Now that you know what’s normal in terms of how toddlers eat and you’ve learned your new “Feeding Job Description, let’s put things together so you can see how doing your feeding job addresses the normal toddler food crazies.
Addressing Toddlers Who Can’t Sit at the Table for Long
Distraction Free Meals & Transitions — let’s face it, toddlers are easily distracted. They want to go-go-go, explore, play, climb and go some more. Because of this some little ones need a lot of help transitioning from play to the table because it may be difficult for them to do it on their own. If they are sufficiently absorbed in their play, they may not even recognize they are hungry, let alone want to take a break to think about it.
If the table represents anxiety or there is recent history of power struggles at meals, this move to the table may take a few meals to improve. It is your job to choose where your child eats — this has to do both with making mealtimes pleasant and reducing distraction. Here are some things that might help with both:
- Reading together for a few minutes and then accompanying them to wash hands.
- Giving a 5-min “warning” that meal time has almost arrived (many kids do well with a timer)
- Giving them a coloring assignment or other quiet activity while the table gets set to get them into a quieter mood.
- Involving them in setting the table or food prep.
- Make sure that their seat is comfortable, preferably with foot support.
- Keep the TV off until everyone at the table is finished eating.
- Keep Toys Out of Sight/Reach if possible — sometimes eyeing the Legos they were just playing with is enough to remind a little builder of the tower that needs finishing.
- Teach siblings to play quietly when they are done, away from the table if possible, so as not to inadvertently entice your toddler back to play land.
Now, realistically, sometimes it is not possible to control all of these factors, but we’ve put one in bold, above, because we believe it is probably the most important. TV is a very strong distraction and really interferes with the eating atmosphere. It is best kept off during meals.
5 Powerful Words
If your child is used to being pressured to eat, take bites, or finish his food, it makes sense that he’d be resistant to coming to the table and eager to leave the table. Perhaps, you’re used to chasing your little one around the house with food…hoping to get a few more calories and nutrients into him—thus he may just be turned off to this whole eating business. Considering each of your feeding job descriptions, there are 5 very powerful words you can say to your child that can easily melt his resistance:
“You don’t have to eat”
Let your toddler know he does not have to eat anything, but that he does need to come sit down because it’s family time. After all, it is your child’s responsibility to decide whether he actually eats and how much he eats. Once your toddler knows and believes that eating is no longer going to be an issue to fight over, you’ve won half the battle.
Only Require Sitting
You can then require he sit at the table for 5 minutes (after which you don’t force him to sit there forever if he really doesn’t want to eat) because family meals are not just about eating, but about being together—family time. Sometimes that busy little toddler brain, just needs to have that mental break from playing, be seated, and see everyone eating before he will realize that he too, is hungry.
Adjust Mealtimes
Adjust mealtime to help your toddler arrive to the table hungry. If you’ve addressed all of the above by getting rid of distractions, making mealtimes pleasant and pressure-free and your toddler still doesn’t last long at the table, chances are she’s not that hungry. You want your toddler to come to the table hungry, but not famished or too tired. Dinner is often the most challenging meal for tired toddlers to handle.
If this is the case with your little one, either make dinner a bit earlier or keep it quick and simple without expecting your toddler to eat a perfectly balanced meal. Mealtimes are part of the when of your feeding job description.
Snacks fit in here too. Snacking too close to dinner (or lunch) can easily blunt little appetites. Ideally, snack time should be spaced no closer than 2 hours from the next meal. You may have to play with the scheduling a bit to see what works best for your family.
Now if you address this too and your child still does not want to sit at the table for very long, that’s really okay. She’s probably just not hungry. Trust her appetite. Provided growth is not on the decline, she’s probably getting enough calories at her other meals and snacks.
Addressing bad behavior at the table
Bad behavior at the table like food throwing, tantrums, etc sometimes are solved simply by sticking to your Feeding Job Description and allowing your child to stick to his. This removes the power struggle over food. Usually, throwing food is just another sign that your child is simply not hungry or is finished eating.
Teaching your child to say or sign “all done” can help him communicate his desire to leave the table in an appropriate way. Understand, too, that throwing food is a very normal developmental stage for kids under 2, so don’t respond in a heavy-handed way and set up expectations that your child can’t possibly adhere to. Consider her age and what might be behind the ‘bad’ behavior.
Sometimes toddlers love the attention they get from unwanted behaviors at the table. Could the behavior be attention seeking? Is it worth ignoring or is it too distracting (ruining the meal for you or others)? Perhaps some undivided attention added elsewhere in the day might reduce the behavior. Even attention-seeking behavior communicates a need that might need to be addressed at another time, away from the table.
