My toddler hates eating

Parent Cafe
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<p>Excellent job, PhysicsMom!! Way to go! I am so happy you found what worked. The less ingrained the aversion becomes, the better. </p>

<p>I’m relieved your partner (D’s father) has seen how a more relaxed approach works better. I do understand his fear. It’s scary when it feels like your child isn’t getting what she needs. If he will adopt your relaxed approach, it sounds like all will be well. </p>

<p>You are a young mother, but what an excellent, intelligent, innovative, flexible mother! That’s what counts. If I learned anything in my (almost) twenty years of parenting, it’s to trust my own instincts. We know our own children best. </p>

<p>Hang in there, and let us know how it goes.</p>

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<p>That reminds me of a great story my mother-in-law told me. She had four kids fairly close in age. She says that with the first she would make a little lamb chop and then some vegetables with a lettuce leaf thrown into the water used to boil the veggies and serve it to him. The second kid got cut up hot dogs. The third dined on cut up baloney. The fourth kid got vanilla wafers with milk poured over them.</p>

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<p>PhysicsMom, I STILL feel this way and mine are 20 and 25! It’s a good motivator.</p>

<p>As for your partner, he sounds like a very loving, devoted father and your daughter is very lucky to have you both. You sound like you complement each other well. All he needs is a little guidance, and it sounds like you found what works – on him, I mean! Maybe you could keep a few books lying around for him to look at? I bet there are good ones for fathers now. Learning that you cannot raise happy children through force of will is one of those huge life lessons.</p>

<p>And congratulations for those small successes today! They are real milestones!</p>

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<p>My mother uses fried chicken as the metaphor for how kids are treated today. When she was young and one of 8, she and the younger ones dined on such delights as the neck, the scrag, the gizzard and maybe a wing. The grownups got the meaty parts. I don’t really know what a scrag is BTW but I don’t think there is any meat on it. Now, she says the kids pick first and the grownups get the neck, the scrag and the gizzard. She can’t win. </p>

<p>She also says that when the kids would whine about being hungry, they would be told “take a cold tater and wait.” I guess there were leftover potatoes around for the grabbing.</p>

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<p>I’m going to tell you something very different from what others in the last 2 pages of this thread have said. It is really hard to see anything clearly when you’re trying to parent a toddler and an adult at the same time – the adult being your partner.</p>

<p>Whoah, did I just say that?</p>

<p>Your world right now consists of authority figures (your Dr. and your partner) who are undermining your confidence, causing you stress, and creating conflict with your child.</p>

<p>The issue with food – that’s the tip of the iceberg.</p>

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<p>You’re just going to have to trust me on this – there are going to be a lot of issues like this as you co-parent with this man. The power struggles will continue as she fights for her independence and he tries to control it, and you will be caught in the middle.</p>

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This should not be necessary. Yet a certain type of Narcissistic Personality only will believe “authority figures” and will undermine those with emotional ties to him.</p>

<p>My advice is – get family counseling as soon as possible. I’m not sure if there are counselors that specialize in parenting toddlers (but there should be!), but if he will only listen to “experts”, he will need to be told in no uncertain terms that HE is causing the stress with his absurd need to control his family.</p>

<p>I realize that I am totally reading into your situation. Let’s just say, I see the signs, and I wish someone had told me what living like this would be like, for years and years and years.</p>

<p>Hugs to you.</p>

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<p>So true, annuduhmom. It’s clear how much you hope to use your experience to help another young mother avoid all you went through.</p>

<p>Sometimes a terribly worrisome issue brings up a situational response, not necessarily indicative of an enduring trait. I very much hope that’s the case with the toddler’s father here. </p>

<p>I’m sorry you have had to live with (what sounds like) a difficult spouse. It couldn’t have been easy raising children under such trying circumstances. </p>

<p>Hugs to you!</p>

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<p><a href=“my%20daughter%20loves%20to%20copy%20her%20cousin…%20she%20DOES%20eat%20what%20she%20sees%20her%20cousin%20eating,%20but%20they%20don’t%20live%20nearby%20and%20therefore%20don’t%20visit%20too%20often!”>quote</a>

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Would it be possible to Skype with them every so often? Regardless of the food issue - just to maintain some degree of closeness? And if cousin’s having a snack, all the better!</p>

<p>Congratulations on your victories with your D, too - I think you’ve hit on a great solution! It really doesn’t sound like she’ll starve (unless you let her dad feed her!).</p>

