7 Year Old Not Wanting Eat?

Have you at least tried allowing him to eat at 6:00 or 6:30? 5 is way too early to eat dinner for a lot of people.

I think dinner is just a bit too early for him. Have him come to the table for "family time" but he doesn't have to eat then. Make his plate and put it away for him to eat a bit later, say 6:30 - 7:00. You can't force him to eat and you really shouldn't force him to eat if he's not hungry. Sets him up for bad habits later.

You definitely need to adjust dinner time to about 6 PM or a bit later. Who wants dinner at 4 or 5pm.

He doesn't want to eat that early because he isn't hungry yet. You say he doesn't want to eat, but the truth is he does want to eat. He just wants to eat later ... when he's actually hungry.

What should you do? Let him eat later, when he's hungry.

Think about it. Would you really want to be told to eat a couple of hours before your body is hungry and then told you could not eat when you actually were hungry?

My kids would never, every eat dinner that early. They just aren't hungry at that time in the afternoon - that would be more like snack time for them.

What I would suggest is that you have him sit with you and your husband when you eat at 4 or 5 and he can munch on something light if he wants to, then allow him to eat his dinner later at a more reasonable hour or whenever he is actually hungry, like 6 or 7 PM. Just put his dinner plate in the fridge and let him heat it up in the microwave later when he's ready to eat. If he's not hungry that early, he's not hungry. Don't fight his body clock - let him honor and listen to his own hunger cues and let that determine when he eats (within reason). If you work against his natural hunger cues, you could find yourself with a kid who learns to eat when he's not actually hungry or can't recognize hunger cues, which leads to overeating and weight problems later in life.

Dinner sounds very early ____@____.com's most likely not hungry for dinner at that time & naturally is hungry
at 9pm regardless if it's close to bedtime.
What we do here is we eat dinner when it works for those of us home
then the family members that get home later heat up the dinner & eat it.
I would save him some dinner & let him eat it when he's hungry.
Offer it to him at 6 or 6:30 pm. See if that helps.
Another thing I do, is offer a healthy snack 2-3 hrs after dinner way before
I know the kids need to start getting ready for bed.
Otherwise the start of bedtime routine signifies "uh oh I'm going to have to
go to bed.....I need to eat something". The panic sets it.
So just adjust HIS dinner a little later than every one elses & offer that
healthy snack an hour or two before bedtime.

put his dinner aside and give it to him when he's hungry.
khairete
S.

First off start by giving him a better breakfast, whether that means eggs, yogurt, fruit, something with some nutrition in it. If he eats well at breakfast and lunch I would not worry about dinner so much, but if he is snacking at all between lunch and dinner and then not eating I would cut out the snacks. I don't force my kids to eat dinner, but if they don't eat they know that the only food available once dinner is cleared is a piece of fresh fruit.

If you are committed to an earlier mealtime (and it IS very early... I mean, we eat at 5:30-6ish and then Kiddo will chow down, but earlier? No.)-- if you need to eat earlier, then be prepared that he will need his plate wrapped and put in the fridge. Have him come to the table at 7,then serve him. THAT is his time to eat, no later.

Another idea would be, of course, to start dinner later but start the cooking at 5ish, and have him come in and help with some veg prep, putting out any bread and butter, setting the table. Make him a part of preparing for the meal. I usually start dinner around 5/5:15 these days and we eat around a half hour or so later, depending on how labor intensive it is. Our son eats a small snack after school (carb and a protein, small serving) and eats like a horse at dinner, growth spurt or no. And do make sure he has a protein in the morning if at all possible, even if it's just peanut butter on the toast.

I work from home and we eat at 7:30. That was a little late for my kids so they'd have a fruit or veggie snack a little earlier to tie them over. In your case I agree with everyone who says to have him sit and visit with you during dinner and put his plate of food in the fridge to be warmed a little later when he's hungry.

I agree that 4-5 pm is really early for dinner. We don't eat dinner until around 6:30 pm most nights. We realized that even 6 was too early because both of my kids get an afternoon snack. What time is breakfast and lunch? Does he get an afternoon snack? If so it is very likely that he is simply not hungry at your dinner time. I would either take away the snack or move back dinner time. It can be the same thing if the other meal times are later. My kids schedules are usually up by 6:30 am, breakfast by 7. Lunch between 11-11:30, snack around 3, and dinner at 6:30 pm. It works out really well for us.

Just sharing here our routine...our daughter gets home from school a little after 4pm, she is usually not ready for dinner until around 6 at the earliest. If shes had a decent snack when she got home its even later. Her father works nights so he isn't here for dinner, I usually cook in the afternoon, and warm it up for dinner, honestly. The later our kids eat, the less likely they will be asking for a snack later, and the more likely they will eat a decent amount of dinner. So, that being said, I think four or five is too early, would be for my family!

Put his dinner plate in the fridge at 5PM if he doesn't eat it. And just before bed, if he asks for dinner, heat it up.

You can't make a child eat. But you can make sure that when he does eat, it's healthy food.

We eat at all different times because of our schedules. Sometimes as early as 5 and other times as late as 8. I tell the kids to pick a certain kind of snack based on what time we will be eating dinner that night.

Sometimes they aren't hungry at 5, so they will pack their portion in a thermos and bring it with us.

I say let him eat when he's hungry. 4-5 is SO early for dinner. And I expect my kids to ask for a snack later on when we eat that early.

While it is nice to eat dinner as a family with your husband there, this is not working out for your son, so do not give him dinner at 4 or 5 p.m. Try feeding him at 6:00 and see if he eats. I bet he will!

Just curious.... does he take medication for ADHD or anything like that? From what I've heard, those medications can often suppress appetite.....

If so, he may not be able to eat much while the medication is in effect, but when it wears off later in the evening, he may truly be hungry.

