Can't get DH on board with feeding strategy! Updated

[rlkoh]

I just had a big fight with my husband.  He's really a wonderful man and a great dad.  That said, his feeding strategy for our picky eater is to keep offering something different until he eats something.  For example, last night I made spanish rice with beef.  LO loves the rice but can't stand the beef so he spits out a big glob every time he feels the texture of the beef in his mouth.  Since he doesn't eat much of dinner (which also included green beans and corn bread with honey) DH asks LO, "do you want some strawberries" "how about bread with honey?"  "how about a banana?" until he hits the jackpot and LO finally eats something.

I want to offer one meal and if he doesn't eat it then that's it because I want him to learn to eat what we offer instead of holding out for something different.  I want to use a hands off approach and let him eat by himself and not comment on what he's eating or not eating, my husband feels he needs to constantly encourage LO to eat "just one more bite" or "just try it" and will take him out of his booster chair to sit on his lap to see if he can convince our stubborn 18 month old to eat a few more bites from his own plate.

If you saw my previous post from yesterday, you know that we are going through sippy cup transition hell.  Well yesterday we gave LO a Silk Very Vanilla Soy box on the way home and were thrilled when he drank it - it was the first milk he had drank in two days.  But then my DH decided it was a good alternative to soy formula and went and bought several packs of it to offer at breakfast, lunch and dinner and got mad when I said we couldn't use it to replace soy formula (it has 16 grams of sugar in it - it's very sweet).  I've been trying to tell him that one box a day in the car on our way home was probably sufficient until we could get him to drink his formula again, especially since he's started to eat a lot more to make up for the loss of milk.  Also, the last time we transitioned from soy formula to soy milk he got terrible diarrhea and we suspect his body can't handle the high soy protein in straight soy milk (formula is mostly corn solids).

Needless to say, he completely blew up and said I was trying to prevent him from feeding our son so he wouldn't starve!

I'm at a loss for words . . . not only do I have a picky LO I'm trying to feed, but now a husband working against me.

[Buntybear]

Hugs you you xx it is hard when your strategies are different. I think your way is best though! Maybe you could agree to give your way a go for say 2 weeks - would he agree to that?

[Shiv52]

AS someone who has worked with children who have ended up with very restrictive diets I would say your husband needs to stop what he is doing now.  All he is doing is teaching your LO to refuse food and you'll appear with something new.  And then what always happens is you run out of foods and they become so picky that they refuse everything.  It is a very dangerous game to play.

Where food is concerned it is better to just provide meals and thats it.  No drama.  No encouraging him to eat.  Just chat about normal things and that is it.   No cajoling.   If he doesn't eat, no worries.  If he does, great but no big deal.

Your LO will not starve.  Dinner is very hit and miss here too.  With my DD1 if dinner wasnt' great i did cereal or weetabix before bed as I knew she'd eat that.  Could that work as a compromise? So not as an alternative to dinner but a half hour or so later as a separate meal?

The other compromise is provide your meal with 2 other things he likes.  So the spanish rice dish with a half a banana and cheese.  So you are always providing something you know they like.

[Mattsmummy]

We usually offer at least one thing we know our LO will eat - cheese or yogurt with whatever I've prepared for supper. Like Shiv52 said, when we sit down at the table, we just chat normally and try not to pay attention to what LO is eating or not eating (I usually have one eye on him) Our LO loves to feed the dog so we only offer small amounts at a time otherwise it all ends up in the dogs mouth...
 
I think trying that would be a good compromise. One or two items you know they will eat (small amounts though) and then whatever you've made. They will eat when they're hungry.

I understand your frustrations though...I would be climbing the walls too...
 

[ENMS]

Hi!

Does he eat at least one good meal a day? The dr had told me when DD was around that age that it was perfectly normal that some LO's will not eat 3 full meals a day. That as long as they eat one, not to worry.

I do agree you solution is the best one, but like pp in our house DD has to eat what is offered for dinner, if she does not want/like it, that is fine, but the only other thing she can eat is a peanut butter toast and / or yogurt. I agree with shiv that offering multiple things until you hit something the child wants is probably teaching them the wrong thing.

Is there any way you can sit your DH down and explain why you feel his method is wrong? Try to get some facts together for him so that he'll see what you're seeing?

Good luck xx

[Shiv52]

The dr had told me when DD was around that age that it was perfectly normal that some LO's will not eat 3 full meals a day. That as long as they eat one, not to worry.

I also heard that most toddlers take in the majority of their calories before 3pm so dinner really was just a bonus and not to worry about it.

What age is your LO?

And how much milk is/was she having?