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Probably the last thing you need is another parenting book, but I have to recommend [Amazon.com:</a> Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, Energetic (9780060923280): Mary Sheedy Kurcinka: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Your-Spirited-Child-Perceptive/dp/0060923288]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Your-Spirited-Child-Perceptive/dp/0060923288). I found it really helpful to see some of the good aspects of the behaviors that were driving me crazy as well as giving me techniques to live with them. </p>

<p>It sounds to me like your child wants to be in control of eating. It sounds like if she feels like she’s not being pushed she will eat. I wonder if she’d be interested in playing tea party with dolls or stuffed animals?</p>

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<p>AnnuduhMom: Thank you for saying what I wanted to say. If you think this is control over eating…wait till the battles over homework! (you WILL study for two hours every night…so what if you’re in 1st grade! Those are MY rules.) And friends, and dating, and television and clothing: all can be battlegrounds. I’ve seen this, not in my home, but in a friend’s home. And to add the pediatrician to this mix…well…you have battles. A really good therapist can help both of sort out the stuff. Remember: Pick your battles.</p>

<p>OP: You are such a young mother. And you are trying so hard to do everything right. I salute you. You say your daughter is “headstrong” but yet she wants to please you. She does sound like a bright, sensitive child who is being pushed into a corner. The good thing is: She has you in her corner. Good luck!</p>

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<p>OP–you’re a good mother! It’s tough when your first is a “case” of some sort. My first was the most cooperative child in the world and I thought I was a wonderful mother. Then her brother came along and broke all the rules. Then I knew what everyone else had been complaining about. :D</p>

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<p>Quote:
Every day I feel like I am pretending to be a better person than I am in order to be a good parent to my daughter. </p>

<p>Hi Physicsmom. That quote from you intriques me, b/c I think that feeling is all part of Mother Nature’s plan. You DO have to become a better person when you become a parent. At first you might feel you are pretending, but the all that caring behavior and mature decisions and delayed gratification and downright sacrifice become part of your character in all those years of being a mom. Have you ever heard that phrase: “act as if…” It’s true. </p>

<p>I was always aware with my D that every single day, I was modeling behavior, language, values that she would likely follow. It’s all part of that huge responsibility of motherhood. </p>

<p>Your partner sounds just a little insecure, but willing to believe what “experts” say. So, your approach of the appropriate book and reading him selective passages works for your family. I’d stick with that since it works. He has to grow into being a dad, too. We all try things that don’t work as parents; the key to success is moving on to a different approach when something doesn’t work.</p>

<p>In an earlier post, I mentioned a friend who is a speech pathologist who also has a strong-willed one-year-old with food issues. I am friends with this woman “K” (I’ve known her since she was 11), but also very close friends with her mom, “M”. M gave birth to K when M was only 18. She says that she and K grew up together! K is one of the nicest and most accomplished young women I know. M was a wonderful mother to her two Ds, and I learned a lot about being a mom from her. I just wanted to tell you this, that even though you are a young mom and it is unusual today, you can be just as good a mom as older women. Remember, MOST moms throughout history have been more your age.</p>

<p>I also have another family friend who had a little girl when she was 18. She has now married the father of her child, works in her own mom’s successful business, the young couple just bought a house, and their second child is due this summer. And she is only 23!</p>

<p>You obviously have a strong will to be doing what you are doing–your D “didn’t get it from strangers,” and my MIL used to say!</p>

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<p>AnudduhMom, its hard to say what is going on with the OP’s partner, because he may also be a very young parent, thrust into the role of fatherhood way before he is ready. So while it is possible that he has a very controlling personality type, he could also simply be acting in forceful way simply because he thinks that is what he is supposed to do as a Dad. Based on his own upbringing he may not have any different model.</p>

<p>We don’t know – I also have known young women who are in relationships with much older men, and sometimes in that case the dynamic is very different. The OP hasn’t told us anything about the age & experience of her partner. </p>

<p>So I wouldn’t go too far on psychoanalyzing the relationship – we don’t have enough information for that. The young man is a first-time father, also feeling his way through, and also responding to external pressures such as criticism or advice coming from his own parents and extended family. How many of us have been told by relatives that we just have to be “more firm” or that our kids are “spoiled” and just need “more discipline”? It’s easy to have the confidence to tell our parents to shove off with that sort of unwanted advice when we are in our 30’s and well established in our careers – not so easy for a 20 year old to know what is right.</p>

<p>Many communities do offer parenting classes, often through a community center or Y, and these may be more affordable than private therapy or counseling. So the first step might be for the couple to arrange to attend that sort of class.</p>

