It's a Struggle to Get Her to Eat!

Sometimes if you make too big a deal about it the child picks up on the "attention" and keeps playing the "game".

I used to teach preschool; we would find that kids ate more when not given the beverage until toward the end or even after the meal. When a mealtime is near, gather the cups from the children's reach (about 30 minutes to 1 hr. before). Don't mention the meal or food, but take the child to the potty BEFORE sitting down to eat (gives you a chance to "wash up" too). Then wait until most or all of the food is gone before giving anything to drink.

If she mentions that she is thirsty, change the subject (example: ask someone else at the table if they are enjoying there peas and take a big bite of yours "Mmmm"). Praise her for being a healthy eater when she does eat; this attention may entice her to eat.

I hope this helps. :o)

P. <><

1 mom found this helpful

Most importantly...relax and focus on the positives of mealtime. My daughter- now 5 and 42 lbs (she stayed at 38 lbs for a year and a half)- behaved similarly for some time. I discovered that the more I fretted over it, the worse it got until mealtime became the biggest struggle and I found that I dreaded that part of the day.
As long as the pediatrician says she is doing fine, don't worry about how much she eats at meals. She will eat when she's hungry. While at the table, enjoy your meal; model enjoying your meal and enjoying the good company at the table by talking about the day so that the focus is taken off of how many bites she has eaten. She will follow your lead eventually and mealtime will gain normalcy UNLESS she is allowed to fall into unacceptable eating practices like snacking off of your husband's plate instead of her own. Make an agreement with your husband that you will back off of dinner time militia duty if he will set up an off limits perimeter around his plate. And when dinner is over, remove the plates and put away the food for the evening. Stand your ground on no evening snacks or treats and by morning she will be ready to eat a good breakfast and begin to understand that a meal schedule and routine is in place. She'll learn that she eats at regular meal time and from her own plate. And she will thrive when she finds and is able to rely on those set boundaries. In the meantime and during those meals that she doesn't particularly like (we are still having a bit of trouble when Zoe doesn't like what we are eating), try telling her a favorite story as she eats (Zoe likes Goldilocks and the Three Bears). At certain interesting points in the story, tell her to take three bites so that the story can continue kind of like putting coins in a video game to continue playing. This has gotten us through some tough spots, and it develops her imagination and story telling abilities because now she can tell the story and when she pauses to remember the next part I tell her to takes three bites!

Good luck and trust your gut!
Take care-
L. Y

No worries... my son is 2 1/2 and still hasn't broken 25lbs yet. I was worried about his lack of appetite until our pediatrician explained that toddler eating habits are to graze - so now I set a plate of assorted healthy snacks on the coffee table that he can munch on during the day (dried cranberries and raisins, granola bar, carrot sticks, crackers).

He also said to not look at his eating habits day by day, but over the course of a week - in other words, eating a total of two or three days over the course of the week is normal; did he eat a fair amount of veggies, meat, etc througout the week? When I changed my own mindset, I wasn't as stressed about him not eating well one or two days in a row (the third day was always a good eating day and that's when you feed them as much as they want).

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Girlfriend (that is the CUTEST thing!) will most likely not starve herself for too long, really! The pedisure is giving her sustenance and enough calories to go on so she doesn't NEED to eat.....I don't think I'd give her much of that because she won't feel the need to eat. My youngest did that quite a bit and was very thin compared to her sister(and her parents) but eventually decided to eat better.....it's kind of normal at her age, she has so many things to do and try and she's excited about life and moving and she has a baby to care about! Try not to worry and I bet she'll decide to eat more on her own....they go through growth spurts, now she's developing her social skills more and soon she'll start eating more because she'll get taller or heavier....as long as she is thriving I wouldn't fret about it - or make yourself anxious or her either....she'll eat and she'll grow...don't worry mommy, it will be ok!

My son actually lost weight between 15 and 18 months. He fell down the growth curves very quickly (from about 70% for weight to 5%). The doctors even ran tests and everything was normal. Now he is almost 6 years old and is back up to 70% for weight! I think 1 1/2 to about 5 years old is very difficult for feeding them. Don't worry about it, but I would limit the drinks. Eventually she'll get old enough to learn how to eat better and balanced.

One of the most popular symptoms of acid reflux is refusal to eat. Our gastro doc put my daughter on Prevacid for a few months, and her eating really improved. She is 20 months now, weighs 21 pounds but a big improvement. I think also as she is getting older, she is maturing when it comes to eating.

