Reply to Four year old won't eat meals- so exhausted with the struggle

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]She sounds like my ADHD child when they were 4.

OP where are you getting your expectations as to how much your DD should eat at each meal?  Your own ideas?  Is your pediatrician pressuring you to get your DD to eat more?

If you want to break the cycle, decide whether you need to be imposing your ideas about how much your DD should be eating.  A pediatric gastroenterologist can check your DD and give advice.  Hint: they won't be in favor of threats, cajoling or bribery.  [/quote]

OP here- [b]it's not that I have some set idea of how much she needs to eat- it's more that I think she needs to eat SOMETHING. 3 bites of any food for dinner seems kind of like a minimum for staving off hunger until the next day.[/b]

For the record, I am also not in favor of threats, cajoling or bribery. But here we are.[/quote]

NP. OP, you are projecting your needs on to her. My (overweight) DH did this to my (normal weight) son, and it was so unpleasant. Begging him to take a bite, obsessing over what was left in his lunch box, when the kid clearly got enough calories from eating the way he ate. DH just couldn't get past on how uncomfortable he would feel eating that small amount. Plus, honestly 3 bites is not going to make much difference in whether or not someone is hungry before the next day.

As someone else said, stop coaxing her to eat when she is not hungry. Let her listen to her body. Maybe the time you are offering meals are not right for her body, and the attention she gets from you about not eating is more rewarding than eating. Just relax. Offer food and just enjoy being together. If a sweet treat is going to be offered, offer it regardless of what else she eats, because otherwise you are teaching her that the other food is bad and the good food is the sweet she gets as a reward for eating the other food.

If she is hungry later, offer a snack. Do this for a couple weeks and see what time she is actually interested in eating. Think about if adjusting your meal schedule is doable. If not, I personally would continue to offer snack on request. I think learning to understand body cues for hunger and fullness are incredibly valuable. [/quote]

My DH is not overweight but he's a voracious eater and he often gets annoyed or upset about how much DD eats (or doesn't) because he struggles to make the adjustment from how he eats to what is "normal" for a preschooler. He will also often give her enormous servings of things, like the same serving he will eat, and be surprised or annoyed if she picks at it. I've explained that it makes more sense to give her a very small serving and then, if she likes it, she will ask for more. I think she gets overwhelmed by a huge plate of food and this actually makes her eat less.

He also just doesn't get child size servings. Like I explained to him that a serving is usually about the size of your fist, and obviously our 4 yr old has a very small fist. So a serving of broccoli for her might be two pieces of broccoli. And she might only eat one and that's fine! Or she might eat none but eat half her sweet potatoes and that's fine too. But he gets fixated on what he thinks a serving is and then measures her eating according to that and it's just such an enormous amount of food. Her stomach isn't even large enough at this age to consume that much food, not even if it was pancakes (her favorite).

Also, as another parent of a 4 yr old who doesn't eat a lot, we allow snacks and demand from 3pm to 5pm, as long as they are healthy snacks. Like you OP, she is very good with breakfast. But I think she doesn't eat amazing at school. Even when she likes the food -- I think she's just distracted by the socializing and doesn't always focus on eating the way we would at home. So sometimes she'll have multiple snacks after school, but I don't stress about it. I insist that her snack are fruit or vegetable heavy (she's not getting a bunch of crackers or chips or something) and that prevents her from being too full for dinner, plus means that if she doesn't eat the veggies we serve with dinner I don't stress.

She's 4. As long as you are offering healthy foods and modeling healthy eating, she has plenty of time to figure this out. She will eat when she's hungry![/quote]

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