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<p>He does not have a very controlling personality type – he has a very worried personality type, which can sometimes result in an appearance of the former. In other words, he is the parent who perpetually believes his child really ought to be wearing a sweater. She constantly tortures him by removing all her clothing and running around in just a diaper while he follows her around and says, “Don’t you want to put your shirt back on? You’re going to get chilly!”</p>

<p>Calmom, you are right that we were both thrust into parenthood before we were necessarily ideally prepared. It had not even occurred to him that he’d end up a father any time in the remotely near future, and so he’d never thought about what kind of parent he would be. He likes the reassurance of hearing the opinions of experts.</p>

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<p>Ah, yes – the old “I’m cold; you should put on a sweater.”</p>

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<p>Hooray!!</p>

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<p>LOL… I can imagine my husband being this way when, heavens willing, we have kids. Whenever the cat gets into a funk, DH gets upset, trying to figure out what’s wrong with the cat. He cleans the litterbox and she yowls, he gives her fresh food and she yowls, he plays her music that he thinks she’ll like and she yowls… I typically end up hollering “Just leave her alone!” from across the apartment.</p>

<p>Nothing’s wrong with your partner; he’s just doting. ;)</p>

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<p>PhysicsMom, my ex is also the worrying type, so I know what that is like. He would have to go into the babies’ bedrooms at night again and again just to check to see if they were breathing. He was especially protective of our daughter - fortunately she snored, rather loudly even for an infant – so he didn’t always have to hover over her to know if she was breathing.</p>

<p>Of course, she also grew up to be the athletic and adventuresome kid. The one who was in gymnastics and doing handsprings over the vault at age 6, “invented” the sport of “couch gymnastics” while watching the olympics at age 8, fearlessly leaped off the high diving board at the pool, and by her teen years was traveling all over the world on her own. </p>

<p>I do have to say that her dad has finally become reconciled to this – after the kid has spent a summer living on her own in New Delhi, done the solo hosteling thing all through eastern Europe, and managed separate trips to different destinations in the mid-east over the past 6 months. Nary a peep of protest out of Dad these days when she pops up with her latest idea, though we still have to go through the ritual of “don’t tell Dad” while each successive adventure is in the planning stages. </p>

<p>Back to the food issue: the nutritional value of food is the same whether it is mashed or whole, so the “only eats baby food” shouldn’t be a concern nutritionally. My kids were also small for their age in the bottom ranges for height and weight – the important part is that there is a steady rate of growth- not where they are on the chart. So if your daughter’s growth chart line is going up steadily the way it should, even if it is in the bottom of the range – she’s fine. If there WERE any nutritional concerns that came up, the best way to address them would probably be more soft baby-type food, not less – I was a skinny kid and a picky eater, and my dad was always making me protein shakes which probably was a lot better way to make sure I had the proper nutrition than trying to battle me over eating the foods in their whole form.</p>

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<p>Some parents have found this book incredibly helpful. I did.</p>

<p>The Difficult Child, Stanley Turecki
[Stanley</a> Turecki, M.D.: Philosophy](<a href=“http://www.stanleyturecki.com/philosophy.html]Stanley”>Philosophy | Adult, Child and Family Psychiatry)</p>

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<p>I had a toddler who survived on ice cream for probably 4-6 months. My physician father recommended it. He and my mom had already raised this type kid.
Some of the most difficult toddlers become the easiest and most delightful teens. VeryHappy has it right. “Headstrong” is really a positive.</p>

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<p>PhysicsMom - what a good mother you are. I read through this whole thread, the other day and caught up again today.
I don’t recall you saying or anyone asking if your daughter is growing? Is she on the height/weight charts? Does she pee and poop <em>normally</em> and regularly?
If this is the case - then keep offering her nutritious food. If she wasn’t eating or drinking enough she would not grow.
Encourage your partner to think that if it is coming out then it MUST be going in!</p>

<p>Small children have small stomachs. They don’t need A LOT of food. Many parents totally misjudge how much a child needs to eat. When switching from baby food, don’t forget there is a lot of water in baby food. So, while she may eat a whole jar of sweet potatoes, if you bake a whole sweet potato and mash it with a fork, she only needs 1-2 tablespoons.</p>

<p>Here is a tip to introduce new foods and table food. Sit her on your lap while YOU eat dinner. Feed her mashed up and tiny pieces of cut up food right from your plate. If she sees you eat - she may have more interest.</p>

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<p>Good for little girl! It is much worse when they eat too much and you cannot stop them.</p>

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<p>Update… </p>

<p>I wasn’t sure to even tell you all this because it seems unbelievable, but my daughter’s eating habits have done a 180 turnaround in the last few days. It’s become apparent that her eating issues with 100% a power issue and that, when that power component is removed, she’s an excellent eater.</p>

