Dinnertime used to be fun. After working all day, I finally get to come home to my family and enjoy a meal together. I always look forward to this time of the day because we all sit down as a family and just get to be together for a change, you know?
Until Lily turned four (insert scary music here).
Now, supper is no longer filled with pleasant conversation and has been replaced with threats (and the occasional punishment). Lily basically is refusing to eat her dinner just about every night. Every meal is a new and exciting excuse……I’m too cold to eat, my foot hurts, I don’t like this plate, the dog is staring at me……and the list goes on.
My husband and I are sooooo frustrated with not only her lack of appetite, but of the wastefulness. I can cook her favorite meal and she will turn her nose up at it. And don’t even get me started on how upset I get when we dine out and she even picks her own meal and won’t eat it. I do not enjoy wasting my money.
I have tried everything: going to bed with no dinner, withholding all snacks before dinner, ignoring the problem, etc, but nothing is working. Do you have any suggestions as to how I can get my 4 year old to actually eat dinner so we can return to some quality family time?!?
~Bridgette
These are all great suggestions & I’ve tried everything in the book. I’ve learned there are two things you can’t force a child to do, eat or sleep. Hope one of the suggestions works for you!
Tell me its just a “4″ thing…cuz my 4yo is in the same boat. “I’m tired. I have to use the bathroom. Hey William (little brother)! Let’s be SILLY!!!”
I want to pull out my hair! Nothing works…I’m hoping that some day soon he’ll hit a growth spurt and need the extra fuel. Till then, I’ll just cover those grays…
This may sound mean but you should give it a try. If she does’nt eat a reasonable amount of the food you put on her plate for dinner you should cover it and put it in the fridge. Then when its time for breakfast heat it up and give it to her. If she does’nt eat it the do the same thing for lunch and dinner. Eventually you will have to throw it away if she is stubborn enough to go without food for a few days. Just start over. I have two boys and two girls. Both girls are super picky. Just let her know you are in charge. Hope it works for you!
Wow! I feel better now b/c I have the same issue with my 3 year old son. I have tried all of these ideas too. The hardest is sending him to bed w/o dinner b/c 9 times out of 10 he will be laying there and and never fall asleep b/c he says he is “hungry”. I try very hard not to give in and get him something to eat but sometimes I just can’t do it and cave.
When I told my pediatrician about sending him to bed hungry she said she doesn’t think that is a good idea…at this age anyway. She explained that at 3 years old, a child cannot think that far ahead. If he is not hungry at dinner time, he does not realize that he will be hungry later when he is supposed to be in bed sleeping. She said that older children certainly know they will get hungry but a child this age does not.
Her suggestion to me was to: Limit the drinks, especially juice. My son will take a drink over food any day so I have to really watch his liquid intake even though the juice I give him is 90% water. She said to keep the food on the plate a small portion. Give him time to eat it with you at dinner, and if he doesn’t eat it then, wrap it up and put it in the fridge. When he’s laying in bed and says he’s hungry give him the plate of food that he didn’t eat at dinner time and if he is REALLY hungry, he WILL eat it.
So that was my pediatrician’s idea but to be honest, I haven’t had to go that route since my husband has found another way to get our son to eat. What I’m about to describe is more of a visual but I’ll give you the general idea: Basically, make the food talk. My husband will pick up the food whether it’s on a spoon, fork, or his hand (if it’s a finger food like chicken nuggets) and pretend that it is talking and telling our son to “eat me”. Then when my son takes a bite my hubby will start screaming in the “Mr. Bill” type voice “oh noooo, you ate off my head. I have no eyes, I can’t see!” Then he will start laughing his head off and try to eat more of the talking food to see what else it will say after another bite.
Sometimes my husband reverses it and makes the food issue a challenge…”You can’t eat ME! I’m the king of the plate and I’ll live here forever!” Then my son takes it as a challenge to eat everything.
We had to do this last night with his four chicken nuggets (a food he never has trouble eating). He would not eat anything until my husband did his little skit with the talking food. Sure enough, he got him to eat all of them and the rest of us had a pretty good laugh too!
Yes it IS a lot of work so that may not be an option for you but it does work for us. You can also try arranging the food into some type of face (a big smiley face) on the plate to make it look fun or more interesting.
Geez…the things we have to go through to make a kid eat!!!
What if she helps cook dinner? Have her take an active part now and then in choosing and preparing the food. Sometimes that helps with my picky eater.
And yeah, as terrible as it sounds, I did what Trisha does. When my husband was in Iraq, I found out that if my oldest was sitting in front of cartoons he was distracted enough and would eat. That lasted from 3.5-5 years old. Once he started Kindergarten, we were back to eating at the table as a family again, and it was much more pleasant.