Relax. It is normal at this age to eat sparingly or to not eat at all. There were some days that I was certain that my kids lived on sunshine and air. Make sure that there are healthy choices available and then don't worry. Kids will eat when they are hungry.

Try putting food in milkshakes. Anything you can to cover up veggies in foods. I find so many get picky and I had a little boy that was really starving himself at my day care but goes home to unhealthy foods like noodles and lives on them. He would not drink milk, veggies, fruits of any kind only eat meat with catsup on it. Makes me sick that the parents spoil him so much he gets what he wants instead of what is good for him. His skin was pail and lot of dehydrated. I was skinny and did not weigh 100 pounds until I was about 20 yrs old. So the doctor had me eat milk shakes every night with bananas in it or anything else. At that time even raw eggs but you can not do that now. So good luck. Maybe even fruit in popcicles.
G. W

This might sound strange and mean, but try to introduce an aafter dinner "dessert" snack. Like the Kellogs fruit snacks, they come in all different characters. The way it works is if she does not eat her meal, she doesn't get the snack. Tell her that at the beginning of the meal, and remind her as the meal goes on. We had a problem with my son not eating, the main thing was that I drive from Arlington to Saginaw, and he was getting a sippy cup of milk on the way home from Daycare which would fill him up. Now he does not drink as much so he can eat his dinner and have "rocket" (little einsteins) snacks. Also as far as her snacking off your plates, I see it as she is eating so let her. As she gets older and becomes a "big" girl, she can eat her food. You might also try putting her food on a speacial plate, like one with a kids design.

Are you gioving her vitamins? If not please give her childrens vitamins. They now have gummie vitamins for kids. If she has a favorite food, give that to her, examples mac and cheese, jello, pudding, ice cream, ravioli, chicken nuggets, etc. and praise her when she eats, even if she doesn't eat it all.

Make sure what she eats counts. Nut butters are great- high in fat and calories, and very good for growing bodies. They can be added to milkshakes or thinned down and lightly sweetened to make a dipping sauce. Dont forget good old PBJ. Each nut has a completely different mix of nutrients, so variety is good. People are often afraid of allergies but its actually peanuts, not the other ones, that are most likely to cause problems. Almond butter, macadamia nut butter, and sunbutter are all great. Also avacado can be make into spreads or eaten with a light salad dressing and is awesome nutritionally speaking. Two books to try are Dr. Sears- Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood and Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron.

my 3 yr old girl was like and is still kinda like that, I had heard from other moms with young ones that they do not eat much especially those big meals, I would just make sure she ate good snacks like fruit. As she neared 3 she seemed to do better but it is not like i would like, I would let her give me clues as to when she was hungary and would load her up and she ate very good, so just give it some more time and get creative at meal times to motivate her to eat.

Have you tried the "you need to eat 5 more bites" routine? I also have one that gets bored with eating. He is now 6 1/2 and is SKINNY. It's like eating is boring, he eats because he HAS to, not because he enjoys it. I would tell him 5 more bites, and then "lose count", repeat a few of the numbers, etc. Now we are finally to the point where we just say he has to clean up his plate. I try to keep only healthy snacks, so he eats a lot of apples, yogurt, cheese and cereal bars for snacks. (He also gets chips, snack cakes, etc) I think his body just needs to eat smaller amounts more often.

Both of my peditricians have said that toddlers know how much food they need to get through the day. They are so busy with other things. My daughter is 3 (almost 3 1/2) and still only weighs about 25-26 lbs. She has always been small. In her 1st year the main concern was that she not drop off her growth curve which she did not. Now that she is 3 her percentile jumped from below the 5th to the 10th because they just don't grow so much after the first 2 years. Ask your pediatrician.

I do try to make the food a little more creative looking. Kind of make things look like faces, boats, etc. Breakfast is just not her meal. So, to make sure she gets some calories I mix her milk with Carnation Instant Breakfast (or the generic brand). Sometimes I mix in some fruit. Now my daughter does eat a variety of fruits, veggies and meats. However, she will go a day or two eating like a bird and then she seems to refuel with larger meals.

Good luck. I know it is frustrating. You wonder how they can have so much energy on such a small amt of food. As adults we seem to think we need to eat 3-5 meals a day. And, like my pedi. said, we could learn a lot about eating from toddlers.

its probably just a phase that she is going thru. I know that toddlers typically go thru eating stages of eating and not eating. Just give it time. keep odoing what u r doing and i am sure she will start eating when she is hungry enough. good luck..