Need advice on child's feeding

"Ignoramus13806" wrote in message
...
My son is 2.5. He oftentimes refuses to eat much during regular
meals. This is frustrating because we cook for him etc. Then he might
get something -- like a piece of cheese or some such thing -- in
between. I now think that it is unhealthy and that if he wants to eat
during a meal, that's great. If he does not, he gets nothing until the
next one. Would that be a reasonable policy.

We never give him anything with sugar and no junk food. He does not
know what junk food is at this point.

i

Children are not like adults. You would be hurting your child to deprive
him of food between meals. If he begins to feel deprived at age 2.5 then he
will learn by the time he is three to overeat at meals.

If everyone took a lesson from toddlers and ate only when they are hungry,
obesity would not be an issue in this country.

'Reasonable Policies' are for corporate entities - toddlers are not defined
by reason.

j

"Ignoramus13806" wrote in message
...
My son is 2.5. He oftentimes refuses to eat much during regular
meals. This is frustrating because we cook for him etc. Then he might
get something -- like a piece of cheese or some such thing -- in
between. I now think that it is unhealthy and that if he wants to eat
during a meal, that's great. If he does not, he gets nothing until the
next one. Would that be a reasonable policy.

We never give him anything with sugar and no junk food. He does not
know what junk food is at this point.

i

I once worried because my 5 year old daughter was so thin and didn't seem
to eat much. When I mentioned this to her pediatrician her comment was
"I've never seen a healthy child starve themselves. Don't force her to eat
at mealtime unless she's hungry". But she did suggest limiting the snacks
between meals to fruit, cheese, etc. As a soon-to-be 40 year old she's
still normal weight, eats small meals and still snacks between meals on
fruit, etc.

As long as he's eating something at meal time and not snacking on junk food
I wouldn't worry too much. My kids all seemed to go through phases when I
thought they weren't eating enough but none have any major problems with
food and only one is overweight-due to her own damn fault of eating too
much junk food!

Beverly

Ignoramus13806 wrote:
My son is 2.5. He oftentimes refuses to eat much during regular
meals. This is frustrating because we cook for him etc. Then he might
get something -- like a piece of cheese or some such thing -- in
between. I now think that it is unhealthy and that if he wants to eat
during a meal, that's great. If he does not, he gets nothing until the
next one. Would that be a reasonable policy.
==========================
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
No. Most kids need more than three meals a day at that
age. A morning and afternoon snack are quite appropriate. There's
no reason not to have a nutritious snack. Toddlers are not known,
generally, for eating huge meals. Your expectations about the
amount he should be eating at mealtime may be out of line.
Toddler portions are *quite* small.
==============
Ericka is right...they don't want or need huge portions at 2.5 years.

I've read that the stomach is roughly the size of one's fist.
Using that guideline, his stomach is tiny by comparison to an
adults and may hold as much as you think.

I raised four children and didn't have a eating problem with any
of them. Not one was ever overweight....following their instincts
on portion size.

They were offered bits of what we had and learned to enjoy most
things. Each one was given the option of "hating" one vegetable
but agreed to try all others. (G)

One of the pediatricians we had early on said to evaluate their
diet on a weekly basis...if they have had some of most of the
major food choices...they were probably getting just what they
needed and new parents needed to relax.

Making food an "issue" is what I believe helps create food
problems.
--
Patricia
Florida-USA

Ignoramus13806 wrote:

My son is 2.5. He oftentimes refuses to eat much during regular
meals.

Kids' eating habits fluctuate wildly as they go through growth
spurts and rest periods. When my kids were younger I was
amazed sometimes that they were even able to live on the
incredibly small amounts they ate.

As long as he's healthy and active, let his needs determine
how much he eats. He'll settle into a more regular pattern
once his body settles down a bit.

Ignoramus13806 wrote:

My son is 2.5. He oftentimes refuses to eat much during regular
meals. This is frustrating because we cook for him etc. Then he might
get something -- like a piece of cheese or some such thing -- in
between. I now think that it is unhealthy and that if he wants to eat
during a meal, that's great. If he does not, he gets nothing until the
next one. Would that be a reasonable policy.


No. Most kids need more than three meals a day at that
age. A morning and afternoon snack are quite appropriate. There's
no reason not to have a nutritious snack. Toddlers are not known,
generally, for eating huge meals. Your expectations about the
amount he should be eating at mealtime may be out of line.
Toddler portions are *quite* small.

Best wishes,
Ericka

In alt.support.diet Ignoramus13806 wrote:

Why can't he just eat at meals? He gets breakfast, lunch, then he
sleeps, then he eats at 4pm, and then he gets dinner. Why would he feel
deprived if he ate well during a meal?

My children always ate when they were hungry and it didn't tend to be when
I was ready to cook. We usually eat dinner around 7 pm in our house, for
example, and my 4 year old son rarely eats more than a nibble at
dinner. But he's been snacking since 5:00. I've come to realize that
those snacks ARE his dinner.

He also likes to have breakfast at home, then breakfast at daycare then a
big lunch. I don't tend to have a second breakfast myself (!) so it isn't
intuitive to feed him again at 10 am, but that's what he wants.

So the moral of this story is to consider giving your son 5 or 6 small
meals a day and always, always consider his snacks to be a major component
of his nutrition.

