So, Small Man is 2 since before Christmas.
He is angel/ textbook and SUCH a super child...truly, we are blessed. At each and every stage of development he has been super, super good (I know I am a "Proud Mammy", but ....) my point being that he is not defiant/ contrary/ ...
His weight has been in the 50-75th percentile all the way along. When I took him for his 2yr developmental check, the PHN was asking about how he was about eating (but prefaced it by saying, "I can see there is no real problem there"). I told her that I was happy but would have a slight concern that he was eating slightly too big portions. When I gave her an example of a days food intake, she was inclined to agree, wasn't over concerned, but said to keep an eye on it. Anyway, i LOVE to cook and LOVE good food. I don't "do" packets, jars, etc. EVERYTHING is made from scratch and I believe we have a well-balanced diet in our home. This means, that anything Small Man is eating is GOOD food. An example of his daily intake would have been:
Breakfast: porridge with some dried fruit OR wheetBix OR rice crispies (served with oat milk...I limit dairy due to family intolerance)
Snacks: grapes/ plain rice cake/ pear/ apple/ slice of goats cheese/ banana/ homemade oat squares
Lunch: sandwich of mashed banana/ almond butter/ cheese/ jam ; soy yogurt; raisins;
Dinner: chicken/ fish/ beef/ pork/ omelette with potatoes/ polenta/ pasta/ rice and veggies (any and every kind)
Small Man would eat whatever was put in front of him. Would eat "trees" of broccoli, any and every type of fish/ cooked in any style, Thai curries, ..... You get the idea...
He really seems to enjoy food and It was at the stage that I'd have to "hide" or scoff my food because he'd be wanting it too. He frequently would have cleared his dinner plate and been over scavenging off mine/ DH's plates.
Anyway, recently (
Not sure how long, but weeks/ maybe longer) he's been refusing what's put up at dinner time. I've tried mixing the foods, keeping them separate, not adding a sauce, adding a sauce - but all to no avail. His cousins (on both my side and DH side) have atrocious eating habits - one side eat only fruit pots and custard and cereal, the other side; their mother makes 4 different meals for every meal (& one still doesn't eat). At a time, in this saga, I would have done "here comes the dumper/ digger/ train" and fed him, but to be honest, it's a total step backwards because he's been feeding himself for so long. My husband was getting some, limited success with them "having a picnic" (they'd sit on the floor in the play area and my husband would feed him "one bite for you, one bite for me")
We've always had a routine of sitting together at the table as a family for dinner and I want to preserve this so have told my husband to stop the "picnic" - plus, the amount he was eating was lessening and the amount of playing was growing. I want dinner time to be family, eating time, not playing IYKWIM?
I'm not inclined to offer alternatives because I don't want the situation to end up like his cousins (see above), but I would worry that he's not getting a full and balanced intake over the full day. I'm also beginning to lose my patience with it and know that when I return to work in 2 wks, I'll have even less patience for it at the end of a day. And I know that being "cross", impatient won't help the situation either. He's got very advanced language skills (receptive and expressive), so I've tried talking to him about it, but I've never gotten anywhere with it (I've only done this at dinner time tho, so maybe I should ask at another time of the day?)
There are a number of things that could be contributing to this:
* he's getting his final molars (but this is ongoing for a good while, although dribbling is still there, so we're not out of the woods with them yet)
* he has moved to a BBB (but has been very happy in it and showed NO problems with the transition, in fact he seems to love it!!!)
* he has been toilet trained (but the issues were there before we started with TT)
* his granddad had a serious accident and is, & will be, in hospital. This has changed things in our household as DH was gone for 2+ months in the immediate aftermath of the accident; we now have to go to granny more frequently than before (2hr drive, different place, etc) and this brings a whole lot of "granny treats of ice cream for breakfast, etc"
I'm not going to tackle her on that....she's dealing with far more REAL issues right now.
* he's very interested and active and imaginative. He fills his day with action (busy and quiet) from start to finish, without taking any naps (did 2-1 at 6mths and is without nap since well before 2). He is tired come the end of the day & dinner time and I certainly don't think this helps, but dinner time hasn't changed, so I'm not sure that it's got anything to do with it?
To be honest, I'm not even sure if ANY of the above are contributing to the situation (I could be just clutching at straws)
Maybe it's just a developmental thing???
But why is it just dinner??? I don't believe he's "filling up" on snacks during the day, as I've checked that. Now just in this past week, He has been telling me "mammy, I'm hungry" during the day and I have given him extra helpings of his lunch/ breakfast as I'm worried he's not going to have enough over the day (and that it has now reached a cumulative effect for him of not having had dinner the previous evenings and then, obviously needing the calories), but I wouldn't say I've given enough "extra" to the point of ruining his appetite for dinner and it is only happening In the last wk, so it's not contributing to solving how we got the initial problem?
I've tried cooking some of his "favourites" on purpose for our dinner- fish, polenta - and he MIGHT have a small bit of it. Or sometimes, he'll just have one of the foods on the plate - he'll decide to just have the potatoes/ fish/ whatever and won't touch anything else.
How did we go from where I would have struggled to name something that he wouldn't eat for dinner, to now struggling to get him to eat any dinner
That's one of the big things in my head - WHY JUST DINNER? He still eats his other meals and snacks.
So, if you've lasted to this point of the post...well done & thank you!!
Now - can any of you suggest what I should do? What the problem might be? How I can help things? Whether you've experienced similar?
I REALLY don't want to end up in a situation anything like his cousins....