Another effective option is simply to remove your child from the table if the behavior is bothersome enough and matter-of-factly let her know that said behavior is not for the table. For a problem that doesn’t seem to go away using gentle redirection or reminders, ending mealtime might be more effective. If you set him down from his high chair or booster, stay firm about the rules, without being harsh. Of course this is sometimes easier said than done, but you know your child best and whether she would understand such a consequence as well as how effective it would be.
Addressing Toddlers’ Erratic Appetites
As you learned in the previous session, toddlers have erratic appetites and that’s normal for three main reasons:
- Slowed growth after the age of 1 — they simply don’t need to eat as much per body weight as they used to when they were infants.
- Still strongly responsive to their hunger/fullness signals — they are highly attuned to these signals and tend to respond appropriately regardless of what we adults seem to think they need at any particular meal.
- Busy bodies full of energy and curiosity that don’t want to stop to eat
Considering these three causes of a toddler’s typically unpredictable appetite, can you envision how each person sticking to their Feeding Job Description might help you and your child?
You are doing your feeding job when you set sit-down, meal and snack times
Doing so provides structure, reliability and focus. Structure is the antidote to grazing. Structure also prevents frequent food handouts to cope with meltdowns, boredom, or to distract from difficult feelings. It prevents your child from learning to abuse food for emotional reasons.
Sometimes children may ask for food out of boredom or frustration. It’s no use asking “are you really hungry?” because most little kids will say regardless of actual hunger. But actual hunger isn’t a ‘bad’ thing if there are plenty of opportunities to eat. Having set meal and snack times allows children to value the sit-down meal as a special time to get nourished rather than turn to food as a way to cope.
The reliability of meals gives a child security and allows you to stay flexible and calm in the face of their erratic appetite. They are secure in being fed and not made to go hungry for extended periods of time. They learn that there is a rhythm to eating and meals come frequently enough so they don’t need to worry about it or be preoccupied about food between times.
And the fact that eating happens at set times, and seated (rather than something done while multi-tasking) helps kids stay attuned to their hunger and fullness because they are paying attention to eating. Conversely, running around while munching, or running to and from the table, distracts a child from his stomach’s signals.
The flexibility (for you) comes in this way: If Timmy only eats a bite at morning snack, it’s not a big deal because lunch is coming in 2-3 hours where he’ll get another chance to fuel up. On days when Susie is ready to leave the dinner table in 5 minutes, it’s nothing to worry about because you always serve a snack before bed. Keep in mind that snacks should be consistently served, not merely in response to minimal eating at the previous meal.
You are doing your feeding job when you choose the foods offered
Since you’re in charge of the food, you can serve nourishing food or fun foods as you see fit. Except for perhaps a few favorites, you’ll rarely be able to predict your child’s eating: both what they want to eat most and how much they eat of anything.
By planning balanced meals, your child will have an opportunity at every meal and snack to get whatever was missed the time before.
One interesting case worth sharing involves a parent worried about the fact that the only thing his child wanted to eat at breakfast was sugary cereal. Dad felt bad about serving it every morning, but was afraid of letting his child go hungry. So he kept serving it and worrying. This was a clear case of a swapping of responsibilities. It wouldn’t take long of serving a few different types of breakfasts, perhaps with the occasional pop-in of Mary’s favorite cereal, to change things around. If you’re worried about something similar, give yourself permission to take back control of the food on the table. Take back your job and give back to your child her jobs.
Your child’s jobs are:
1. Decide whether to eat anything from the offered foods.
2. Decide how much to eat from the offered foods.
If you’ve struggled with your child’s eating for a long time, it probably started with some valid fears. It is scary to see your child turn away good food and nourishment. It feels like you’ve done something terribly wrong. You might believe that if you don’t help your child eat more, at best you’re not a very good parent and at worst your child will starve.
But whether the feeding struggles stem from a medical issue or are simply the result of typical parent-child mealtime power struggles, things will not smooth over if you take over your child’s job of eating even though it is tempting to think so. It only makes kids fight harder to keep control over their eating and/or makes mealtimes something worth dreading.
So for the toddler with the erratic appetite (most of them), your mission is to set those regular meal and snack times and stay firm on not allowing munching or drinks between (except for water). Then give your child(ren) the freedom to eat as much or as little as they want at eating times.
You can’t force their appetites to be consistent. But you can choose to be the stable “rock.”
