Growing up, I can remember my Mom getting so frustrated when we would complain about what she made for dinner, or not eat the food she prepared. And I never understood why she got so frustrated.
I now understand.
Abby is a picky eater. And Lexi is only 1 and still is a little limited by the food that she can eat.
Dinner seems to be a battle every night.
I know that Dr's and Pediatricians are now really recommending that you don't force kids to eat ALL the food that is served them. That we need to let them learn to listen to their bodies, and decide what and how much they want to eat. I have totally agreed with this, I think this is a great tool to help fight childhood obesity. The rule at our house has always been, that Abby just has to take one or two bites of every food on her plate. She has to try it before she can say that she doesn't like it. (That being said, if she doesn't eat but a bite or two total during a meal, then she doesn't get any snacks. I'm no fool, and I know when she is really not hungry, or just being stubborn.)
I've also tried to not "cater" to her wants and desires. She can either eat what is for dinner, or go hungry. I'm not going to make her a special meal.
However, even with all these guidelines that I've set up, dinner time seems to be falling apart. It's almost like the line between following the rules, and breaking the rules has gotten a little blurry.
Example:
If we are having spaghetti for dinner, Abby doesn't like the sauce, so she just eats the noodles, with some cheese on them. I thought this was a nice compromise. But slowly, it's progressed to even more than that. If we are having taco's for dinner, she just wants a quesadilla. Now a quesadilla requires some of the same ingredients as taco's, just a different method of preperation. Another compromise, but the line is getting pretty blurry now.
It's just gotten easier to do it this way, there is less of a battle at dinner.
But dinner still isn't easy. It seems we are constantly negotiating.
Me: "Abby, just eat three more bites, then you'll be done"
Abby: "No, two more bites"
And so on.
I'm so frustrated.
The situation is even futher complicated because right now Cameron and I also have very different needs at dinner.
Cam is trying to not eat carbs after 4pm (something to do with his weightlifting, I'm not sure of the exact reason for this diet change). And me, because the baby is now occupying all the space that used to be for my stomach, have little room for a heavy meal. I also get horrible heartburn if I go to bed with food in my tummy, so I try to eat a light dinner (i.e. salad) so that most of the food is digested before I go to bed.
It now seems that there are multiple meals being prepared every night. A salad for me, a protien for Cam, usually chicken or some other meat, and then some sides that the girls will eat. Although the situation with Cam and I is only temperorary, I'm afraid that there is going to be some habits created that will be hard to break.
Any tips on getting kids to eat the meals that are prepared for them? I'm not going to have hot dogs and chicken nuggets every night for dinner, just to please the girls. I want real, good, healthy food. And no more crying and tantrums at the dinner table.
Leisa, sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. I've been thinking about you and I know, to some point, how you feel.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to do the same thing that you're doing too. My idea is that when I serve a meal that I know Drew won't like, I try to include something that I know he loves with the meal as well. That way he gets at least something that all of us are eating--I feel like that teaches the principle in some way.
Now, don't think that I do this all the time and that I'm so amazing. Sometimes I feed Drew what I know he'll eat because I've thrown in the towel for the day, week...
Sorry I never responded about Abby in Wal-Mart. I have an idea, but I think I'm out of my league...if you want to hear it, let me know.
ReplyDeletePlease, share your idea. Trust me, I'm pretty sure I'm out of my league too.
ReplyDeleteOk, I'll share what we did with Elaine when things were getting really bad - like all-out tantrums even when we would say "two-more-bites". It almost seemed like that Elaine couldn't picture it. So we resorted to bribery.
ReplyDeleteI made two pictures. One had a girl frowning, a plate with food on it, and an empty frowning bowl. The other picture has a smiling girl, empty plate, and happy bowl with ice cream. (Stay with me here - we don't always give her ice cream!) Then we had a FHE before dinner where we talked about eating her food vs not eating her food. We call it the sad girl and the happy girl. Then we "practiced" with cheerios. We used to set a timer too because it was becoming so painful. Anyway, during our practice Elaine and I ate our "food" before the timer beeped but Aaron didn't, so we got a treat but Aaron didn't. Then we practiced one or two more times. Then we had dinner. It was the most peaceful dinner we had in a long, long time.
One change that Aaron and I had to make was the amount of food we start Elaine off with. Instead of requiring two more bites, we changed to starting with the minimum amount of food we would insist on - and she can ask for more from there. Our "treat" is sometimes sweet, sometimes popcorn, and sometimes it is playing a game with her or letting her watch a Dora. I don't want her to develop unhealthy reward relationships with food, but after we did this for a few months, she will now more readily try new foods (*note that this is not all of the time and some nights are still battles). Sometimes she will voluntarily decide to be the "sad girl" and that is ok. We are also transitioning to some unrewarded expectations - "If you want to be excused you have to eat 2 bites (I know, I know, we're back to the 2 bites thing) and if you want to be the happy girl, you need to eat it all." But somehow she seems to understand it better now and doesn't melt down like she used to.
Regardless of what you decided to make your house rule - you might want to make a picture(s) showing the rule. Sometimes what seems soooo basic and easy to understand to us as adults is difficult for children to grasp.
Good luck!! Those are just some of my thoughts. I can already tell Adam will need his own motivation ... each child is different!
Oh, one more thing another family suggested to us is to do one course at a time. Veggies first, then entree, then bread (or whatever is on the menu) and you have to eat them in order. Apparently this worked quite well for them, but they do recommend ear plugs for when you are eating the yummy dessert and they are still on the veggies. :)