Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Battle of the Wills

So I think I may have bragged to someone too much about how good of an eater Tristan was, because low and behold, he has stopped eating. For serious.

He will not eat anything with any regularity, except ice cream, fruit and his morning oatmeal. If he once would eat someting with gusto, now he will not touch it. He used to love hot dogs, mashed potatoes, ground beef, cucumber, anything meat basically at all, ravioli, spaghetti. Among basically anything else you could throw at him. Seriously he would eat oysters with the hubby.

Now? He will not touch any of it.

And I am at my wits end with him. I have tried making him sit at his high chair until he eats, but he wont. He just sits there screaming at the top of his lungs, crying. Loudly.

I have tried making him foods that he once loved, thinking his new aversion was texture related. But it seems to have no correlation whatever to him not eating it, unless he simply does not like the feeling of FOOD in his mouth. He wont touch anything.

I have tried repeatedly giving him the same food over and over again until he eats it dammit, but he wont, and I'm afraid to see how long he can keep this up for.

I have tried force feeding him as a last resort, and it doesnt accomplish anything except hysterical crying (on both our parts) and me wearing whatever it was I tried to make him eat.

What do I do? Do I ignore the tantrums and then just take away the food after a reasonable amount of time, pretending like there was no problem? Do I keep trying to make anything hoping he will eventually eat something? Am I to become a short order cook? Does he grow out of this? Should I just continue to give him the food over and over again until he eats it?

Seriously I have no idea what to do, please any suggestions would be very useful to me. I am about to snap, and I dont want this to end badly for my husband. He gets the brunt end of my anger and I dont know how much longer he will think its cute. Probably not much, because it is starting to bother me. And thats not really a good sign.

HELP!!!

2 comments:

  1. I've read over and over again, that all kids go through this. And that no kid has ever died from just eating Mac and Cheese (or whatever their food of choice is) for a period of their life. Just keep that in mind...and at least fruit has vitamins.

    I would maybe hold up two things (like hotdogs and spaghetti) and ask him to choose one...saying something like "T's time to choose what everyone is going to eat!" Maybe if he feels like he's in charge of choosing, he'll want to eat it.

    p.s. take my advice with a grain of salt...Hudson eats way too many french fries in a week.

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  2. Anonymous1:47 PM

    As long as he has energy he is fine. All my boys went through this. Just make your regular dinner and offer him some. If he passes, let him. In other words, be casual and don't make an issue of it. I have 5 boys and believe me, I complain everyday about how MUCH they eat!

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