• Fri, Dec 30 2011

Help! My Toddler Refuses To Eat

My daughter has never had a particularly big appetite. Neither have I, so we had that in common. I understand eating small amounts of food several times a day and having what other people consider incredible portion control. What I don’t understand is my 3-year-old’s new penchant for fasting. Like, straight up choosing not to eat. It pains me, and I get the feeling that she knows this.

I’ve had lots of friends whose moms clearly didn’t do their job in the “develop a healthy relationship with food” department. I don’t want my daughter to be like them in that way so I, and my husband, have taken a relatively relaxed stance when it comes to eating. Things started out fantastically well when our girl was a baby. First solids were a joy, even after we discovered her intolerance for dairy, soy and eggs the hard way (i.e. hives and vomiting – enough to permanently scar any child).

Much to everyone’s elation, the intolerance proved to be temporary and by 20 months she was eating yogurt and scrambled eggs like a champ. Whenever we went out to eat, she’d willingly try anything on her plate, or on mine, of course. She became particularly fond of Japanese and Thai food, but Indian was her favorite. My husband and I sat there thinking we were raising an adventurous little eater with a charmingly refined palate.

But the self-congratulating ended around her third birthday. Negotiations to take three more bites of chicken turned into pleas (on my part) to at least start with one bite just to see if she likes it. The old go-tos like clementines, toast and fake chicken nuggets started failing me. And then, the unimaginable happened: our daughter told me she doesn’t like Crazy Bugs macaroni and cheese anymore.

The mac-n-cheese refusal was my first hint that there might be something more going on than the typical “toddler refuses to eat vegetables” scenario. At the risk of sounding just a touch paranoid, I think my daughter knows that she has the upper hand in this situation. When she tells me that she doesn’t like food anymore, there’s a certain look in her eyes that says, “I’m asserting my new-found personal power. I understand how badly you want me to eat and that is why I will refuse.” [tagbox tag="baby food"]

As a woman who has vowed to improve my own assertiveness for years now, I want my daughter to feel empowered. But not now! Not over food! Now when refusing to do as I ask could have a direct impact on her health and well-being! Damn it, how did we get here?

So what’s a concerned mom to do? I’ve tried the old reverse psychology route, which sounds something like this:

ME: Lio, it’s time to eat.

LIO: I’m not going to eat, Mommy.

ME: Okay. That’s fine.

Total fail. She’ll simply continue on with whatever it was she was doing before I spoke. She’s not obstinate, per se, but she sure is stubborn. I’ll spend several minutes running through a list of reasonable meal or snack options, all of which she dismisses without pause. Finally, I felt forced to actually prepare whatever she asked for, even if it meant pancakes for dinner, just so she’d eat something. The second hint that I was unknowingly engaged in a power struggle of sorts came just a few days ago when Lio started refusing the very meal she had just requested.

I hear you out there, you moms who believe a child should eat what you put in front of them or don’t eat at all. I understand where you’re coming from. But how many meals would you allow your child to skip? I’ve always believed that kids are ruled by their bodies and will eat when they are hungry, but I’m really doubting that these days. And I’m worried.

A call to our pediatrician is the next step, but I’d also like to hear what you all have to say. I’ll thank you in advance for you motherly wisdom. And feel free to commiserate if you’re fighting a similar battle with your toddler. I have to believe I’m not the only one…

(Photo: Brocreative/Shutterstock)

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  • Sundeep

    oh god you are not alone! I’m going through the same thing with my 3.5 year old son! he is skinny enough so when he refuses to eat it pains me…plus my mother drives me nuts too about the subject.

  • Beth

    My son has gone almost an entire day without eating. One day he simply ate a piece of bread and nothing until the next morning. He is fine. Just how long has your daughter gone without eating? A full day?

  • B-Girl

    Look – Your kid is not going to starve itself. It will eat once it is hungry. Have you ever of a toddler dieing from lack of food (because it refused to eat, not because someone didn’t feed it)

    Wait a day or two and your kid will eat. Plain and simple. Same thing happened with my younger sister and our doctor plainly said – she will eat when she is hungry, she is 3, she is not going to starve herself.

    You are over-reacting.

    • Anonymous

      Easier said than done… though it is irrational it is rather upsetting when your already skinny kid refuses to eat

    • NotThumper

      I agree. I understand it being upsetting to the mother but the kid will eat when she is hungry.

  • Hailey

    You’re not overreacting. You’re acting like a concerned mother. I’d like to know what your pediatrician has to say, but I think you’re right in thinking it’s more about the power struggle than anything health-related. Oh, toddlers. They certainly make life interesting…

  • tiredandtrue

    You are certainly not alone, but it sounds like you’re losing the power struggle. For my almost 3 year old, it also seems to be a control issue too. We’ve had some success with the following: At lunchtime, she gets two options (3 if DH is making lunch) and I tell her if she doesn’t pick I will (which frequently spurs her to pick a meal). At dinner, I try to make something I know she’ll like (but she doesn’t get an option). I also make her sit at the table until everyone is done eating, even if she says she isn’t hungry. Usually she will at least pick at the food and this means her toys and the TV aren’t distracting her. If she tries something new, she gets praise. If all else fails, usually telling her its time for bed will make her suddenly want to eat :) After all that, if she doesn’t eat, I let it go b/c I don’t want food to become a power struggle. (For breakfast, if she’s not hungry I let it go, but we do try for it too.)

