Dining with 3 Year Old

No drinks with meals.
Limit juice, milk between meals.
No snacks between meals.
Give her 30 minutes to eat (set a timer) with you.
If she hasn't eaten once the bell has rung, put the food away.
If she says she's hungry, get out the last meal. She can have that.

Do not beg. Do not force. Be very matter of fact. Meal time is over, time to move on. She'll get the hang of it eventually. Still involve her in food prep and ask her what she wants to eat. After she gets the hang of eating her meal at meal time within the designated timeframe, reintroduce snacks.

Good luck!

Oh, how I feel for you and can relate!!!!! My son is 3 1/2 and the same way. I struggle with this all the time because there is a lot of emotion involved for me as far as feeling like he is eating well. The moms here have some good suggestions. What I have just started doing is serving one item at a time at every meal, the first item being a vegetable (the thing that he always refuses to eat) followed by a protein (the second item he generally does not like to eat). If he doesn't want to eat it, I say that is fine and he gets nothing to eat or drink (except water) until the next meal and that is it. When he gets hungry, he will eat. You just have to be ok with that and be able to handle it if he/she decides not to eat for a couple of days!! Good luck and know that you are not alone!!

IF you don't finish your meal in x amount of time (use the timer) THEN you will get nothing except water until the next mealtime. Her body will not ALLOW her to starve, she WILL eat when she feels like it. More often than not, food battles are more about power than food.

My son went through this too. He was also underweight. Our dinner times had turned in to a power struggle...too much arguing, begging, pleading, bribing and stressing over every meal. We did exactly as Julie S. suggested and it worked like a charm. We stopped the evening snack and he was only allowed water to drink until dinner. We did allow one glass of milk at dinner time, but it was a small cup. If he did not finish when we finished dinner, we simply told him dinner was over and put his plate in the refrigerator. The first few times he cried and screamed and begged. We did not give in. If later, when he was calm he mentioned being hungry, we would reheat his dinner for him. It took less than a week for him to correct his behavior and speed up the eating process. (We also did this when he tried to go through a picky phase and would refuse to eat...fixed those dinner time arguments as well). Dinner is no longer a battle of the wills in our house.

My guess is she's just not hungry when its time to eat. You don't mention how many or how often she gets snacks...or what type of snacks she's getting, so that could play into it as well. Personally, I would not be bothered with this. When its time for a meal, set the table...sit down with her and eant...then clear the table. Whatever she hasn't eaten you can choose to do what you wish with it (save it for her snack, toss it, whatever). In my home, we have breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack (no later than 3:30 because dinner is at 6:30), dinner and a bed-time snack. My kids are 9, 6 & 2 (also have a 10 month old, but he's obviously on a different schedule) and they completely understand (yes, even the 2 year old) that meal time is for eating and if they choose not to eat, they will be hungry until its time for the next meal/snack.

I find this quite a sensitive subject. You don't want your child to develop issues with food yet you want her to get the nutrition she needs.

It seems like your daughter has some type of food aversion. I used to work as a case manager for an insurance company and we had a case of a child with similar issues. The child was followed by a therapist (blanking out on this, I'm guessing either speech or behavioral) as well as a nutritionist. The disciplinary rules suggested by most do not apply to these type of kids. I would be more worried if she was not gaining weight. The fact that she is, is a good sign. But still I advice you to seek a nutritionist.

Since she likes to drink I advice you add pediasure to her dietary regimen. I would avoid empty calorie snacks. Try several little meals a day. There is nothing wrong with snacking as long as they are snacking on healthy alternatives. Don't get hang up on the sit down 3 times a day meals. Those are fine and dandy if the child is eating. Since she is not, then try a different approach. An apple when she is in the car. A spoon of peanut butter when she's playing. Cheerios on the go ... cheese sticks... you get the gist. Keep a diary of what she eats to see if this system works.

I am not saying that learning to sit at the table does not have it's social importance, it is just that this point I would be more concerned about her nutritional needs. The former can always be reintroduced at a later date.

All the best to you.
D.

sounds more like a control issue with her. When you give her 20 minutes to eat, do you remove food and not snack her before next meal? What is her drink? Is it milk? If you are concerned about caloric/nutritional intake use one of the enriched milk products.

Sounds like she's found something you're emotional about and is using it to maintain a power struggle. I suggest you let it go. If she gets hungry enough she'll eat. Empirical evidence: my kids do. They typically eat one meal a day out of the four small ones offered. Sometimes they'll go days without eating and suddenly not stop eating for two days.

We have specific meal/snack times. You may want to consider this (I have a 3YO DD as well as a 9YO DS and one on the way). We demand they sit at the table together as a family for a minimum of 30 minutes. For instance, "Dinner will be served from 6:30 - 7:00." If they choose to arrive at the table on time they are served a plate. If 7:00 has passed AND everyone else at the table has completed their meal, they are free to be excused. If they choose not to eat, complain,etc, we kindly remind them that breakfast will be served the next morning (sharing menu details) from 6:30-7:30, and they are welcome to eat then.

Dawi makes a good point about food aversion also. If she is averse to specific foods (ie, I've always hated milk and fought and fought as a kid to not have to drink it), it may indicate a food sensitivity or allergy (I have several, milk is one of them, discovered in adulthood). You may also want to consider watching what she DOES eat. Is it something that isn't prepackaged or processed? There are a bazillion derivatives of corn that will cause a rxn if one has a corn allergy - most preservatives, obviously high fructose corn syrup, etc. Also, nearly everything is processed with nuts in some way or the other. A nut allergy makes finding foods difficult.... Just a thought :)

Good luck with whatever you choose!

