Every day my husband and I battle with our son to eat. In general, the only meal he is really a problem with is dinner, although he has been known to be difficult at lunch once in awhile too.
And it’s not even MY cooking he’s complaining about, that would be understandable most of the time. Lucky for him (but not necessarily for my waistline), my husband does the cooking and is good at.
Last night, he took chicken breasts, covered them with mozzarella cheese in an alfredo and marinara sauce and baked it then served it over spaghetti noodles. It was great! We had a warm loaf of multi-grain bread with it (from Schwans) and the kid even lucked out because he forgot to make a vegetable to go with it.
My two year old daughter ate almost two platefuls yet my six year old son flat-out refused to eat. Well, he picked at it for a bit, we all finished eating and started cleaning up and then the complaining began.
“Mommy, I have a tummy ache.“
(He says that every time, and it’s funny how if I offer him ice cream or cookies instead, he all of a sudden feels better.)
“Mommy, I don’t like this food.“
(I ate it, it was good, and I am the first to let the kid off the hook if something isn’t very good.)
“Mommy this tastes like yuck.“
(Clearly he is grasping..)
“Wah wah…I can’t eat this. Waaaaaaah.“
(This is where the dog started whining every time Jake did. Let me just say I’m lucky my back was turned because it was FUNNY.)
“Wah wah…I can’t eat this mommy, it tastes like garbage. Waaaaah.“
(echo whine from the dog)
“This food tastes like pee.“
(You can laugh, I did)
“I’m tired mommy, I’ll eat this food tomorrow.“
(I’m just not that gullible, and newsflash – I LIVE WITH YOU and AM ON TO YOU.)
“This food tastes like paper, I can’t eat this.“
(Paper is a big step up from pee.)
In between all this, he kept saying he had to go to the bathroom. Well, this is an old game with him and he is not allowed to leave the table, even to go to the bathroom. I let him go once, because the look on his face said he really had to go, but that’s it.
So he sat there.
For three hours.
We put Abby to bed and went downstairs leaving Jake at the table, checking on him every so often.
He did finally finish eating and miraculously his tummy no longer hurt and he was no longer tired. And funny, he didn’t make a mad rush to the bathroom either.
There was nothing weird in the food. No chunks, no onions, nothing green or unidentifiable.
He does not snack during the day very much at all. I think he had some pretzels around 1:30.
The two year old eats what we eat, so it’s not like she gets something different and he wants to be like her.
He behaves this way even when he is allowed to choose what we eat.
So what do we do?
My gut says just not to feed him dinner anymore, but that’s just exasperation talking. I am pretty sure it is bad parenting to not feed your kid.
About Kim
I have always been a big fan of “this is what we are having, if you don’t want it, that’s up to you.” I also always try to have at least one thing that I think the kids will eat.
However, last night, after not eating, my almost four-year-old woke up in the middle of the night starving. My husband now thinks that if the kids don’t like what we are having, I should make them something else, like PB&J.
Again tonight, my almost-four-year-old fraternal twins refused to eat dinner. We had corn (“It tastes yucky” They refuse to touch any veggies, even though I have always given them veggies and when they were younger, they ate them), baked potato with butter and salt (“It tastes yucky” They will eat french fries, of course, I just try not to make them due to high fat content) and homemade turkey nuggets which were really quite good. Oh, yes, I even had homemade rolls because I figured they wouldn’t eat the potato despite my hope. They did eat a bit of the roll. My older kids liked everything.
So, my husband said that he was not going to go through having a child wake up hungry again and that we needed to make them a separate meal since they weren’t eating. He thinks that it’s better to make them something else because at least they are eating then. I explained to him that if I do that, the kids will never learn to eat what the rest of the family is eating. He thinks it’s more important for them to eat SOMETHING.
Neither will touch a veggie, even with cheese. Occasionally, they will eat a raw carrot. One will eat tomato sauce. One won’t touch meat, except for a chicken nugget. No potatoes. No rice.
Please note that I am not giving them huge snacks. The last thing they had before dinner at 5:30 pm was half a banana at 2:20. We all eat together almost every night. They often help me cook. I let them pick out healthy stuff at the grocery store, hoping they will want to try it at home. No dice.
What’s a mom to do?
Ever since I wrote this, he has been eating better. Maybe making him sit at the table until it was gone did the trick, I don’t know.
We’ve trying to give him more choices too…like letting him pick WHICH vegetable we have, or asking him if he wants pork chops or chicken.
Good luck…
I was almost 20 years ago, but my pediatrician told me just about the same thing Cat’s told her. Make the dinner and have the kids sit to dinner and tell them that is what it is, they can eat it or have nothing. I always made sure there was a protein, starch and a veggie, plus they had a glass of milk. I also had the 2-bite rule, they had to eat 2 bites of something but if they really didn’t like it, I wouldn’g make them eat it, but they weren’t going to get anything else. They eventually learned better eating habits. Their doctor said that as long as they were staying healthy there was nothing to worry about.
Good lucky!
Looks like you did the right thing. He did eat. Eventually. I remember reading somewhere sometime ago that they will come back to it when they’re hungry. I think it’s just a phase. Good luck :)
Oh man, this sounds like Kelsie. This girl tries everything to not eat what I make. She even “gagged” when I forced her to eat a piece of ham. The child just is a PAIN and we’re only three. I’m screwed if she keeps it up.
We do something similar to Cat. I make what I make. We sit down as a family to eat. The picky four-year-old has the choice of eating or not. He sits at the table through dinner whether he eats or not. If he comments that something is yucky or he doesn’t want to eat it, we calmly say “That’s fine. You decide if you want to eat it, but that’s our dinner for tonight.” I do make sure that we always have fruit and usually whole grain bread because he will almost always eat those things. I serve him a very tiny portion of the entree (like 2-3 bites’ worth) because I hate wasting food. If he eats it, he can always have more.
I remember reading a book about feeding your kids (I think Ellyn Satter was the author) and she basically says parents decide what, when, and where to feed their children. Kids decide whether and how much. You provide a healthy dinner. He eats it or he doesn’t. And presto- no control issues. Makes dinner much more pleasant. I know there are differing opinions out there about whether kids should be required to eat what’s in front of them or at least take a “no thank-you” bite, but this works for us.
Let me tell you, I’ve been going through this exact same situation for 8 LONG years. My son, much like yours, has a specific “eat list” and will not deviate. My 2 year old eats everything under the sun and then some.
We approached the battle several ways…feed him what he’ll eat…make him sit at the table till he eats…bribery…nothing works and I mean nothing. Finally our pediatrician told us to stop budging. If he doesn’t eat what I serve then he just doesn’t eat and that’s how it is and has been for some time now. We’re slowly getting him to try new foods, but in general, he hasn’t changed much since the day he started solids, just plain picky.
Cat,
So when you serve dinner, you give him the choice to eat what you are serving or eat nothing? Does he still sit there at the table? Does he ever take the food, pick at it and not eat? If so, then what do you do?
I think our daughters would get along famously LOL!