Addressing Toddlers’ Wariness of New Foods
Each child is different so some toddlers may have a stronger aversion to “new” than others.
Exposure, exposure, exposure! — Research shows that most kids need at least 10 exposures to a food before they will find it acceptable. The key word is “at least” because some kids need a lot more–over weeks, months or years for some kids with some foods. Don’t set your expectations too high. Remember your job is the actual exposure, it is not getting him to love broccoli, sushi, or quinoa. Think of your child as an eater-in-training his entire 18 years (or more) of living at home.
Forget the One Bite Rule
Here is a video explaining why one-bite/no-thank-you bite rule may not work for your child.
Use liked foods in new and different ways — If your child generally accepts pasta, try different pasta & noodle shapes. If steamed broccoli is popular, try roasted broccoli or a broccoli casserole. Adina has written lots of ideas for expanding a little one’s vegetable exposure here using carrots as an example. One mom with a very selective toddler tried one of the suggestions in the article and was thrilled to see her little one, who previously hadn’t shown much interest in carrots, eat carrots once she served them in a new way! Of course your mileage may vary or it may take much longer, but don’t give up or throw in the towel. This is a long term work you are doing.
Serve familiar food alongside new foods — This could mean serving a plain or familiar version of the ‘new’ food or simply having scrumptious dinner rolls on the table each night for your toddler to fall back on.
Deconstructed meals — A deconstructed meal is one in which the components of the meal are served separately. Take tacos, baked potato bar, pasta served separately from the sauce, make-your-own quesadillas, and so on. Deconstructed meals allows a young child to experiment with the ingredients in a meal without having the, sometimes, overwhelming challenge of eating them all mixed together. Natalia shared some fun ideas in a guest blog here.
Family style service — essentially this means starting with empty plates for everyone and letting each person serve themselves from the entree and sides that have been placed on the table. Of course this requires kid-friendly serving utensils and depending on your toddler’s age, some assistance. Serving “family stye” greatly reduces mealtime pressure and allows a child to ‘sneak-up’ on foods he’s not quite sure about. Read more about how family style meals can help raise healthy eaters here and here.
Give opportunities to ‘sneak-up’ on foods — kids can’t do their job of eating and ‘sneaking-up’ on foods if we get in the way with reminders and encouragement to “just try it, you might like it!” For most kids, that kind of pressure feels pushy and intrusive and steals their curiosity. There have been a number of times that Adina’s daughter, now 4, has turned down a food only to ask to serve herself (or serve herself without saying a word) that very item 10 minutes into the meal. The first few times might mean your child only puts something on her plate, later tastes it, and many meals later it might mean enjoying a full serving. There isn’t a set timeline, and progress is not always linear. But ‘sneaking up’ on food is way more fun than eating because it is a ‘duty.’
Addressing Toddlers’ Desire for Autonomy
How would it feel if someone else was completely in charge of both the menu and how much you ate? Can you imagine?
No matter what strange, unappetizing dish was on the table you were always pushed to eat it. No matter how your stomach felt, how tired you were, what your mood was like, or whether (or not) you were hungry, you were expected to put all the offerings on your plate and without a protest and be pleasant and remain at the table with these food pushers?
Watch the video below called “You’re Such a Picky Eater” to gain a fresh perspective (HINT: turn up your speakers, the sound is poor):
In reality, we do a lot of appropriate things to/for kids that don’t make sense to do to/for adults. But there’s just something about making another person eat against his will that just seems a bit absurd — whether that other person is a child or an adult.
A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.
Imagine you are the “picky eater” in the video. How would you feel? Annoyed? Ashamed? Perhaps even more determined to not eat? It’s very normal to dig in your heels when it feels like your sense of autonomy is being challenged. When someone is trying to control something as personal as your eating, the food you want to put in your mouth and enjoy.
It would certainly ruin our appetites.
It’s not any different for children. Especially a toddler for whom personal autonomy is a burgeoning new concept and “I do it myself!” is more important than the completion of the task.
You address this directly by remembering that it is your child’s job to determine whether and how much to eat. Kids want to eat, they want to grow, and they want to learn and develop competence when it comes to eating.
But you already know what they want more, right? Autonomy! If, in the course of their young life, their eating autonomy has been challenged frequently some of the resulting feeding struggles will naturally dissipate when you begin following the correct Feeding Job Description. For some of you, this will be a surprisingly quick breakthrough. For others, it may take a bit longer. The foundational key to finding your way out of the power struggle will be trust:
Trust that your child wants to do well, trust your child to do his eating job and be trustworthy by doing your feeding job.