[rlkoh]

Lo is 19 months and he has been eating tons better since we gave up the bottle, mostly because he rejects 95% of our attempts to get him to drink milk (he'll drink very vanilla soy from an individual serving size box).  The daycare has been saying he eats almost all of his lunch and most of his snacks that I send, whereas before they said he would pick at it but not eat much.  This has been great news because I always pack his lunch with a combo of things I know he will eat and some things I wish he would eat and now it appears that he's at least trying the new stuff because he's so hungry when lunch rolls around.

So, after cooling down and not talking about feeding issues for about 2 days, I re-approached my DH and asked if he would please just try my method for one month with the following compromise: we would always put one thing on LOs plate at dinner that we knew he would like AND we would always offer a bedtime snack/dessert that we knew he would like as well to make sure he wouldn't go to bed completely hungry, which is what my DH was worried about.  He agreed, so I actually made a chart of things our LO eats with columns to mark the frequency to put on the fridge.  After making the chart I realized that he eats 33 things at least sometimes or frequently, which wasn't as bad as I thought it was.  I also had columns to mark whether he'd tried something (as in swallowed it) or just spit it out.  I then added a whole bunch of foods I've been trying to get him to at least try and added it to the bottom of the chart so we could try to track his progress over the next month.

[rlkoh]

I also got him to agree not to comment on LO's eating habits during meals, which I think will be hard for both of us not to say "just try it!".  Instead, we agreed on acceptable food phrases like, "would you like more?" "do you need help (with the spoon or fork)?"  "Do you want some ketchup (which is already on table)" "it's ok to spit it out if you don't like it" or identifying foods like "this is chicken" or manners related phrases like "don't feed the dog" or "you don't have to eat it, but keep it on your plate".  We'll see how it goes, last night we had stir fry and he ate two bites of the noodles, rejected all the veggies, and ate lots of pineapple and a slice of ham.

[Shiv52]

and he ate two bites of the noodles, rejected all the veggies, and ate lots of pineapple and a slice of ham.

I'd say that was a pretty successful meal!

Glad you guys have come to some agreement xx

[rlkoh]

So, because I enjoyed Mom to M&M and M2Ms' posts and thought they were super helpful, I decided I would go ahead and update the progress we are having too for anyone out there that is looking for ideas and help on this issue.

As you may already know, we are in the middle of transitioning from bottles to sippy cups for milk while implementing our new feeding strategy.  Today is Day 6 with no bottle and Day 3 of our new feeding strategy.

Last night we had really good progress at dinner.  We actually went out to a Mexican restaurant and ordered LO a chicken taco with rice and beans.  We expected him to only eat the rice because that's all he's eaten the last few times we went there, but he actually tried and ate quite a bit of the refried beans!  All I did was put a little bit of beans on the end of a fork and asked "would you like to try the beans?" and he nodded yes - I was shocked but didn't say anything just put the beans in his open and waiting mouth, watched him feel the texture and taste like he was trying to decide if he liked it or not, and then he swallowed!  Then I asked "do you want another bite?" and he nodded yes again!!  This is really a big deal because he has had a strong aversion to any kind of puree for months and months, and I consider refried beans a type of puree.  He didn't eat all the beans, but between us feeding him bites, him attempting to use the fork and eating bites, and using his hands, he ate almost all his beans, plus all his rice and half of my husband's rice.  He did not eat any chicken (although he loves bbq chicken and chicken nuggets) but at one point I helped him stab a piece of chicken with his fork and he brought it to his mouth and then changed his mind at the last second and put the fork down.  It took everything DH and I had not to say anything but "it's ok, maybe next time you can try it."

This morning Michael was very grumpy when he woke up and was asking for his bottle, but we didn't give in and I've begun preparing a pre-breakfast breakfast (he gets breakfast at daycare) for when he wakes up - so this morning it was three strawberries and some dry cereal, plus his milk in a sippy cup.  At first he was too angry to eat, so we just said, "ok, if your not hungry you can play while we get ready for work" at which point he decided he would eat afterall and after eating his strawberries he actually took a sip of milk from his sippy cup!!!!  That was it, but I thought it was a really good step in the right direction.

He asked for more strawberries but I said "the strawberries are gone, if you are still hungry you can eat the cherrios or drink your milk."  He picked the cherrios.  There were a few times when it looked like he was going to fling the cherrios on the floor or feed them to our dog (boston terrier), but I would look at him and firmly say "if you throw that on the floor you are finished eating" and he would change his mind and eat it instead.

So that's my update.  Things are generally progressing well but I can't wait to chart it over time to see his overall improvement in the next couple of months.  I know this is selfish, but I secretly want to show up to Christmas dinner and show all my in-laws what a well behaved and good eater I have for a toddler since our nieces (3 of them) all are super picky eaters with what I consider bad table manners (standing on chairs, running around with food in their hands or their parents chasing them with a fork, etc.)