Food doesn’t hurt me. My children with their food hurts me.
These are my current food woes.
Crappy Baby & Food
Crappy Baby says he wants pancakes for breakfast.
(Right here would be the picture of me making pancakes had I bothered to draw it.)
I present him with the pancakes that he asked for:
He is really angry. And he has every right to be angry.
He asked for pancakes and someone made them for him. I’d be furious if that happened to me.
Crappy Boy & Food
Crappy Boy wants a snack. He asks me if we have certain foods.
He continues asking like this (strawberries, pretzels, eggs, etc) until we get to something that we don’t have.
The one thing we don’t have is what he wants.
——————–
Crappy Baby will eventually eat the pancakes once I go into the other room. And Crappy Boy will eventually accept the non-existence of celery and decide that one of the other foods we have is edible.
So they aren’t totally insane. Just half.
What if you tell crappy boy you don’t have said foods, then magically find them in the back if the fridge…
Then you’d be his hero! Right?
(I only have a 9 month old. I don’t know how this works.)
My thought too!
My son is also 9 mos, but since he just started eating solid food a couple months ago he LOVES all of it!
It will be so sad when he becomes a picky toddler 🙁
My 9 month old used to love everything I fed her. Now she’ll only eat Happy Munchies, and only the carrot and cheddar ones, not the ones with broccoli, kale and cheddar.
I’ve tried that! He changes his mind, lol.
Also then he would never believe you are really out of something, just that you haven’t looked hard enough. At least that is how it ended up playing out for me.
good point. LOL
that’s what my three-year-old would do too!
My son would say we do have it (this actually happens when we don’t have it too) and then argue with me about it’s being there and still not want to eat it. *sigh*
he may always expect her to “magically” find foods that don’t exist….especially as his tastes get more sophisticated. and wonder why he can’t get what he wants….My kids think my house is a restaurant where they can order whatever they want and they get annoyed when we don’t have it. and i get annoyed when they won’t eat what we have.
of course, the hubby doesn’t help. he buys convenience foods he can stash in the freezer so he can accommodate their individual tastes. until we run out of stuff.
You make everything sound funny, but it is totally frustrating! My son, when he was a toddler, insisted all drinks be filled to an invisible mark on his sippy cup, and all spreadable things MUST be spread to the very edges of the bread or he had a fit! Thankfully, he did eventually grow out of it.
Sometimes I think the secret to happy parenting is letting yourself see, in the same moment that it’s frustrating, just how funny it is too…
SO true. I find that a lot of times I just have to laugh at their view of the world instead of becoming engaged in a frustration cycle.
Here here! That is what keeps me sane…
My son had what at first seemed to be some of those very frustrating requirements, until one day, in exasperation, I said, “What difference does it make?” And then I realized… yeah, what difference does it make? If it makes him happy and causes no one hardship, what difference does it make. Made for a much happier household… although, yeah, it sure can be frustrating sometimes!
That sounds like the realization that my husband had to come to with our then 3 y/o daughter. He would complain about her being so picky & choosy, but I was like, “WHO’S the one being choosy? YOU’RE the one choosing not to warm her milk up for 30 seconds!!” (she’s not a fan of cold beverages)
Sometimes you just have to realize… it ain’t a big deal… AND this too shall pass. Before you know it, it will be the thing of baby books. And blogs. 🙂
My toddler does most of this stuff most of the time. I’ve learned that if you can’t learn to find the humor in the situation you will go insane, or maybe because I’ve already gone insane I find it. Either way, you’ll feel better if you can laugh, it relieves stress :p
Amen to that!
haha! my mother would get SO ANNOYED because i hated the way she buttered toast and spread things on bread, in general. I am still crazy picky and spread everything to cover it completely to the edges! i guess i never out grew the picky part but i got old enough to do it myself :p my husband says i have food control issues LOL but really, no one else does it right hahaha
That’s not picky, it’s just the right way to do it!
I still think all spreadables should be spread to the edges! Bugs the crap out of me if they don’t…
Agree!! it has to be done evenly too. Bread has to be fresh to be edible (within 24 hrs). Pasta & noodles have to be cooked to a certain consistency. Those flowers on toilet rolls have to face upward. Why can’t everyone see my point? (seriously, at least I can do it myself) lol
I am glad I’m by myself at home (the boys don’t count, they’re too young) because I laughed out loud! Very very funny. And I’m really glad my boys don’t really ask for anything in particular… But that might come…
My oldest has taken to demanding food items that don’t actually exist. They always come up with some new way to make mealtime stressful…
Wow, that is very creative of them! smart kid!