  • Save1Star

    Maybe make meal time mandatory? Say she doesn’t have to eat if she doesn’t want to, but dinner is family time and everyone has to sit at the table- no playing toys instead. If she has to sit there anyway, she may go for a bite or two.

  • Hannah

    parents decide
    1 – what time mealtime is
    2- how long meal time lasts
    3 what is on offer
    child decides
    1- what to eat
    2- whether to eat
    3when to stop eating (up to limit of mealtime lengthe set by parents

    no encouragements, no punsihments, food is removed at end of reasonable time (halfhour here, you may go for 45 min and reduce in 45 min increments.

    no snacks other than at snack time.( 5 meals a day – breakfast/lunch/dinner, morning/evening snack)

    keep a diary of what she eats. Every single mouthful. you may be surprised.

    let her go hungry. As long as she is taking fluids she can go for days, even a week, woth no food and feel no harm. (and NOT just high calorie orange juice – a large glass or milk or OJ has the equivalent calorie content of a meal for a three year old)

    My two like “picnic lunch”. Basically a packed lunch, but o a plate at teh table, tehy like the choice of being in control of what they eat. Just because its cold, doesn’t mean its not balanced nutrition. – sandwich on wholegrain, pieces of fruit/cheese/ham, bread stickc, yoghurts, etc , a mini buffet really. They eat a LOT of that.
    teh main thing to remember is, now she is three, she does NOT have to eat at every meal and you really need to get over that. If you don’t appear to care, she’ll lose interest.

    Also, give her more choices on teh rest of her life – choices of outfits, books,activiies, destinations, helping with shopping choices, will all help her feel in control of things and reduce her need to assert control here.

  • BandLmom

    Smoothies. You can add in protein powder, tons of different kinds of fruit, use whatever you like – milk, juice, soy, coconut milk, etc. She can help you make them. Get her a very special glass that is just for her to have the smoothies in. You can even get sneaky and put in some veggie juice. Even if she only drinks half or all of it at least she is getting some nutrition. It can also be a learning tool to learn about fruit, veggies, colors and numbers as you add things into the blender. This worked with my older son who is now 6 yrs old. Hopefully if I need this trick it will also work for our 1 yr old if needed.

    • Shawna Cohen

      I love this idea! Thanks for sharing!

  • Maya

    Try reading “Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing”.

  • WMDKitty

    Stop turning it into a power struggle, don’t give in and fix whatever she wants. Make food available, and she’ll eat when she’s hungry.

  • Somnilee

    The best advice I heard, from a family with fussy eaters, is that first and foremost you stick to one thing for whatever meal it is. If it’s mac and cheese for lunch, that means everyone has mac and cheese for lunch, not five different meals for five different people (barring allergies, of course).

    The next step is to have one “boring” back up meal, I think in this family it was toast, an apple and a yoghurt (carbs, fruit and protein). If you didn’t want mac and cheese, that was your only other option – Mum wasn’t going to cook what you wanted.

    And the final step is this: if your child opts to skip a meal (don’t make a fuss), but then chooses to eat at the next meal, great, they can have what everyone else is having.
    But if they skip a meal (lunch) and then decide they want to eat at 3pm, Mum’s only going to give you the “boring” meal. You’ve missed your chance to have whatever everyone else was having.

    Apparently children quickly learn that they’re missing out on food they like just by being stubborn. I know the temptation is to pander to every whim because you don’t want your angel starving, but you’re right in saying this is just a “power struggle” – engaging in it is only going to give it more strength. Learn to stand your ground (you’re spreading an assertiveness message there too) and I’m sure she’ll grow out of it soon.

  • xobolaji

    angela, you are not alone! my 3yo used to be a “voracious” eater, meaning that she would eat basically what was put in front of her and when she had completed that, she would go searching in the fridge or the cupboard for what appealed to her. that has now changed, and while she eats relatively well. she also picks foods according to HER preference. which i’ve learned to respect.

    i realized early on that “food battles” are a no-win situation which means that as long as you do your best to provide a sampling of food that contains a variety of vitamins and minerals from all major food groups–over the course of few days, no sense in food-cramming when there is a resistance– together with supplementing where you can, you’ll do fine. the worst thing you can do is to freak out that your child won’t eat because toddlers in particular are very good at appearing obstinate to adults when they simply just want to feel empowered to make their own decisions.

    i believe a child won’t intentionally starve themselves. it’s also good to be reminded that children have small stomachs which means they fill up quickly, and they might also get hungry just as quickly.

    when we sit down to a meal i ensure that no toys are present at the table, and that the focus and attention is on food. also, there is no pressure to eat as long as we are all sitting together. i don’t “manage” what my girls eat in as far as i don’t tell them that they have to “eat this in order to get that” because i appreciate that sometimes the palette calls for certain things that i have not prepared. i don’t use food as a reward ever. and sometimes they get dessert before dinner! my goal in this regard is to take the weird stigma society places are “good food” and “bad food” particularly with girls and women.

    lastly, cut yourself some slack. your daughter’s present un/willingness to eat doesn’t mean that she is a candidate for an eating disorder. perhaps she just wants to extend the parameters under which she eat for the time being. let her lead. let her enjoy what she likes but also make it clear that her meals are to be enjoyed at the table. No pressure.

