Adventures in self-feeding

Thaya, AKA "little miss independence", is a picky eater. It isn't the taste of the food, it is the texture, or how we're feeding her, or when we're feeding her, or if a bug the size of a spec of dust flies by the window, of if there are only a gazillion starts shinning and not a gazillion and one, or if somewhere on the planet a squirrel is running across the road, or... or... the list goes on.

She wants what we have all the time - fine, it makes my job easier. However, some nights what we are having she cannot have (read salad and probable asphyxiation - not my idea of a good time). It is at these times that I depend heavily on distraction. Singing, making stupid noises and faces, reading labels and pointing to pictures, pointing to objects around the room, or even sticking the laptop in front of her and letting her watch Curious George dance to a Soul Child remix on youtube (don't you judge me - look how skinny she is, you can see her ribs. The child has to eat SOMETHING, and sticking the very tip of her minuscule finger into yogurt and licking it doesn't count as something!!! I interact, I sing along! I also name the animals and colors - but not too loudly because if she actually hears me or sees me or senses me in some way the eating will stop).

So what is a tired, pregnant, cranky mama to do?

Strip the child down and let her have her way with a spoon and a bowl full of hummus.

When she finishes off the humus, I add some color by pouring in some pureed carrots (which, by the way, are stickier and easier to get on the spoon when mixed with hummus - yuck). I'm sure peas or beans or even some squash would have worked too.

When she is done with the carrots and the hummus (and I decide not to push my luck by adding anything else) I hand her a box of soy milk (that's right, they sell boxes of soy milk just like boxes of juice) and let my toddler maneuver the straw into her mouth and sip (and blow and squeeze) into that straw until every last drop is gone - which doesn't usually take too long.

We finally end the night with a bath, a cuddle, a kiss, and a night-night (all of which takes about 15 minutes tops - I'm tired and at this point there is nothing standing between me and my bed).

So, what crazy things have you had to do to get your toddler to eat? And what foods will even the most distractable, ornery, cranky eaters eat?

Comments

[Erin]

Mateo loves hummus too!!

[LaurieG]

Sorry, I think that sounds harsh. And I was just going for not rambling on and on. [sigh] Anyways, I can relate -- on one memorable trip to the pediatrician my son was in the 90th percentile for height and the 10th for weight. The pediatrician was like "Ummm, we'd really like to see him put on some weight." Yeah. He's 19, still skinny, still only eats bland food. My younger son had some kind of weird appetite/metabolism thing going on where he would eat almost nothing for a week or two and then eat constantly for about three days. Adolescence has evened him out (now he eats constantly all the time.) I saw the food wars that my sisters went through with my nieces and believe me, it was no picnic. All that to say just relax, and make food a non-issue.

[LaurieG]

Take this advice or leave it, but when my second son was an infant I was watching Penelope Leach and she made the following statement, which changed my life and is the one piece of advice I always pass on to new parents: "No child will every willingly starve herself to death." Of course it was in response to a question very similar to yours. Give her a multivitamin if you feel nutrition is an issue, and offer healthy foods several times a day. She'll eat what she needs. Do you really want to teach your daughter that eating/not eating is a sure-fire way to get attention?

[WendyM]

I love this picture!

I can only imagine how tired you are. Good job on all your great feeding efforts!

Kylie's favorites are: bananas, cheese, cheese toast, Gerber Graduates diced peaches, apples and carrots, Graduates ravioli, diced strawberries, diced grapes (can you tell she's a fruit freak?).

We offer green beans or peas at least once a day. She usually prefers the green beans.

She also really likes Nutri-grain blueberry waffles (microwaved instead of toasted which makes them softer), Morning Star veggie sausage patties, chicken nuggets, cottage cheese, and yogurt.

She loves her Cherrios and occasional crackers or nilla wafers (broken up). And when Karen and I go out to eat, we'll grab a Jello pack for Kylie to enjoy (especially if she's between meals).

Sometimes it seems that all I do is have her in the highchair. She routinely eats 5 times a day but sometimes it is 6 or 7 times.

I've been looking for milk in a box and can't seem to find any. Is it soy milk you are using? What brand of milk and what isle is it in at the grocery store?

[laura b]

You have to do what you have to do, don't you?

We like to make up songs about new foods... usually the words have to do with how much we like the food. For example, my daughter wouldn't eat dinner one night (we were having shrimp potstickers) and so we sang, "potstickers, potstickers, I like to eat potstickers." It helped her to eat them that time, although reluctantly, but the song stuck with her. So, the next time that I made them, she said, "I like to eat potstickers!" and happily took them.

[Suzanne]

We have the same exact thing going on at our house!!!

He likes to eat whatever we are eating so we've started eating more toddler-friendly foods.

He also really likes avocados, which we encourage because you can see his ribs too. Grilled cheese is also a big hit. Nutragrain-like toddler cereal bars are also great.

He likes to feed himself and he likes to make a huge mess. I let him destroy the house on a daily basis - let the dog back in the house when the baby is asleep to lap up all the goldfish cracker bits and cheerios scattered throughout the house - and I mop and spray off every surface, or as many as I can remember to get, every evening.

I'm wiped out at the end of the day --- and I'm not even pregnant.

I'd imagine you're exhusted.