Comments on: Food Fight

By: LauraC

LauraC — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:13:00 +0000

Thanks for the shout out and I’m glad to know I am not alone. Even with my new zen attitude, we still have our frustrations with meals. And I’ve been put to the test many times where they eat NOTHING for dinner, and I put them to bed with nothing in their stomachs.

Now if I could just get them to like the same foods…

By: poupee97

poupee97 — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:33:41 +0000

Good to read this post and all the comments. Hope I can achieve the same level of nirvana…

By: Tonya

Tonya — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:49:09 +0000

We’ve always made family dinner a priority. Every night we all sit at the table together, the twins in their highchairs. We normally eat between 7-7:30 which works well because the babies are definitely ravenous by then and more willing to eat whatever is in front of them. For the most part we will serve them a little of what we are eating (a child friendly version of what we are having) unless it’s going to be too spicy then they have a few standard favorite meals that we will give to them. Flynn is quite content to try things, he may not always like them but he will give them a go at least. Marisol however decided to become a very picky eater after about 12 months. She will only eat certain types of pasta and will only eat chicken if it’s lemon chicken purchased from a certain restaurant. Go figure, 20 months and she seems to know what she does and doesn’t like.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:53:54 +0000

Great recipe … would love to see more! Good reminders here. We’re past that point but I will add that making sure your kids are VERY HUNGRY is always a great way to get them to eat. I made that mistake a lot earlier this year until I realized dinner needed to be pushed back to a later time.

By: mamie

mamie — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:00:57 +0000

great post and i am making that recipe this week. so true, the food thing. we have been doing a bit of the same at dinner…letting it go. hard hard hard to do.

By: Krissy

Krissy — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:39:39 +0000

Wonderful post Tracey. We are entering these uncharted waters, and I can definitely see how it could drive me crazy! The neat thing about the kids current eating, is that they usually each like one thing, but won’t touch another. If Faith is into ham, she will eat Jonathan’s too. And he will eat her pasta! Not exactly balanced, but at least not too much is going to waste!

With Jay having gastric bypass this summer, I may be the only one eating in a couple of months, should this picky trend continue!

I will have to check out that book!

By: Dawn

Dawn — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:36:40 +0000

First off, thank you for the wonderful confirmation and reminder to let go of my mommy expectations and just provide. I was lucky to have this advice early on and have *usually* done pretty good about letting them do what works for them. I’m nowhere near ready to take on the family meal yet! Brad and I still wait until the boys are in bed to have dinner. But we are trying to work it in on weekends when we have more time and energy. I applaud you for taking that on and making it work. And thanks for the recipe, I’m definitely going to try it out!

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:37:23 +0000

It’s so interesting to see my guys hit one and become more selective about what they will eat. Danny, more so than Abigail (he’s really a bit of a fruitivore/cheesivore). Love the ideas of how to work with it (besides my standard: leave them in the highchairs with the food and do my kitchen chores).

By: Emily

Emily — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:04:03 +0000

Beautiful post.

I have an almost 3 year old and I still catch myself trying to bribe her to take a bite of whatever.

I’m re-reading Child of Mine right now as my boys are in that glorious we’ll-eat-anything phase and I don’t want to screw up their eating habits as they approach the 1-year mark.

By: Sadia

Sadia — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:44:56 +0000

Our experience was very similar. My no-fuss babies turned into picky toddlers. We too learned to present balanced meals, and leave the eating to our girls. We also adopted our daughters’ daycare teachers rule that they had to taste (yes, licking counts!) everything on their plate before they could have seconds of anything. Jessica finds that she likes most things once she tries them. Melody dutifully tastes everything, and then has third or fourth servings of the thing she likes.