I'm so excited to share my little boy's room with you! There are about a million more things I want to do, but I've learned to accept that I can't do it all at once at this point in time- so here's his fun & functional bedroom...
updated//view sources post here.
Hi, I saw your question about eating and thought you might like some advice from someone with children older than yours.
ReplyDeleteWhen my oldest was a newborn I attended a mother and baby group. The leader was an incredibly wise and experienced woman, and her advice made me a much better mother than I would otherwise have been, so I try to pass it on when I can.
For eating guidance she recommended anything written by Ellyn Satter, and she was right. The premise is that children prefer a battle of wills with you over eating, so any time you interfere withtheir eating you'll bring emotions and power into it andthey'll restrict their diet. So you do your part, then step back and let them do theirs. She calls it the division of responsibility in eating. You decide when and what, they decide wether and how much.
I'll post this andthen do a second comment with how it actually works.
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ReplyDeleteAfter my ipad crapped out on me, I went and typed this to cut and paste. It's so long it'll have to be a couple of comments, but you can delete my previous attempts (can you tell I feel strongly about this?!)
ReplyDeleteHi, I saw your question about eating and thought you might like some advice from someone with children older than yours rather than younger!
When my oldest was a newborn I attended a mother and baby group. The leader was an incredibly wise and experienced woman, and her advice made me a much better mother than I would otherwise have been, so I try to pass it on when I can.
For eating guidance she recommended anything written by Ellyn Satter, and she was right. The premise is that children prefer a battle of wills with you over eating, so any time you interfere with their eating you'll bring emotions and power into it and they'll restrict their diet. So you do your part, then step back and let them do theirs. She calls it the division of responsibility in eating. You decide when and what, they decide whether and how much.
Ellyn's books explain it in much more detail, but her reasoning is that by replacing overt pressure to eat with a situation where they can both take charge of their eating and see others eating you can support their innate drive to be like grownups. Stress is the enemy of good eating, as I'm sure you know in your own life. By removing the stress of mealtimes you can give your child the confidence to experiment. And at the same time, you create a structure within which the choices they have are all pretty good.
Your responsibilities are what and when food is available. That means no more browsing. Snack times are not scheduled, but they are structured, as are meal times. This could look like many different things depending on your lifestyle, but the core ideas are that you sit down and focus on eating, with other people who are also eating and that the food you offer is part of their overall diet.
For my kids and family, that means they eat about every three hours (7:30am, 10am, noon, 3, 5:30pm). Bear in mind, these are not babies or toddlers, and the schedule is not rigid. But it does mean that when they get home from school they don't grab whatever's handy and scarf it down in front of the TV - it's fruit and cheese and hummus eaten at the table. For a toddler it might be sitting down with you on a bench at the playground instead of wandering around with their ziplock.
ReplyDeleteIt's only been since they're both at school that my kids eat every three hours, not every two. I've found that if I let them get starving hungry they'll melt down at the table. My life is so much easier if I catch them on the cusp of peckish and hungry, but they both have pretty fast metabolisms, so it is different for other people.
The other responsibility you have is what food is on offer, and this is where Ellyn differs from the old way of doing things. Again, her explanation is much more thorough, but it boils down to you putting several things in front of them, including at least one thing you know they have eaten without complaint, then step back and don't comment, don't bribe, cajole, guilt or interfere. So if you're having chicken curry and rice and dal and as you're about to put the plates on the table you remember they hate all of those things, then a plate of sliced banana or bread or cheese or something joins the spread without comment. And the kid who hates curry gets a dab of dal, a dab of curry, a scoop of rice and half the banana, you get mostly curry and rice and a slice or two of banana, your partner gets rice and dal, one chunk of chicken and three slices of banana. And no one comments on what anyone else is eating, everyone gets more of whatever they finish. But see how no-one's taking on the role of picky eater? No one's telling anyone that food A is so disgusting you have to be forced to eat it so you can have food B, which is wonderful. No one has the pressure and stress of having had a meal made just for them but which they might not want to eat.
You need to sit down and think about what constitutes a balanced diet (it does include fat and sugar), and over the course of a week you adjust what you're offering to fill in any gaps. Maybe a bowl of applesauce with a spoon of yoghurt or cottage cheese near the edge. He can eat around it, but he might discover he likes it. Or stewed apple slices gives the same flavour, but a more adult texture than apple sauce. Or other pureed tinned fruit mixed into the apple sauce to cary the flavour. In my experience many kids have trouble with meat because it's hard to chew, so processed meats like shepherd's pie, lasagne, sausages, rissoles, kofte or meatloaf are more successful.
I hope this novel encourages you to look into Ellyn Satter's philosophy. I feel like food is such a huge stressful thing for so many people, they worry and fight about it every single day, and it doesn't need to be that way.
Oh, I forgot something! When mine were 2-3ish I bought some divided plates. It made it seem more natural to have something in each section, evenif it was raisins or yoghurt. And I've also had luck with home made trail mix including some things they like, so for yours a mix of goldfish, pretzels and raisins might introduce thse other foods.
ReplyDeleteSuch a cute room! Come decorate Bradley's now? Great!
ReplyDelete