Dining Dilemmas Resolved!

Posted by Vulnadia on Dec 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM Lately, my kids have all been sick. Well, at least all of the babies, that is! They have had runny noses, coughs, and even the dreaded power puking spree that comes from all of that. Because of this, they haven't really been eating all that much, if anything at all at most meals. Now, after several weeks, and earaches later, they are starting to get better. At least nobody is spewing anymore, that's quite a relief! But I have been having problems getting them to eat a meal. Oh they will eat a tiny bit, but not near enough to even meet the toddler minimum. This means they are cranky, and don't sleep well, either. So, to combat this, I have started trying to find ways to entice and even trick them into eating enough of anything to fill their tiny baby bellies. First, we made the transition from feeding chairs, to the adult dining room table. They are even sitting in big-people chairs just like adults without any booster or even a phone book to make them taller. This is our second day of having every meal at the big-people table, and it seems to be working out a bit better that I had ever even hoped. As if that wasn't novelty enough, I have been varying foods in some attempt to entice them to try something. Last night, sandwiches were the novelty of the moment. That and mozzerella cheese cut into french-fry width small pieces. It was finally a hit and they ate most of their dinner for the first time in what seems like ages! Another thing I am trying, is not cutting their food up into tiny pieces. I know, I know, as Mums, we feel compelled to chop up our kids food into tiny bite-sized non-choking bits to avoid incident, but it does cause a problem. I had been micro-chopping up their food into too many bits and they seemed to be getting tired, bored or overwhelmed with all the pieces. This bad habit of mine not only made it look as if they had more food than they could ever handle, but it also caused them to take longer trying to actually eat everything. So, I have tried cutting things into fewer pieces. This doesn't mean that the bites aren't manageable for a 2 yr old, it means that the end result is larger and results in fewer overall pieces. It really works! They started eating all of their chicken strips for once. They really only even get served two pieces each, but I had been cutting them into too many tiny bits. Now, I cut each piece into a maximum of four pieces each, and the babies actually are eating everything on their plates! For now, our new changes are working out quite well. They all three even slept all night for the first time in over a week. Now if we can only keep this going!