So my philosophy with food now is to follow that Child of Mine idea, in which the parent's responsibility is what, when, and where, and the child is in control of whether and how much. At first it was hard to totally back off of trying to encourage, cajole, reward, or otherwise force the kids to eat. But backing off entirely from that has totally changed mealtime. It is about 100 times better now. They no longer resist sitting down to meals, and instead enjoy it. I no longer try to get them to eat "one more bite" of whatever, or try to bribe them to eat particular foods with the promise of dessert.
Yes, there are some meals when Nora will eat next to nothing. But I just grit my teeth, do nothing, and know that she will probably eat more at the next meal, which she does. When she says "I don't like this" or "I don't want to eat", I just say, "That's okay, you don't have to eat. But you do have to sit with us at dinner." And then she inevitably eats. I think she was testing whether she really does have control over whether she eats. Recognizing that the control is in her hands, she goes ahead and eats.
Dessert is not an every night occurrence. I don't want them to think of it as the natural end to a meal. I do tend to pull it out, ironically, on those nights when Nora has eaten very little. Then I console myself with the calories she is getting from that bowl of ice cream. On nights when she eats a good meal, I tend not to bring out the dessert much.
So there is another trend now to sneak vegetables into kids' foods. Some people are against this because they think that vegetables should be a normal, not hidden, part of kids' lives and meals. I agree totally, but my opinion is, why can't I include vegetables with meals, offer it all the time, and sneak it in? So, I do both.
For instance, tonight our dinner was fajitas with roasted onions and green peppers, rice and black beans, corn tortillas, fresh tomatoes, cilantro, and chipotle peppers. I gave the kids the rice and beans, green peppers, onions, and tomatoes. I also gave them some meatballs (which Jake and I don't eat but is great for the incredible calories they pack), as well as some bread with peanut butter. My idea is to give them the adult food that we eat every night, but also give them one or two items on their plates that aren't new and that I know they like. So I didn't make any mention of whether or what they should eat on their plates, I just offered it all to them.
Milo ate the rice and beans, tortilla, green peppers, tomatoes, and meatballs. He also licked the peanut butter off his bread. He tasted the onions but didn't eat them.
Nora picked all of the black beans out of her rice and ate them one by one. She ate one bite of her bread with peanut butter. She ate one or two bites of her meatball. She then surprised me by eating the rice. She also surprised me by taking a bite of her green pepper, because she saw Milo eating it. She then spit it out, but I was happy that she tried it. She didn't touch the tomatoes or onions.
We always close the meal with fruit, their favorite thing ever. Tonight it was grapes and kiwi.
I am starting to sneak vegetables into their foods more and more, because vegetables are one thing that Nora pretty much doesn't eat at all. So this afternoon for snack I made them a smoothie, which I often do, with yogurt and milk and fruit and some honey, but today I also put in some frozen spinach. And lo and behold they loved it. Another thing I like to do is make them "red" or "green" mac 'n cheese. I make homemade mac 'n cheese for them, the very high calorie kind with butter, a white sauce from a roux, and mascarpone or cream cheese, cheddar, and mozzarella cheese. (It is delicious). Then I will also take some roasted red peppers or some fresh wilted spinach, and then puree those in the food processor and mix it into the sauce. Both kids like that kind of pasta, so I figure, it's a start.
Breads, muffins, etc. with vegetables have been less successful so far.
It's definitely hard to keep my mouth shut about what they're eating, but I don't think that they're actually eating any less as a result of doing it this way. They seem to be eating a little more, if anything.
One last thing.
This woman is a genius and I identify with every single part of this post.
