Daughter Won't Eat

Hi L.. How old is your daughter? Does she still take a bottle? I just wondered, because if she is still drinking milk through a bottle that might be part of it-getting full from that. If not, then it is obviously just WILL. I have to say that I disagree with Laurel. I think letting them "feed on demand" on snack types of food is teaching them bad habits. And I don't think it is EVER ok for a child to ever be SEVERELY UNDERWEIGHT at any point in their life. So I would not follow any advice that might lead to that. Also, what is going to happen when you and your husband, and son sit down to dinners if you do that? She will be running around the house and you won't ever be able to sit and have a peaceful dinner with the rest of your family. My husband and I are big on SITTING at the table for meals, as a family, talking and spending time together that way. I could not disagree more with the theory that making them sit down for meals will make them obese! As long as they have healthy, well-balanced meals and healthy snacks in between they will NOT get obese from eating meals. My advice to you with her not wanting anything but snacks is this(this is what I would do):when it comes time for lunch, explain to her while you are preparing her lunch that you are making her lunch to sit down and eat and if she chooses not to eat any of her lunch then she will not get ANY snacks before dinnertime. Make snacks a reward. Chances are, after having this habit for a while already, she will test you and refuse to eat her lunch anyway. In that case, put her lunch in the fridge and tell her that she made the choice not to listen to you and eat lunch so now, she gets nothing to eat at all until dinner. Make her understand that SHE has to make the choice to listen to you. You can not force her to eat, but you can enforce the rules. If she throws a big tantrum, tell her that it was her own choice not to eat and warn her that she'll get a time out if she doesn't stop-and MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW THROUGH. I always do 1 minute per year of age. So if she's 3yrs old-three minutes. If she won't stop screaming and it's time for her to come out, tell her that if she can be done being naughty and screaming then she can come out but, if she is going to keep being naughty then she will be in time out for another 3 minutes. She will start to understand, that it is your way or no way. If she comes out and still refuses to eat her lunch, then explain to her "ok, but you will not get any snacks then before it's time to eat dinner, and then you can eat dinner with us." If she starts the tantrum again, do the same thing as before, if she doesn't then BELIEVE me she will be sooo hungry by dinnertime that even if she throws a fit about sitting at the table to eat at first, she will eat! I would do this for every meal. Establish that the WHOLE family has to sit down and eat dinner/lunch and that she is part of the family. If she doesn't eat her meal, then she doesn't get any snacks either. Depending on how old she is, you can also start a sticker chart to reward her. Make a chart of "Emilie's mealtimes"( I don't know your daughters name so I just made one up), and make a column for everyday-divided into threes. So on Monday, if she eats breakfast with you, make a big deal out of it, and let her put a sticker on her chart for "Monday-breakfast" because she ate her breakfast! Praise her up and make her see how happy you are that she was a big girl and ate breakfast. Then she can have a healthy snack between breakfast and lunch-but I would just do 1 snacktime, and not let her keep snacking up until lunch. At lunch, if she eats, praise her up and explain she gets another sticker on her chart for eating lunch, same for dinner, etc. If she doesn't eat a meal, then she doesn't get a sticker for that meal that day. You can decide on a big reward that she'll get (a new toy, ice cream cone, trip to the park, new book, etc.) when her chart is full of stickers for one week, or one day if you want to start out small first to encourage her. I believe if you try these two angles, then you'll start to see major improvements. I would also limit her cups of juice to one or two cups per day, because juice has lots of sugar(even natural) and can curb an appetite also. I don't think it's her not being hungry enough for meals, I think it's just behavior and the longer you wait to address/change her behaviors-the stronger her will will be to fight it. It might be a little stressful at first, because she is going to want to fight to get her way again and make you give in-but don't! It will get better and better, as long as you(and your husband) stick to your guns and are consistent with it. It's just a matter of establishing a new routine and rules, and she has to realize that she's not in charge. I wish you the best of luck, and hope this works for you!