<p>Now, a little background. My daughter was a particularly bad sleeper (would not sleep anywhere except literally in my arms, woke up ever twenty minutes) until five months when, after much trial and error, we figured out what worked for her. It turned out that she needed sleep training, but not of the variety where you go in every two minutes – seeing me come back in just made her more upset. However, once we just let her cry it out (as cruel as that sounds), she was sleeping nine hours a night within a week. She now says “ni-ni!” (night night) around 8 every night to tell us she wants to go to bed, happily brushes her own teeth (with help), listens to a few stories, and then reaches her arms out towards her crib for me to set her in it. She absolutely loves bed time and sleeps from around 8pm to around 8 am every night unless she’s sick.</p>

<p>So – she has a history of being particularly difficult until we find just the right way of parenting her. But when we do, she quickly starts to thrive.</p>

<p>Well, it seems that’s the case here as well. The eating was not HER problem – it was OURS!!</p>

<p>I’ve been setting non-messy foods out on plates around the house where she can pick at them as she will, leaving her to do what she will with baby food in her high chair, and sitting on the floor (in her line of sight/action, in other words) whenever I eat so that she can wander over and see what I’m up to. </p>

<p>Well, it’s like a miracle. Yesterday evening I put her in her high chair with pureed green beans (because she’d said “geen been” and was acting hungry) and then went to sit on the other side of the room and study. After about twenty minutes she started whining, so I went over and saw that her bowl was empty. </p>

<p>“Where are your green beans?!” I asked. I looked all over the floor, fully expecting to find a big pile of green mush somewhere. It wasn’t anywhere. So I looked at her face, and she had green beans all around her mouth. She’d apparently fed all of them to herself, and with her spoon too. </p>

<p>So today we kept going that way, and she took a particular interest in my own food. I kept having to remind her dad to be quiet and not try to convince her to eat, but he was okay with that because he realized that the way we’re doing things now is helping our daughter. </p>

<p>Anyway, I gave her pediasure in the morning just because our days start of badly if she starts off hungry, and I thought pediasure would make sure that didn’t happen. Then she started asking for food around nine, and so I put her in her high chair with some pureed sweet potatoes. She didn’t eat any, just slopped them around. When she started whining I said, “Oh, you’re done with breakfast?” and then gave her her bath since she was covered in food. </p>

<p>About a half an hour later, I brought some graham crackers out and left them on the table, while occasionally taking a bite myself. She’s eaten them in the past, so it wasn’t a big surprise when she came over and had some. She ate maybe 1/4 of a graham cracker. </p>

<p>Around lunch time I made myself a salad with romaine lettuce, roast beef, yellow bell peppers, and asiago peppercorn dressing. As a topping I added crumbled tortilla chips for the crunch. She has liked tortilla chips for a while… tortilla and potato chips are the only “real” foods she’s seemed to like until the last few days. Anyway, she saw me make this salad and crumble the tortilla chips on top. So when I sat on the floor eating it, she came over and reached in and grabbed a bit of chip. She at it… ate a few more bits of chip… Eventually I felt pretty full, but there were still a few bits of lettuce in the bottom of the bowl. She seemed interested in it, so I just let her have it. She sat for about ten minutes playing with a toy with one hand and just letting her other hand rest in the salad LOL. Her dad saw her like that and joked, “After a long, hard day, it’s always good to just rest your hand in a salad.” Eventually, she ate a piece of lettuce!</p>

<p>For dinner we had baked ziti, and D took a piece out of my bowl. After a few minutes of passing it from hand to hand and playing with it. She ate it. She then ate five more pieces of ziti (covered in sauce)! Then she had about 1/2 of a graham cracker for dessert!</p>

<p>Last of all, we instituted a vocabulary change in our house. We don’t call it “feeding” her anymore. We call it “offering her food”.</p>

<p>I simply can’t express how relieved and THRILLED I am to see her being such a great eater. It’s truly stunning to me. </p>

<p>Also, I can’t find any adequate way to express my thanks to everyone who’s provided advice in this thread. This thread contains the most useful parenting advice I’ve ever found anywhere! Thank you all! Even those who I didn’t respond to, know that I read every single reply at least five times. I was so grateful for every suggestion and thought and wanted to milk it for all it was worth. I feel that I wouldn’t have known what to do to help my daughter eat so well if I hadn’t posted here. We would still be struggling. I know toddler eating habits may be a small issue, but you all need to know that you have significantly improved our quality of life in this household! THANK YOU!</p>