My daughter is 7 and she's been a very "controling" eater. Each night it was something different, the amount on her plates was too much, her foods where touching, she didn't like "X" now. It was exhausting and infuriating.

Something we've only begun to try, but seems to be working, is letting her make her own plates. I make the dinner, she serves herself as much as she wants from it. What she takes she must make a very good effort at eating. The previous rules about snacks and treats later still apply.

This trick might work for you too. Let him make his own plate up, even if it's a tiny bit, at least he's sitting with you and being a part of the family. If he eats everything, he can have more later around 9pm.

4pm is very early for dinner. 6pm is more reasonable.

9pm is past bedtime for a 7 year old and absolutely unacceptable. He should not be "coming up to you" for dinner, he should be asleep.

I suggest a bigger, more nutritious breakfast. Toast is not enough. Add an egg, an orange, some milk. Lunch looks pretty good, but some cheese or extra protien would be a good addition. For dinner, have it a couple of hours later. As it stands, you're allowing about 15 hours between meals. That's an incredibly long time for a child! Bolster up breakfast and have dinner later and I'll bet the problem solves itself.

Maybe he didn't feel good, maybe he hadn't pooped yet, maybe he just wasn't hungry, maybe maybe maybe.

Kids need to eat about every 4 hours either a meal or good snack.

How a growth spurt works.

Kids eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. They chub out and parent over react that their kid is becoming a pig and getting fat and all sorts of things.

Then the kid wakes up one morning and all their pants are too short, the long sleeves are now 3/4 sleeves, their shoes hurt their toes, and they are super skinny.

They don't want to eat anything. They're full all the time. They are not preparing for a massive growth spurt and they don't need the extra calories.

So, your child is hungry, it's your job to feed them. If you truly do feed him at 4 pm then expect him to go until breakfast the next morning without any other food I suspect you're going to find he needs to eat another meal in the evening. You're eating way early for a child to go that long without. That's nearly 12 hours. I would also imagine he'll start waking up during the night starving and go raid the fridge or wake you up to fix him a meal.

In child care kids are not allowed to go over 4 hours without being offered a meal or snack. A normal schedule during the day is this:

7-8:15am Breakfast

9:30am Light snack, half a fruit or 100% juice OR a graham cracker and milk OR some other light food that will tide them over until lunch.

11am-12:30pm Lunch. All food groups, either 1/4 cup servings or 1/2 cup servings depending on their age.

3pm-3:30pm good snack, high protein with a 1/2 fruit or a simple sandwich with a slice of meat and whole wheat bread. Substantial because most kids do not eat until 6-7pm.

If they are in evening child care.

Snack after school then we'd have dinner around 5:45-6:30pm. Usually kid friendly foods like fish sticks, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, spaghetti, etc...

Bedtime 8:30(ish). Snack would be around 8pm. If we were doing an activity and getting them down later we'd eat snack later.

Bedtime snack would be heavier on the complex carb but it depended on the evening meal. We'd have to meet all kinds of criteria to fill out our daily menu. So many servings of fruit, veggies, protein, dairy, and more. So if we had spaghetti for dinner we'd have a higher fruit or veggie tray sort of evening snack. If we had something like fried rice and teriyaki chicken we'd get to have a dessert sort of snack at bedtime.

Kids in all my child care classes had covered cases hanging on the wall by the sink holding their toothbrushes and that was part of our daily curriculum.

Kids go through phases where they are hungry and when they're not. You're the mom and of course you're not a short order cook but if your child didn't eat like "you" wanted during the day then comes to you later finally hungry...well, feed your child. Making him go hungry because he didn't follow your meal times is just mean. He's a kid and needs food and you are his source of food.

We start the bedtime routine with one kiddo an hour early because every night at bedtime he's "starving" and wants to eat. He eats and eats and eats so we know he is hungry. His Ritalin suppresses his appetite during the day so we expect this now. If we want him to lay down at 9 and go to sleep we know we are going to have to make him think it's time to lay down so he'll have time to eat. So around 8pm I yell down the hallway "Bedtime!!! Jammies on and teeth brushed". He comes running he's hungry when the lights start going off in the main rooms.

Is he still up at 9PM? Or does he get up because he's hungry?

What I would do is push dinner to the later hour (more like 5 than 4 - 4 is still afternoon snack time here). Then I would encourage him to eat but if he doesn't, I would offer him a small healthy snack (or some dinner leftovers) before the bedtime routine starts. I am not a big breakfast person. Never have been. 6AM is too early for my stomach. So toast would be just fine with me. I think this is a timing and scheduling problem more than an eating problem. Also, when is lunch? Some kids don't eat til 1PM so 4PM would be too soon.

You and DH can snack, too, if that helps everybody get to 5 or 6 PM vs 4. A handful of nuts can be a great filler between lunch and dinner.

Perhaps you can move dinner back to 6pm. That would be a compromise between hubby and son. If not, let son eat later but not at 9pm.

Take a few minutes to figure out how to make it all work so that you are not upset about son not eating. True, kids do go through growth spurts and changes weekly.

Good luck.

he other S.

So your husband, who works at home all day, can't have a snack then everyone eat dinner at a normal time? Sounds like he needs to consider others. He's home all day and can eat anytime he wants. Also, you could eat later with kiddo too. Make hubby come sit with you guys when it's dinner time.

Our kids start getting ready for bed at 8:30, in bed by 9. They sleep til 7 then get up and off to school. Kids this age don't have to have that much sleep. That's almost 11 hours.

we usually eat that early too. do you give a afternoon snack? if so maybe take that away so he doesn't lose his appetite or just give a smaller snack. give the snack before bed or something like that

That is a little early for dinner. Have him sit at the table with a small snack during family dinner and then give him his real dinner at 6 or 7 at night.