I have a five year old that is in the middle of this power game right now and it drives me crazy! I have always been a you will eat everything on your plate type of parent, but this new foster child is changing that rule.
What her counselor has suggested is to put 2 bites of each item on her plate. This way I am not wasting, and she is not overwhelmed with the amount of food on her plate. If she eats all of the food, she may ask for more, and she is given a 2nd helping of 2 bites of each food. If she doesn’t want more, then at least I got a little bit in her tummy and life goes on.
We also have cut out all snacking between meals and all drinking of anything besides water. You would be amazed at how she all of a sudden is hungry again and eating dinner.
Do this with your child at each meal. If your child is eating a lot at breakfast and lunch and snacking, then they may not be hungry for dinner. It is trial and error with kids a lot of the time..and I am willing to try anything if it might work.
Good Luck
My kids do the same thing! My favorite is when they say they’re full when they have barely eaten ALL day! Ugg.. I just dish out smaller amounts and tell them they don’t have much but they have to eat something! But one thing I’ve learned over the past 8 1/2 years is that they go through spurts when they’ll eat everything in sight and then won’t eat hardly anything for a couple of weeks! I know it’s frustrating but she will eat when she’s hungry and unless she is loosing weight or not gaining I wouldn’t worry about it.
My son is like that now and he is just about 6. He always seems to be starving right before he needs to go to bed. So I have been keeping his plate for him at night so when he does get hungry, i warm it up and he can have his dinner. I refuse to make him something else. It works for me. He might not be hungry for dinner at 530 so he’ll eat it at 730. He still has to sit with us a dinner though. Not just get up and play. But if it’s past 730 he lost it. Just stick to whatever you choose to do. Hope you find a solution. I know how frustrating it is.
I was like that around 4-5……I just wasn’t hungry. I still don’t eat all that much. They took me to the doctor and the doctor said….she’ll eat when she’s hungry. And he was right. They just assumed I needed more food. Even as an adult, my parents bugged me about never eating breakfast.
I have FOND memories (or nightmares) of being forced to eat cold peas. Oh such fun. I have a toddler now, so I feel for you.
Yuck, we are there too. Chandler has to sit there until his dinner is done. We don’t care about excuses or if he all of a sudden doesn’t like his food. Sometimes it takes an hour or longer, and he bawls and carries on. However, he’s beginning to realize that we won’t budge and it is getting better. Stick to your guns!
Oh, what fun…
Our rule is, if they don’t like it, they don’t eat. They do, however, have the option of having a pb&j if they so desire…
)
I’ll be keeping my eye on this post for ideas, because we are going through the SAME thing with our 4 year old!
My littlest one is almost 6 and we have the SAME problem. We have to travel three hours each way to visit my son on Saturdays, and by an hour into the trip she is crying about being hungry, but she never eats what we get her. I have just recently decided to just serve her tiny, tiny, portions. Obviously she doesn’t need much, because she survives on barely anything, and if she wants more we’ll give it to her. It makes for a smaller struggle. As far as eating out, we have just started feeding her from our plates and if she doesn’t like it, we remind her that we used to get her her choice of a meal, but she wouldn’t eat it, so this is what we are doing until she shows us she will eat a decent portion.
Stubborn little creatures, aren’t they? It’s a show of independence, I think, and I try not to make a big deal of it because I can’t help but think feeling out of control of one’s diet as a child can lead to eating disorders in the future. Which may be totally dumb, but it still haunts my mommy-brain!
this may sound terrible, but i put her dinner on her plate and let her eat it in the 2nd living room watching a charlotte movie every night. It gives DH some time alone, and TV alone, and she can sit as long as she wants and stare at her food w/o me getting frustrated. IF she doesnt eat, she doesnt eat, i just dont get her anything else.
When my sister was little she had a faze where she would not eat dinner. My mom made her eat her cold dinner for breakfast. It took only a few mornings before she decided to eat her dinner. I know it maybe a bit harsh, but it worked. Good luck
Sounds like she needs a good old-fashioned SPANKING!
Just kidding.
What if you did something like a sticker chart, where she picked out some fun stickers, and helped you decorate the chart that has spaces for each day of the week, for a month.
Then, explain to her how she needs to eat like a young lady, with no fighting, no excuses, no whining, but just being a big girl. Then, when she gets through a dinner without all the drama, she gets to put a sticker on that day’s square. Once she has completed a week(or however many days you choose) of stickers…in a row…then you will take her to pick out a goodie somewhere, or go get a pedicure, or go see a movie, or pick out her favorite ice cream treat…or whatever.
Do I sound like Supernanny?