen it all the way through to bed time before. Last time he did this was at my mum's and he sat and watched everyone eat an ice cream but he didn't get one coz not eating dinner - went up for his bath then came down and ate his v.cold roast dinner - then had an ice cream. Thought he'd learnt his lesson then.

Anyone else out there that mean. Only want to hear from those that are - not anyone looking to bash me and make me feel worse than i do already.

k999 well obviously not .... its also not something i regularly serve, especially as I eat with them

[BIG SIGH]

Just to clarify - I didn't whisk the food away and chuck it in the bin - it was there and offered again after his bath. And he was offered milk and more fruit - he was pretty adament only biscuits would do the trick.

Thanks for support from some and I do understand POV with others. ds1 was a stick insect and I let him eat whatever, whenever esp as we had a baby to contend with.

ds2 on the otherhand is on the very top of the growth charts for height and weight and would eat choc spread on toast morning noon and night of allowed.

I'm hoping short term pain long term gain and expecting the little tyke to tuck into a good breakfast in the morning and eat his dinner tomorrow evening. If however I wake up and hear him raiding the fridge in the middle of the night or find him trying to suck some nourishment out of the shreddies he ground into the carpet yesterday I will have to re-think my strategy.

You are well on the way to making food a real issue.

How do you know if he is feeling hungry or not?

He is still a baby FEED HIM. Would you be able to sleep hungry?

You are teaching him to eat whether he is hungry or not - this is why there are so many overweight children in our country.

What are you trying to achieve? Does it really matter?

im sure if he was hungry he would have eaten his dinner / fruit & milk that was offered.

BlueSmarties, if he refused more milk or some fruit but only wanted biscuits, then I agree with you. He wasn't really hungry.

This is a rule I would apply to myself too BTW, so I don't think it's being too harsh.

BS - I support your actions. You re-offered dinner after bath time and fruit etc. Giving biscuits or sweets etc would have just sent out the wrong messages.

To not re-offer any food and just send a child off to bed would have been wrong.

The comments about the ice cream are stupid. My 2.2 year old DD went without her lollipop yesterday because she refused to say please. I did everything I could to get her to say it but she just refused point blank and kept reaching for the lolly. Her siblings ate theirs in front of her.

I suppose that makes me a nasty mummy.

I can actually understand the logic in kids that are older...but at 2???!!! I make meals and if my 2 year old wants to eat it, then great...if not, no worries. Tbh she tries most things. She also drinks a lot of milk. I only recently switched from full fat to semi-skimmed for her and this has made a difference to the amount she eats, but as I said before there are days when she eats and days when she doesnt. But if she was hungry there is no way I wouldnt give her something....

FFS...the child in question is 2!!!! Why would you let older kids (who perhaps grasp the concepts) eat lollies and the like in front of them......imo they are still babies.....

Not just the older kids, k999.
"He sat and watched everyone eat an ice cream".

Juuule...its beyond belief isnt it??

I have never made food an issue with dd (5). She is very fit, very slim and bags of energy. On the whole she has a very healthy diet.
When we eat with her cousin he is praised for what he eats, always encouraged to eat more after he has said he has had enough and then praised for it.
Dd will eat as much as she wants which is often very little and when she has had enough she gets down from the table.
I struggle with keeping slim. I dont want food to become any sort of an issue for her and have never used it for praise etc or had rules about how much she must eat.

Oh yes, her cousin doesnt get afters until he has eaten what they deem to be a decent amount of food. Cant understand it personally.

what the hell is up with everyone?

i have also sent mine to bed once or twice without dinner - sometimes its just plain shes too tired to eat. if she was really hungry, she'd have eaten the food. No it doesn't feel good - but you can't make them chew and swallow!

it is not starving them. It isn't punishing them either - its just accepting they don't want the food.
I'd make sure the next days food is a favourite though.

Dont beat yourself up, you offered alternatives. He obviously just wasn't hungry at the time.

BUT

I do think at 2 and 4 months he is a bit young to grasp the concept of eat dinner before pudding.

We do it gradually in this house until i am sure they have got the message.

The older children have to wait till the 2 year old (and 2 months) has eaten all his dinner or at least as much as he is going to eat before the yoghurts/fruit etc... come in.

They sit there encouraging the smaller one's to eat up so they can dash of to the fridge

I can't imagine making a 2 year old sit there and watch everyone else eat an ice cream, that made me very

OOM..I have done this too, but its been because DD2 has not eaten anything at all.....not because she has refused dinner but then asked for something else.....I have seen days when dd2 has had milk, some fruit and cereal for dinner....hardly anything...but the point is I wouldnt not give her something merely because she hasnt eatent her dinner.