Oh man!! ROTFL I’m crying, this is so my life right now. Thank-you for the laugh.
OMG! My daughter does the same. And she’s outrageously angry and has a high screechy voice when she informs me ‘NO!!! I don’t want whatever-food-item-she-requested’. Another genuine LOL from me!!
Yep!!! Of course, after I make the pancakes, the 3 year-old will request cereal and the two-year old will want burritos (frozen ones). This way I will have prepped three meals before 8 am and my kitchen will be trashed for the rest of the day. Thank you for making me feel less alone in my messy kitchen =)
This is a grandma speaking, so take it for what it’s worth. Moms are NOT short order cooks. Kid asks for pancakes, you make pancakes. When kid refuses pancakes, mom says,”That’s fine, but that is what you have. If you don’t want them, you don’t have to eat them, but I won’t be making anything else.” Yes, there may be a hissy fit on kid’s part, but you can live through that. After enough repetitions of not giving in, kid finally gets the idea. By the way, Grandmas are allowed to give in to every request from their grandkids 🙂
Finally someone who agrees with me. I refuse to cook more than one meal. With 4 kids in my house, I would never get anything else done.
Hence spoiling the grand kids and leaving mum to deal with the aftermath? Hmmm grandparents should say no too.
I agree! I often tell my kids “I am not a restaurant” and also a favorite “I didn’t say you have to like it, I said you have to eat it. Hate it all you want!” 🙂 I make one meal for each meal time. If they don’t like it there will be another meal in just a few hours.
And also, grandparents do say no more than they admit. But sometimes it must be fun to give in 🙂
Yes-the grandparent comment was a bit tongue in cheek. We have healthy snacks and meals at home, but do go out for fast food once in a while when we have the grandkids 🙂
I say no A LOT, but do allow an occasional treat 🙂
Grandma, If you’re gonna talk the talk, you need to walk the walk.
I do…most of the time. We have healthy food and snacks, with a bit of chocolate as a treat here and there 🙂
Being a grandma rocks…you get a special pass on all rules that are “have to”s for moms. I know these things, I’m a hybird grandma/mom. Oldest is 28 and has kids 5 &3, youngest is 4 and was born an aunt.
Go grandma, that’s what I do…but I must say I generally make food I know they will eat…
I am all about, you asked for it, you eat it! My daughter thinks I am the nicest mommy most of the time. But I have been very stern about the eating what you ask for rule for as long as she could speak. She now (will be turning 7 next month) knows that I will not be giving in. I wont let her go hungry, but she wont be picky either or she will. She is rather picky about not wanting to eat most meats though. (I do try to keep her and hubby in mind when preparing foods) It makes meal planning tough because she would live off of bread, veggies and fruit, but Daddy wants meat, and wants her to eat it. I try to do balanced meals too.
Oh and on the pancake thing, those are a treat at my house, and if she ever pulled that, I wouldn’t make them for several months. Then remind her why she isn’t
getting them whenever she asks.
Love it!! I don’t play short order cook to my son (2). He said he wanted pancakes for breakfast and then refuses them…well that is what’s for breakfast eat it or don’t. Same with lunch and dinner eat it or don’t but you not getting anything else.
haha so true! i do this 80% of the time… but once in a while WOW the 5 year old goes into such a crazy tantrum (which makes me dig in harder – i refuse to give into tantrums!)… but it’s enough to make me want to avoid it from the get go for a while… blah. hours of crying and consoling is DRAINING lol
At 6 1/2 I taught my son the art of making his own PB&J – a lifelong skill. “What, you don’t like what’s for dinner? Feel free to make yourself a PB&J because this is what we’re having.” Funny how he always manages to come around to what’s been served…
awesome idea!
But if I gave that choice to my son (make a PB&J) he. would. never. eat. anything. else. again! (and making it? omg. he. LOVES. that part!) (he is 4 and all he ever wants is a pbj sandwich!)
In my home, those kind of tantrums got you put in your room, and told that you can come out when you are ready to be happy again. Worked with all six kids. Sometimes they straightened right up; sometimes they took a nap first. Sometimes there was pounding on the walls (ignored), sometimes it was instant happiness and light. NO consoling involved.
