Today's "Am I the only one?" moment is the following: Am I the only one who HATES mealtime on a semiregular basis? I mean, I REALLY detest it a lot of the time. It just seems like the older my kids get, the more of a battle it is. Being someone who loves food and takes eating very seriously, :) I just don't understand why children have to be prodded, begged, and threatened to eat their food. I mean, they have no trouble with snacktime, why is it that as soon as it's a family meal, it becomes this huge battle? I can't tell you the number of times I have said (and, admittedlly, sometimes barked) the phrase "EAT YOUR FOOD!!" It's not like I'm serving liver and onions here, folks. The food I make is normal stuff, and it doesn't seem to matter what I make - it can be their favorite meal, and we still have this problem.
Josephine's problem seems to be that she just isn't interested in eating a lot of the time. She would much rather just live on milk. And her new thing is to chew up one bite of food, and then refuse to swallow it. She just lets the whole mess sit in her mouth indefinitely. Maria's problem is that she won't stop talking long enough to put the food IN her mouth in the first place (surprise, surprise there). We constantly have to tell her to stop talking and start eating. Yesterday, it took my girls an hour to eat one small bowl of cereal - AN HOUR, FOLKS!! Does that seem crazy to anyone else? And that is quite typical of these two. Lou and I will finish our dinner, and then spend at least 30 minutes getting the girls to eat theirs. It makes mealtime so frustrating.
We have tried so many things to combat this problem. They get no milk until they finish their food (we figured that maybe they were filling up on milk and then had no room for food), and I don't give them snacks after 3pm, to make sure they are good and hungry by dinnertime at 6pm. The weirdest part is that in the hours before dinner, they are whining around about how STARVING they are, and then they sit down and play with their food instead of eating it - aaaaarrrrggggghhhh!
I am just starting to feel like a food-Nazi, saying over and over "Eat your food. Eat your food. Eat your food. EAT. YOUR. FOOD!!!" But if I take it away from them, ohhhhh, you should see the freakout that starts. And yet when I return it, still no eating...
My girls didn't used to be like this, but gradually mealtime in our family morphed into what it is today - a battleground. Not everytime, but enough to make Lou and I want to rip our hair out.
So, I ask, "Am I the only one?" Or are there fellow mealtime Nazis out there who suffer along with me...
8 comments:
you definitely are not the only one on this situation. i am so sorry that meal times are difficult. keep reminding yourself that it's going to be ok. and that your friend in tx is going through the exact same thing at the same time. xo!
This is not a battle I choose to fight. I put food on the table and if it doesn't get eaten it stays there until they are ready to eat. I have too many other things that drive me nuts to take on a food battle! But you're not the only one. Hyrum takes about one bite and then is done. I can't force him to eat more, so I don't try. Admittedly there is a lot of wasted food but I don't want to beat them... for a few minutes :).
Your not the only one. There are only two dinners that all of my children will eat other than that there is always someone who hates the dinner. My pet peeve is when they all come in and ask what we are having and then tell me how much they hate whatever I answer. Brock hates anything too seasoned or with sauce, Gwen hates anything with meat and Maddie hates anything with pasta or rice. What am I supposed to do with that? And yes Maddie has done the food in cheek thing, once at the mall we realized that she had chewed up chicken in her mouth from dinner 2 hours before. What do you do? Especially with skinny girls who are in the 6th percentile for weight? Sorry I am ranting.
I choose to be pretty much like Sarah. I put dinner out there and they either eat or they don't (including Jeremy). My problem is bed time. The very second I announce bedtime routines (PJ's, Books, teethbrushing, etc.) they both tell me they are starving (even if they ate their dinner) so now a banana/apple is part of thier bedtime routine. It's ridiculous!
So, I left a cool comment, but then it got erased, and I don't want to retype it, but you should call me and I'll tell you, because it's a dang good idea-and it works.
You are not alone. One of my eating problems is that even when they do eat they are hungry 30 minutes later. So I try to have them eat more during dinner... like you said pulling teeth. When they don't want to eat, I have them eat as many bits as how old they are. If they are hungry later, out comes their same plate and food.
I haven't encountered this problem yet, but I do remember Joey talking a lot as a kid, and my Dad saying nearly daily: less talk, more eat, boy!
i was thinking of doing the same thing on my blog, how funny! i love it! river just takes his time and runs to the window to see the jets fly over us from time to time, so thats annoying and joseph loves veggies but loves to try me, but he usually listens and eats them all up, so ask jana! ha ha!
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