Operation: EAT YOUR FOOD!!

    We've been having a little bit of trouble at our house getting a certain toddler of ours to eat her food. We have a bad case of picky eater, we'll just call her L.  L has always been a picky eater as opposed to her little sister, R, who has generally been known to eat most of what is put in front of her.  I almost completely attribute this problem to myself.  This is one of those cases that every parent who has a child with a difficult characteristic hopes for... that they will someday have a child just like them.  I was a very picky eater growing up and could also be classified as a vegetable hater, ask anyone in my family they would love to tell you stories.  I attribute the differences between the eating habits of L and R to the fact that I gave R way more variety when she first started eating solids. With L, being a first time parent, I projected my negative or "picky" tenancies on her and didn't feed her anything that sounded gross to me.  So there you have it, I created a monster and now I'm trying to undo it.
     This problem of not eating reached an all time high about two months ago, granted this was also the time that we moved across the country, which I think has a lot to do with it. L was eating maybe one decent meal a day (usually breakfast).  I decided that I was not going to play guessing games and fix several different things for everyone at every meal.  So she could eat what we were eating or go hungry.  Much to my displeasure she opted for going hungry, a lot. Some mornings she would wake up crying because her head hurt or tell me that she was shaking, which I could noticeably see when she took a bite of breakfast. Another thing I noticed was she would get tired really easily when running around outside. These episodes lead to many tears of frustration on my part, and dinners for L consisting of cereal. In my frustration I talked to lots of other moms and read lots of articles on line and they all say the same thing: lots of kids to it and its usually a power struggle issue.  Their solution (on-line sources): don't get uptight about whether your kid eats their food or not, they like to push your buttons, give them several healthy options and then let them regulate what they eat.  Take the power struggle out of eating. Sounded easy enough but it is actually really hard for Ryan and I. I wanted to make her eat food because I could see that the problems she was having with headaches, shaking, and lack of energy were from not eating. I grew up with my parents saying "you are going to sit there until you finish you food" and I sat there many nights by myself, long after everyone else had finished, with a pile of peas (or other undesirable vegetable) on my plate until I finally gagged them down.  I even had many methods of making said vegetable disappear without having to gag them down, but I was far to often discovered and the consequences were not good.  But back to L, Ryan and I have really had to make a conscious effort to both be unified and consistent with her, giving her options and trying not to force her eating. It is still very much a work in progress but I feel like things have been better.  Another thing that we are working on is a suggestion made by one of my cookbooks: make your kids take a "no thank you bite,"  or in other words make them at least try one bite of everything on the table and maybe (hopefully) they will find something new that they like.
    One of the biggest issues with this operation has been for be to get over mt picky food tendencies and try and cook more variety and new things.  This has been a goal of mine for the past year or two.  Ryan told me once that I was basically responsible for his eating, be it healthy or otherwise (side note: Ryan is a very NOT picky eater and apparently always has been).  I was initially annoyed when he told me this and told him that he could eat whatever he wanted, to which he responded that I do the shopping and a majority of the cooking, he just eats what I give him or what we have.  Touche.  Likewise I am also responsible for what our children eat.  So my job just became a bit more daunting, but I'm sure it will be a work in progress.  Maybe by the time our children are all grown up I will have a handle on things, but hopefully it doesn't take quite that long.

Thoughts for Food

This blog basically a place for me to store any thoughts or ideas I have in regards to food and helping our family eat better.  Hope you enjoy and PLEASE make comments and suggestions, every little bit helps.

DISCLAIMER:  This is not a health food blog.  While I am trying to help my family eat healthier and will post healthy recipes that I find, some of the recipes I post may be less than healthy but tasty. My other goal is to find recipes and ideas that are kid friendly.