Hear Hear! I couldnt agree more!! Yay for us Grandma’s who have lived to tell the tales!! 😛
Yeah! Another grandma speaking – I’m of the same mind – you ask for pancakes, I made them , you eat ’em! I make one meal when my girls come to grandma’s (and try to have stuff I know they like) but that’s what for dinner and if they don’t eat, no dessert – yes, I actually enforce this, but so far they eat just fine for me cause they know this is all there is. Of course we have had marshmellows and strawberries for lunch on occasion… 🙂
Oh yes. I have a 27 mo. Old and a 5 yr old. This is dead on. Totally maddening!
I feel your pain. My 3-year old pulls that Crappy Baby move on a daily basis. I let her get away with it for too long…I’ve just recently started to put my foot down. If she asks for something, and I make it for her, I won’t give her anything else until she eats what she asked for. I also have a 1 year old…I’ll not be making the same mistake with her. (Which makes me wonder…what new mistakes will I make?)
Oh thank goodness it’s not just me. At kid #1’s request this morning, it was eggs, toast and applesauce. And then ate none of it and cried when I eventually took it away and threw it out. Kid #2 did exactly what Crappy Baby did and waited till I left the room. I thought it was just my 2 lunatic loveable babes.
Heather, I’ve tryed that here. Turns out my daughter will behave like the crappy baby.
Raspberries at the store are currently $6.49 for half a pint. They are organic and really tasty — but in a few weeks we’re going to get free ones from our patch, so I am quite reluctant to buy them. So I convinced my daughter that they were “too smooshed” and we should get the strawberries instead.
you are going to have raspberries already? I’m so jealous… the ground is still too frozen to plant anything here in Nova Scotia, and my raspberry patch won’t be fruiting until at least July!!!
Well, we’re having a really weird June-like March here in southern Wisconsin. I may be off by a couple months. 🙂 I know strawberries should be ripe mid-to-late June, but it’s my neighbor who always lets me know when the rasp’s are ready. I cut the dead ones and tied up the live ones this year — it was starting to be a bramble — but they do winter over quite well.
My kids always seem to know when fruit is ridiculously over-priced, and it will be the only thing they want to eat. Whenever we’ve had cyclones in Queensland (Australia), banana prices go sky-high and the kids just want them more and more. But each time the price drops to under $3 kg, they lose all interest in them. Grrrr…..
My older girl will do this. We’ll start with me asking her what she’d like for breakfast. She either gives no answer or says “I don’t know”. I’ll pour her a bowl of cereal. She’ll look at the bowl and say “I don’t want this! I want scrambled eggs!” So I’ll scramble her an egg. Then she’ll look at that and say “I’m not really hungry.”
Who doesn’t want pancakes? Ever?
I’m that weirdo that hates pancakes. Well, pretty much all cake. Don’t even get me started on syrup….
But brownies are my weakness. And now that I’m a grownup I can eat them for breakfast if I feel like it!
I eat brownies for breakfast too! In a bowl with milk like cereal. So healthy.
I totally eat brownies for breakfast!
My son loves pancakes but we’ve discovered the hard way he _hates_ them if I put blueberries in them (doesn’t like the texture once they’ve softened with cooking)… so my big treat of blueberry pancakes is now pancakes with blueberries on the side. Tiny adjustment, made _all_ the difference!
I’m definitely on for “you asked for it, you eat it”. My house, I’ll offer two choices of dinner and whichever is chosen, gets eaten or you go hungry till the next meal. I am _not_ running a restaurant and I sure as heck can’t afford (not to mention am morally offended by) throwing out perfectly good food.
My 2 year old is currently crying for popcorn and says she won’t eat that yucky dinner. She always asks for a turkey sandwich for every meal.
omg, so true.
my two-year-old will emphatically say no to anything i offer, eggs? no! yogurt? no! oatmeal? no! i put scrambled eggs and a dish of oatmeal on her tray and walk away. i come back, all eaten…
haha this happens ALLL of the time in our house!
Hah! My toddler is also going through the want it/don’t want it stage; was going to request that you do a strip on the nuclear reaction that happens when want and don’t want collide. For example, the other day he screamed and fought when I tried to dress him, so I said OK, you don’t have to get dressed. I went into my bedroom to dress myself, and he screamed and ran after me, holding his pants and shirt out. So I tried to put his shirt on him again, and he screamed and thrashed and had a 15-minute meltdown.
Oh Heather, what a scream!! Some days you wonder how you stay sane! 🙂
My 2yo is doing this. Driving me nuts, but I figure, if nothing makes him happy, we’ll just do it my way and be done with it.