I'll throw in a favorite snack tip: take baby-food fruit blends and freeze
them in freezer-pop containers (tupperware makes them) and offer them as
snacks. Another favorite trick is to offer frozen peas - frozen. Lately
my son has been eating apple slices dipped in a tub of peanutbutter. He
also likes carrot sticks that way.

Wendy

Ignoramus13806 wrote:


Thanks. It appears that perhaps I need to adjust my expectations
rather than how he eats. One thing I can say is that he eats generally
good food and no sugar, more or less. He can as well just go without a
snack if he is not reminded about snacking.


If he's eating healthy snacks, that's great. It would
certainly be an issue if he were filling up on junk food in
between meals (and that caused him not to eat the healthy
food served at meals), but obviously that's not the case in
your house. I wouldn't worry about it one bit. Just keep
providing those healthy snacks within reason (i.e., a morning
and afternoon snack are probably fine, but having eight snacks
a day in addition to meals probably isn't ;-) I have always
found it helpful to stop thinking in terms of meals versus
snacks and instead think of a day's worth of nutrition and
parceling it out throughout the day. Snacks are *great*
opportunities to get in those fruits and veggies many of
us don't get enough of.

Best wishes,
Ericka

In article ,
Ignoramus13806 wrote:

My son is 2.5. He oftentimes refuses to eat much during regular
meals. This is frustrating because we cook for him etc. Then he might
get something -- like a piece of cheese or some such thing -- in
between. I now think that it is unhealthy and that if he wants to eat
during a meal, that's great. If he does not, he gets nothing until the
next one. Would that be a reasonable policy.

We never give him anything with sugar and no junk food. He does not
know what junk food is at this point.

i



I'd be inclined to have regular snack periods and to think about
dividing his nutrition into smaller units -- provide a tiny amount of
food at meals -- and then tiny snacks mid way between -- don't make a
big deal about what he eats, but don't let him continuously snack either

kids this age don't need much food -- and big servings overwhelm

more frequent feeding is a compromise between making the universe
revolve around his whims at every moment and his hunger

don't let people tell you that there is no value in raising kids to
conform to general social norms about mealtimes etc -- picky demanding
spoiled self centered kids are often those who were continuously catered
to past infancy

If you think of his meal sequence as involving two or three nutrious
snacks then it becomes natural to set aside fruit, cheese, vegetable
sticks etc etc for those snack times and just think of them as part of
regular meals

In article ,
Ignoramus13806 wrote:

You see, I am not concerned with quantity. Let him eat however much he
wants. But I want him to eat during meals. Now if that's not a good
thing due to well established reasons, I could let him eat whenever he
wants, but it is not my preference.

the stretch between meals is too much for some kids this age -- which is
why it makes sense to have regularly scheduled nutritious snacks [but
not to simply have an open kitchen all day]

i

In article , spdf wrote:
Ignoramus13806 wrote:

My son is 2.5. He oftentimes refuses to eat much during regular
meals.

Kids' eating habits fluctuate wildly as they go through growth
spurts and rest periods. When my kids were younger I was
amazed sometimes that they were even able to live on the
incredibly small amounts they ate.

As long as he's healthy and active, let his needs determine
how much he eats. He'll settle into a more regular pattern
once his body settles down a bit.

Hi -

The big thing to understand is that a 2 1/2 year old's eating habits are
very little like the eating habits of an older child. You will NOT be
setting yourself up for behavior problems is you let your child snack
between meals.

My kids, and most of the kids I know, all ate three meals plus three
"snacks" every day. The snacks were just as nutritious as the meals, so
really it was six meals a day, but MUCH smaller than regular meals.
Two-year olds still have small tummies and really NEED to eat more
frequently than 3 times a day.

To avoid behavioral problems with eating, start enforcing some basic
rules, such as staying seated until you're done. Enforce a place where
eating is okay and other places where eating is NOT okay. Help your
child use forks and spoons correctly. (Wait a bit to introduce a knife,
and make it a butter knife at first.)

DOn't make special meals for your kids. Instead, make sure that one or
two things in the meal are things your child likes anyway. For example,
you might offer macaroni and cheesefrequently as a side dish if your
child loves it. And in our house, we serve the vegetables first, then
proceed to the starches and proteins. Sweets, when offered, come last.

As long as you only offer healthy foods, then don't fret about exactly
what or how much your child consumes. At this age, you'll discover if
you write down everything he eats, that over the course of about 3 days
he'll be naturally consuming a varied, healthy diet. (This works for
most kids.)

Do excuse your child from the table when he's had enough (but don't let
him come back and forth to the table frequently). That is, once a
particular meal is over, it's over. Then wait at least an hour before
the next "meal". Remember that an hour is a VERY long time for a small
child.

These suggestions have worked well for my family. My kids are now 6 and
8, and they eat well and politely most of the time. Mealtimes were a
bit of a hassle when they were 2 and 3 years old -- not the least
because I had to mop the floor and wipe down the chairs after most meals
-- but by the time they were 4 I could definitely see improvement.

Don't take anything I say as gospel! But it worked for me.
--Beth Kevles

http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html -- a page for the milk-allergic
Disclaimer: Nothing in this message should be construed as medical
advice. Please consult with your own medical practicioner.

NOTE: No email is read at my MIT address. Use the AOL one if you would
like me to reply.