We’ve discussed a few key strategies for addressing typical toddler behaviors. From those, two stand out as critical when it comes to giving your child age-appropriate autonomy:
- The 5 Magic Words: “You Don’t Have to Eat”
- Serving Meals Family Style. The following three articles from our blogs cover this information very well:
Family Meals & The Picky Eater: http://healthylittleeaters.com/familymealspickyeater-2/
Family Style Meals Help Raise Healthy Eaters: http://tribecanutrition.com/2013/06/family-style-mals-help-raise-healthy-eaters/
Restaurant Style vs. Family Style: The way you serve food to your kids matters.
http://healthylittleeaters.com/restaurant-style-vs-family-style/
Addressing Toddlers’ Fickle Food Preferences
Toddlers don’t truly know what they like and don’t like.
They know what they are willing to try in any given moment, but their experience is limited and they’re still learning and sorting things out in this big world of food. A lesson most parents learn, eventually, is that planning meals around what you think your child will like or dislike is a recipe for frustration and disappointment. So don’t do it.
Ultimately, your goal is to share a meal with your toddler with minimal adjustments, like maybe using less spice or cutting chicken in smaller pieces. While serving your child’s favorite chicken nuggets or pasta for dinner sometimes is absolutely fine, make sure that these foods are part of the meal for the whole family, not something special that you fixed for your toddler. Special meals, different from what the rest of the family is eating, send a message that you do not expect your child to learn to like the “grown up” food.
Of course, it’s still important to be considerate because your toddler is an important and loved member of your family. But that line between being considerate and catering is sometimes thin. You can be considerate by:
- Always serving one or two “safe” foods at meals. This is not the same as cooking a separate or alternate entree for your child. A lot of toddlers do well with dinner rolls, toast & butter, crackers, rice, tortillas, plain pasta or fruit. These are simple sides that require no cooking or if they do are part of the meal anyway. Having a safe food at each meal keeps anxiety low for children who are particularly fickle or wary of new foods. They see that there is something edible on the table and can relax, knowing that no matter how strange the casserole is they aren’t going to starve. It helps you relax too.
- Having enough of the “safe” food on the table. Don’t skimp in hopes that it will entice her to try other dishes.
- Not setting expectations. Even if your child ate 5 spears of asparagus last week, he might not even look at them this week. Maybe last time you barbecued chicken, he cleaned his plate. This time he might only take a taste.This is all a learning experience.
- Not plating your child’s food. Offer from what’s on the table, and help him serve himself if he indicates he wants something. Your child’s age and development will take precedence here. If he can’t physically serve himself and he’s generally relaxed at the table, he may happily accept your placing small samples of foods right on his tray/plate.
- The biggest “no-no”: Don’t ask your child what he wants to eat before you’ve set the table. It’s not her responsibility to decide what a meal should be. Set the food out on the table and help her get seated and then let her choose from the selections at that point. A toddler’s fickle food preferences means she may say one thing, but then not want to eat that thing. That is a set up for putting pressure on her to eat because you went to the trouble of preparing exactly what she requested.
Finally, if you feel that your toddler did not have enough food at a meal, rest assured that he will eat again at a scheduled snack time. This way, you will be less likely to pressure him to eat something or try to entice him to eat by preparing special meals.
Summary
Regardless of which normal toddler behavior you are struggling with most, following your Feeding Job Description will make mealtimes more pleasant for both of you.
Stick to your feeding job so your child can do his eating job.
Trust your child.
Don’t trade jobs.
The pleasant and relaxed family meal is foundational. When you’ve achieved that, you’ve achieved a lot and can continue to build long term healthy eating habits.
Here is a great printout to help you out of some sticky situations. It gives you great responses for common things kids say that might throw you off track: MealtimeMovesCountermoves
Coming Up Next: Supporting a healthy relationship with food and getting a realistic idea of proper portion sizes for a toddler.
Assignment: Watch/listen to your mealtime video/audio. Use it to analyze your mealtime recording for phrases that help and those that hinder–attached below is also a template you can use. Hint: The only types of comments that may help kids do a better job eating are the two at the bottom of the template. What did you notice about your feeding and response to your child’s eating? Do you tend to run interference? Do you comment frequently on their eating or fuss over their plate? Is there a lot of negotiation about food? Do you try to sell the food?
HelpAndHinderPhrases
Template for Analysis
Discussion: Feel free to discuss or ask questions on any of what we have covered in this lesson. What did you notice watching/listening to your video/audio recording? Is there anything you’d change? Anything you noticed was right on?