  • Rachael

    Sure, a healthy kid won’t starve him/herself. But sick kids are a different ball game. I would literally not eat until I keeled over, because of a heart defect, and my mother had to force-feed me. Take the kid to a pediatrician.

  • angela arsenault

    man, oh man, i’m glad i asked… thank you for all of your thoughts and advice. i especially like the idea that it might help to give her more choices or power in other areas of life. i hadn’t really thought about it, but i guess i generally pick out her clothes and she generally says, “no! i don’t want to wear that shirt!” maybe if i skip the part where i suggest something and just invite her to choose an outfit from start to finish, she’ll start to see that she does have some control in this life of hers. (isn’t it wild that we long for control from the beginning? humans are so hard-wired.)

    there are lots of valuable information nuggets in these comments. thanks for taking the time to help a sister in arms, so to speak…

  • Arlyne

    My kiddo did something similar. Our solution was this simple:

    When everyone ate dinner, he sat with us, with his plate. If he didn’t eat, so be it. His plate was covered and sat in the fridge. When/if he said he was hungry, I pulled out the plate from the meal. I would do this until the next days dinner if needed, then replace it with the current dinner plate.

    He’d still get the option of our standard breakfast, which is normally toast and a piece of fruit. He’d get a small glass of milk at normal meal times if he wanted it, past that water.

    It might seem rather harsh, but as I explained it to him:

    Mommy doesn’t want to throw away your food. I am not making everyone special food, especially when it’s spaghetti, and I know you like it. You’re big enough to decide you don’t want to eat now, but you will eat what everyone else does, rather it’s now or later.

    I didn’t threaten, or beg, or plead, or offer options after the fact (for example, I’d offer to make either spaghetti OR baked chicken, if he said spaghetti and then whined for chicken, oh well. We’ll have chicken later). I’d let him help. I made sure there was something he would eat at every meal (well, theoretically would eat, things I knew he liked or was willing to eat in the recent past).

    He’s five now, and while he’ll still occasionally balk at his food, it’s more ‘I don’t want the onions! I’m leaving them on the plate!’ than ‘I won’t eat this! I will only eat a bologna sandwich!’ ya know?

    • Arlyne, again

      Adding, on to my own reply, because I’m forgetful like that:

      Giving him more control did help, things like the mentioned offering an either/or for dinner, and etc. Letting him choose his clothes, or what art project we were doing, how to arrange his room, whatever. I do think it;s a control thing, completely. That’s why it was a no nonsense solution I went with, and that’s why I think it worked. I didn’t fight with him over it, I just out waited him,basically

  • Carie

    My son went through a similar stage. When I finally talked to the doctor about it, he assured me that it was a pretty normal phase and that as long as I felt John had a balanced diet within a weeks time(some days he would refuse, some days he would only choose to eat one food item…so I would let him eat just that because, hey, at least he was eating) and as long as he wasn’t showing any signs of decline in health.

    During this awful stage, I started giving him pediasure instead of milk. He would always drink that. I would make it different flavors. Sometimes he would go up to three days barely eating and only drinking. But I didn’t worry as badly knowing that he was drinking the pediasure which was packed with the vitamins and nutrients that he needed, even though it wasn’t solid food.

    Good luck! You’re definitely not alone.

  • JK

    Go here:
    http://itsnotaboutnutrition.squarespace.com/

    This is the best blog about kids and eating I’ve read. Very good advice and tips for very young children to older kids. It’s part psych-ing your kid out, and part allowing them the control over their eating that they are craving. Good luck!

  • Not A Mom

    My boyfriend’s 2.5 yo daughter has started doing this. She is normally a voracious eater and will try all types of foods. He was cajoling her to eat, she would cry and then get cuddles, and still not eat. After a couple of meals like this, I told him 3 things:

    1. This is about control and it’s a battle you won’t win, so you might as well not try to fight it.

    2. Do not give attention to unwanted behavior.

    3. No one ever starved to death because they missed one meal.

    Since then, when she refuses to eat, we tell her, “okay, you don’t have to eat” and then ignore it.

    If she says that she wants to get down, we tell her, “you don’t have to eat, but you do have to sit at the table until everyone else is done eating.” If she tries to engage us in games (not appropriate for the table), or other attention seeking behavior we just say, “we are eating right now so we can’t play games with you. If you want to have dinner/lunch/breakfast conversation, then we’ll be happy to talk with you.”

    Finally, if she doesn’t eat, and everyone is finished, we take her plate away and don’t say anything about it. The first few times she seemed very surprised, and asked for her food back, but now she knows, when a meal is over, it’s over. Since we implemented the new plan we do not have food battles anymore and she pretty much always eats a good portion of her meal on her own.