Hi L., I have the same problem. My son is 4 and he has yet to eat a fruit and/or vegetable. We have taken him to the ped and he's in the 90 percentile and she suggested that we give him options at every meal time and don't make a big deal out of it. He takes a multivitamin and drinks a cup of milk a day. He does drink water and/or juice as well. But he won't try anything. Plain pasta, mac n cheese, nothing. He will eat chicken nuggets, cereal, crackers, goldfish, etc w/o hesitating. I've tried the texture thing, faking him out and even giving him no choice and he didn't eat for 2 days(until I caved in). His daycare will even give him crackers just so he'll eat. It's hard and like you, I'm hoping one of these days he'll wake up and just start eating like this never was an issue. Good luck!

Umm - yeah - I disagree with Laurel too. Why would you maintain the eating pattern of a child that is severely underweight? No telling how malnutritioned her daughter is and what sort of long term damage that has done to her brain and bones.
I agree that you need to put your foot down with your daughter. I believe that children, at any age, need to have a sense of autonomy but only with appropriate things (i.e. what toy to play with, what soap to use in the bath). NOT when to eat and WHAT to eat. How does a toddler have any concept of what is beneficial to their bodies? Set those guidelines recommended by the mom who wrote the novel (heehee) and I am sure your daughter will learn who is boss of the Food Domain.

kids don't eat if they're not hungry and then sometimes they want stuff that you may not feel like making, and sometimes you just need to find something that they like. my nephew had a weird craving, i can't remember what it was, and when my sister took him to the ped. she found out he had a vitamin deficiency was trying to compensate by over eating certain foods. and if she wants only snacks provide healthy options like fruit and veggies. my son is on a peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwich kick right now and wants one a day and i usually comply. i am not saying let her walk all over you, but find a happy medium and maybe get her checked if it continues for too long

My oldest child was just like that. I stopped trying to make her sit down to a meal, and would give her good snacks such as cheese sticks, hard boiled eggs, and such. I would even leave items like that on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator so that she could get them whenever she wanted. Cereal bars instead of chips or candy bars went over well, too. Dry cereal such as lucky charms, and fruit loops make great "convenience snacks in little ziplock bags. Just be creative. You will probably have to do this with both children, but it won't hurt for both of them to have good "snacks" like that. You could do this for a few days, take a mental inventory of what she actually ate, and you will probably find that over the course of the day, she got enough meat, breads, milk, and so forth. My oldest used to be severly underweight because of this, but now she is a slim, healthy tween, so maybe there is something to "feeding on demand". When she was going through that phase, her doctor said not to teach her to "eat by the clock", or she would easily become overweight. Even now, my girls have an assortment of soups, fruit, cereal and such that they can fix by themselves, whenever they like. If they have "pigged out" on that stuff, I don't bother fighting with them about mealtime.

My daughter is 2 and she usually tells us what she wants even if its cereal. Lately she loves to have olvatine every day. My doctor said what every she wants to eat give it to them even if its just bread at time. They will eventually want to try something else.

I can completely understand your frustration. I put my mom through it when I was little, even to the point that there were only a few things I would eat, even if we wanted to go out to eat. She'll grow out of it. I would try to sneak in healthy choices, fruits, veggies, dried fruits, or snacks supplemented with vitamins (like milk is with Vit. D). I would only eat mac and cheese, spaghetti Os, or grilled cheese sandwiches. In no way shape or form could you get me to eat meat. Just take a deep breath because getting both you and your daughter frustrated will get no one no where. Good luck!

Put your foot down. SHe is young, but she is working you. Simply tell her that she either eats what you make for breakfast, lunch or dinner, or she eats nothing. She will get hungry and eat eventually. If she throws a tantrum, ignore it. Once she starts eating, you can give her more freedom of choice in what she eats as a reward, but give her options that work for you and her health.

It will get better i promise lol. How old is your daughter? my daughter turned 2 in august an she would take a few bites here an there but she never really ate like my oldest son did at that age. She just stopped drinking a bottle an went to a cup an she hates the cup so she just drinks out of a regular cup now. But she is finally eating now. Before it was only little bags of cheetos or other chips or goldfish, snaks like you say. Now that she is hungry an does not have her milk to fill her up she eats an it was hard but i just got to where when she through her drink down cause it was water i would just take everything away from her an walk away an igrone her an she finally got the picture that i would not reponsed to her acting that way an now she is eating she even tells me she is hungry now. Hopefully this will help. It hard when kids get there own minds lol. take care K.