Mine will often crash before tea, i can usually see it coming and give them a cereal bar and fruit before hand.

Sometimes you can just tell they are not going to participate in dinner. Pointless battle imo.

I think tonight sounds fine, he had a banana and you offered (and re-offered) proper dinner so probably wasn't that hungry. I'm guessing he may have drunk some milk, too. I don't think that punishment comes into it, it would have been harsh to make a 28 month old eat something he didn't want but it's not cruel to say no to biscuits as I agree that is not a sign of real hunger!

I am sure I have been told the thing to worry about is offering decent food, and then to see if it all balances out over a week, not to force 3 "square" meals a day down a small child.

I'm a bit less comfortable with making someone eat a cold dinner to get an ice-cream but since a cold roast is actually still a really nice meal that doesn't sound too bad to me either in that particular instance.

I'm also uncomfortable with the phrase "learned his lesson" - as other posters have said, food is not something you want to make a disciplinary issue.

But being a parent is living and learning every day anyway, e.g. maybe it will turn out he was a bit poorly or tired today for whatever reason and he would have eaten more if you'd given it to him earlier. Or maybe not.

My mum still apologises to me for getting so cross with me for not eating breakfast one morning when I was at primary school that she tipped a bowl of cereal over my head - I do remember the incidents but it was not particularly traumatic and I still love her very much!

erm i definitly think that 2 year olds do understand the concept of do X then I will do Y.
otherwise why does mine understand she gets chocolate buttons for doing a wee?
why does she understand she has to finish her toast before her porridge?
and for that matter, finish her sandwich before milk (at lunch)

BTW, Feeding mine was easy until a trip to MIls where she offered different foods every time (having had snacks) lo refused food. I haven't been able to give her pasta/rice meals since. she just throws them back. Though i understand that is a stage thing, and indeed try to pay as little attention as possible, its very annoying to lose months of good eating in a single weekend (yes, i realise this could have happened anyway).

i may try and sneak some rice tomorrow...mixed with lots of veg.
i just hate it when she won't eat it though, i feel its a total step back. I even considered waiting until DS eats pasta/rice meals then trying (as she is only too keen to steal his food, despite it being gacky veg puree and breastmilk!)*

i hope this little story of my parenting failure makes you feel better too Bluesmarties.

*those of you who believe the human to be the only animal to drink the milk of another creature, anyone who has left expressed breast milk unguarded near my dog would soon learn different.

My cat drinks cow's milk.

2yo do generally understand bribery. I don't think that means they understand what the intentions behind the bribery are though.

Ok, I accept that they may understand the 'you do this and you get this' idea...a bit like training a dog. But what I dont get is that if they dont do it,(for whatever reason, and lets not forget they are still very young) why make them sit and watch everyone else eat ice-cream/lollies? If others are getting then why not remove lo so that they dont have to sit and watch??

I think what everyone is forgetting is that between 18mths and 3 years old children will waver between eating and not eating and it's perfectly normal. It's about them understanding that they can control what they eat, if they are hungry they will eat, if not then they won't. However it is also about them understanding they can test the boundary to see what reaction they get if they say no.

It's certainly not cruel to send a child to bed with no supper if they haven't wanted to eat it. However to withold pudding when siblings are having it seems cruel to me, whether supper is eaten or not. One solution is to suggest the toddler eat a carrot and a mouthful of mash then he can have the pudding, that normally does the trick. As with everything toddler, the key is to be consistent.

Personally at ours, supper time happens at the table and when it is finished it is finished, there is no after dinner snacking. But then I am definitely of the mean mummy school

I would have offered something healthy too toast and a banana, if he didn't eat it then he is not hungry.

I don't think you were mean he had a banana and was offered dinner twice.

What is this primal horror of eating outside meal times? After-dinner snacking? I don't see the harm.

I think it's a mistake to start introducing concepts of emotional obligation around eating "I cooked you a lovely meal and you're wasting it" - and rigidity of the three-meals-a-day kind - it's not the healthiest way for human beings to eat and it is a form of unnecessary training that deadens a person's internal compass of hunger/fullness.

If you're going to be personally hurt if a small child doesn't eat what you've prepared - that's your problem, not the child's. Put less effort in if it makes you feel less uptight.

I stop eating if I've had enough of a particular meal. And if I'm peckish two hours later, I have something to eat. Why wouldn't a child want to do the same?

Imposing rules like this on a 2yo is farcical anyway, it' like trying to teach Braille to a dog. Can only end in disappointment.

Greensleaves, my dc regularly snack outside meal times, it would be cheaper, frankly if they didn't

What mine don't do is snack after supper, probably because there is not enough time between supper and bedtime for it to become an issue.