If my kids don't eat their meal (happens about once a week or so) then it goes in the fridge and it is their snack when they say they are hungry. I don't feed it to them again for another meal, just their snack afterwards.

Good luck! I think eating battles will be around until they leave the house :-)

My 4 year old is the same way. Tall and thin. It took her 3 years to triple her birth weight because she doesn't like eating. Instead of juice or water for a drink at meals we have started to supplement pediasure for at least 1 meal. She will drink this. We decided to stop fighting with her about meal time. If she doesn't eat she doesn't get a snack or anything until her next meal. That has helped somewhat. Also, she started eating more when she was around peers. Her preschool would just put the food in front of her and she had to sit there while the other kids ate. She likes breakfast and lunch, so I know she is getting 2 meals a day. Dinner was such a fight that we had to make some rules that she knows she has to obey to get a snack. This is a good method for a child who is healthy and growing at least a little bit. And yes the pediatricians complained every checkup about her weight.

A silly trick that works with my kids (who are eaters, just not willingly with veggies and such)... take some food on your fork and show it to your daughter. Tell her then to close her eyes and you are going to do a magic trick and make it disappear. Eat it and then show her. Ask her if she can do one. Again, mine are normally good at eating, but I am astounded at how, after two years of this, they STILL want to show me a magic trick and make their food disappear! Daddy will pretend he didn't see and tell them to do it again so he can watch. It's positive, it's not poor table manners and it just might work (at least for a few bites!)

I have found that the fewer the distractions, the better. We are sitting down to the table to eat, not play. I let them have small toys or a book until the food is served and then the toys are removed from the table. I also don't let them have their drink until they eat some of the food. Otherwise the beverage fills them up. And I do set a timer for my 3 year old when needed if I see her off-tracck. She will poke and goof around (especially if the meal is not one of her favorites) and delay eating. Most of the time her delaying is not a big deal, but she needs to learn that there is a schedule (what if we have an appointment to get to, and what about when she starts school?)
I would start with those things, and certainly stop feeding her yourself and be consistent, and you will see a change. There will be meals she chooses not to eat. That is fine, when she is hungry, she will eat.

I didn't read all your comments and I know you responded already, but my oldest did this when he was around 2! So what I did which probably wasn't the right thing was left the food on the table and if he didn't want to eat at that time I let him get up and play or whatever he wanted to do. And then he would go back to the table and eat! By the time an hour would go around he would have clear his plate. Now he is 10 and he has no problem eating at the table. Good Luck

What worked for my now 4 year old son, was to wait to drink after eating, and making it a contest. He loves trying to finish eating before us. This was his initial goal, but as slowly grown to like food, even broccoli!

My 21-month-old baby girl does the same thing. She is so skinny. The pediatrician has did several tests on her to see if she has problems absorbing food, etc. but it all comes down to she does not like to eat. If she does eat some stuff it takes her over an hour. She was breastfeed and would rather breastfeed than eat. She still tries to nurse about twice a day. I do not think I have much milk supply now though. If you come up with any good answers let me know. I am going to try some of the things you have tried already.

Oh my gosh, this sounds EXACTLY like my daughter (age 2 1/2)!!! Takes forever to eat, really tall but slender, low weight percentile... We've also tried a lot of what you tried (rewards, prompting, if-then statements) and have had very limited success, even though these things work well away from the dinner table. I know that in our case it's definitely a power struggle because for whatever reason my daughter's behavior at mealtimes really pushes my buttons, so lately I've been working hard on just letting it go and telling myself that she won't let herself starve. My daughter isn't a picky eater, she just seems to think she's a chipmunk (willingly puts food in her mouth, but then sits there with it in her cheeks for 20 minutes and refuses to swallow). I'm definitely going to try the timer idea! Anyway, what works for us sometimes is to make a game of it - tell her which food Mommy is going to eat next and ask can she poke the same food with her fork, get it in her mouth, and swallow it faster than Mommy can. Works best with soft foods like yogurt and applesauce that are easy to swallow quickly. The other strategy we've had some success with is if she's just poking at her plate, and we're mostly done, to say "oh, I guess you're not going to eat your chicken, in that case I want it!" Then pick up a bite off her plate with my fork and very sloooowly start bringing it to my mouth. Usually she'll pop her mouth right open and let me put the bite in her mouth instead (of course, then it might take her 20 minutes to swallow). These are time-consuming and often involve us feeding her though, which I find as frustrating as you do. So, like I said, lately we've been working on just letting it go. Instead of focusing on what she eats and how much of it she eats, we've redirected our attention to getting her to sit at the table for the duration of the meal (which she's also terrible at - constantly climbing down from her chair, running off to play, coming over to sit in one of our laps). Surprisingly, this has had the effect of getting her to eat more, because one of the things I've been telling her is that if she gets up from the table before Mommy and Daddy are finished eating, I'm going to assume that means she's done, and her plate will go away. She didn't seem to like this much the first time it happened, even though she'd barely eaten anything on the plate, so maybe this could be something for you to try. Anyway, good luck and stay strong - sounds like a lot of moms can relate to this question!

try stopping all snack between meals. let her eat what she will at meal time. if she gets hunger before the next meal ,give her a glass of water. maybe she just isn;t hungry enough at meal time. good luck, R.