Belly up to the bar
My daughter -- my formerly laid-back, easy-going, eat-anything daughter -- has started to assert her will. She even had her first timeout recently, something her brother had gotten three months earlier than she did. Of course, it was for hitting. She learns by example and he's certainly set a fine one when it comes to violence.
This new independence is really testing my patience when it comes to mealtimes. Emmie has decided she no longer likes anything. This is the girl who used to happily eat Indian food and salmon and all kinds of veggies and fruit. Now, she looks at the plate, takes one bite of whatever it is, picks it up, places it precariously on the edge of her tray and starts saying, "Nooo. Nooo. Bar! Bar!"
If you don't give her highness a cereal bar, and I mean give it to her rightthissecondorIwillkillyou, then you run the risk of The Tantrum. The Tantrum is not to be trifled with. It starts with screaming, progresses to turning beet red, really gets going with a rash breaking out all over her face and winds up with tears streaming down her face. I react to this with great diplomacy, telling her I feel bad for her, but that she has to eat her sandwich before she can have a bar. This news is met with great enthusiasm, as you can imagine.
This is repeated three times a day. She refuses to eat, I withhold the bar until she does, The Tantrum rears its ugly head and she ends up having to leave the table because she can't keep her shit together. Then I feel bad, so I give in and give her the damn bar and she smiles and screams, "OH WOW!" and all is well with the world. Until the next meal, when we lather, rinse and repeat.
Seeing as I have been through this before with Jack, I remembered the sage advice of Ms. Ellyn Satter, author of "Getting Your Child to Eat, But Not Too Much," and launched a new offensive yesterday. Emmie gets all of her meal, including the damn cereal bar, presented on her plate at once. She chooses what to eat and in which order and I try not to let my eyelid twitch when she eats the bar and nothing else.
I kid just a little about that last part, because she has indeed started eating better. She does eat the bar first, but she also goes back and eats some sandwich and some fruits and veggies. So apparently, she likes to control the situation. But so do I. So this is a meeting of the minds. And because I have also done that before, I know better than to challenge an almost 2-year-old. They win every time. Hands down.
So we're trying this for now. If you have any better advice, please do share.
This new independence is really testing my patience when it comes to mealtimes. Emmie has decided she no longer likes anything. This is the girl who used to happily eat Indian food and salmon and all kinds of veggies and fruit. Now, she looks at the plate, takes one bite of whatever it is, picks it up, places it precariously on the edge of her tray and starts saying, "Nooo. Nooo. Bar! Bar!"
If you don't give her highness a cereal bar, and I mean give it to her rightthissecondorIwillkillyou, then you run the risk of The Tantrum. The Tantrum is not to be trifled with. It starts with screaming, progresses to turning beet red, really gets going with a rash breaking out all over her face and winds up with tears streaming down her face. I react to this with great diplomacy, telling her I feel bad for her, but that she has to eat her sandwich before she can have a bar. This news is met with great enthusiasm, as you can imagine.
This is repeated three times a day. She refuses to eat, I withhold the bar until she does, The Tantrum rears its ugly head and she ends up having to leave the table because she can't keep her shit together. Then I feel bad, so I give in and give her the damn bar and she smiles and screams, "OH WOW!" and all is well with the world. Until the next meal, when we lather, rinse and repeat.
Seeing as I have been through this before with Jack, I remembered the sage advice of Ms. Ellyn Satter, author of "Getting Your Child to Eat, But Not Too Much," and launched a new offensive yesterday. Emmie gets all of her meal, including the damn cereal bar, presented on her plate at once. She chooses what to eat and in which order and I try not to let my eyelid twitch when she eats the bar and nothing else.
I kid just a little about that last part, because she has indeed started eating better. She does eat the bar first, but she also goes back and eats some sandwich and some fruits and veggies. So apparently, she likes to control the situation. But so do I. So this is a meeting of the minds. And because I have also done that before, I know better than to challenge an almost 2-year-old. They win every time. Hands down.
So we're trying this for now. If you have any better advice, please do share.
Labels: Emmie
posted by Amy at
9:47 PM
4 Comments:
ahem, i know you really love advice from THE EXPERT here (moi) but... do you think you could give her half a bar or a quarter of a bar on the plate instead of an entire one? that way she'd be forced to eat other things on the plate as well.
I was thinking the same thing as SupaCoo...
Would she notice if you picked up "mini" bars?
we do this too with dessert for Harry. He needs to have it served with his meal-- always has been like this. Kind of strange at restaurants, but whatev.
here's how I feel about food: not a battle I will fight. ever. I figure it's my job to make sure they get lots of healthy options, and then they can eat whatever the want from there. so we don't really have any food in our house that I don't want them to eat.
oh! cliff bars come in an organic kids' version (zbars)-- Jack snacks on them, and they have some protein (also lots of preservatives)
hmmm, don't really have advice you haven't heard. Other than what my Peds say, kids will eat when they're hungry and if they get one good meal/day, be happy.
Just wondering what kind of cereal bars your highness likes.
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