Oh yes I know this one all to well also!
I told them we were going to get dressed now, and their choice was to do it happy, or do it sad. Either way, it was getting done.
Oh yes! This! Constantly.
my crappy girl should be friends with your crappy boy.
My son DID THE EXACT SAME PANCAKE THING TO ME.
What is it with pancakes, and why can’t it be a food that doesn’t take any effort to make?
Thiz iz muh lyyyyyfe! Lol, so frustrating sometimes!
My son is so Crappy Baby in this.
I swear my son is trying to ‘Gaslight’ me sometimes when he clearly tells me he wants one thing and when I give it to him he looks at me in ‘that’ way and says he wanted the other one. He actually makes me doubt what I heard the first time, every time.
Ps I love love love your blog, thanks for making me see the funny in my frustrating
I tried to get my 19 year old to watch Gaslight with me last week so he could better understand the meaning of the term. Unfortunately he got bored and went off to his room. Great use of the term though.
Are you referring to the 40s movie? Or is this a current pop culture thing I am totally clueless about?
Yes she is and it is used as a term in sociology and psychology classes to refer to someone trying to alter your perception of reality. Kids are wonderful at that! LOL!
Jeez Louise – I have a 7 month old … Already, apparently breakfast boobie is on the ‘No’ list, until I put him down for a sleep and he decides he’s a Starvin’ Marvin’. Croikey … Aaaaaallll this to look forward to.
I have the kid who asks for something and while I am making that requested item, he tears apart the fridge and, pantry and eats until he isn’t hungry for the item I made. *sigh*
So funny!
My toddler last night demanded milk with his dinner but got really angry when I put it in a sippy cup for him. So I transferred it to a regular cup and he got even angrier. Eventually I figured out he wanted it poured on his spaghetti and meatballs (as if it were cereal). I dribbled a little bit of milk onto the spaghetti and he ate the whole lot! Glad to know my kids aren’t the only insane ones.
Hilarious!!! I never would have figured that out.
I just spewed water all over my computer. Maybe I should try that with my girl since she REFUSES to eat spaghetti. Really? Who hates spaghetti????
I think we’ve all suffered through this stuff, but I tell you, it didn’t even take me all three kids (8, 5, 15mos) to not be a good playmate in these games. Unsolicited Tip #1: You really only have to go hard-core once, or maybe once a year (kids constantly reinvent themselves), and they’ll learn to do their whining BEFORE the food is made or served, and save their breath after. Once they’ve gotten what they asked for, or are given a beyond-reasonable serving of whatever they’re told to eat, they know it is theirs till the grave, one way or another. (Magically, they eat, whether they like it or not, and they appreciate the foods they love that much more, when they get them.)
Being genuinely full is one thing, asking for food and “changing your mind” or pulling the old, “I’m way too full of this delicious food to eat even a second bite! On an unrelated note, can I please make myself a peanut butter sandwich, ‘for dessert’?” game is quite another. We’re not insane enough to force them to totally clean their plates every time; eat crazy size servings; or start up battles for the sake of battling. We have pretty reasonable expectations each meal. For what it’s worth, my wife and I are stuck much like children ourselves (having had kids before finishing college), so we have some pretty sweet dinners most nights, compared to what I was forced to choke down (lol) as a kid.
So try it! Be an ogre for just a little while, maybe a few weeks (depending on how ingrained these terrible habits are in them), and once they get the idea, you are 98% DONE with it for the rest of your life! It’s awesome.
That’s how meals work at my house with a 5 yr old and a 15 month old. They eat what I prepare, for better or worse. So far so good. No has died and 5 yr old has only gone to bed hungry once 🙂
Once is all it takes, right?? Another “once” is telling a kid breakfast is that food they thought they’d successfully (and/or rudely) dodged the day before. I don’t even bother threatening that most of the time, I usually just say it’s lunch the next day (some mac & cheese, a hot dog, chili, etc.?– no big deal).
It was breakfast only once for one kid, in fact; a special circumstance for a very stubborn (and smug!) girl on a very nasty day. Word gets around. That priceless face masked a brain that never will forget… lol
indeed. I have a home daycare and kids will pull the “I’m full. can I watch tv now?” only to be followed by, “I’m still hungry – I can have watermelon now?” (we only watch one show, after lunch, before nap). They get shot down the first time they try it (“Sorry! Once you leave the table that means you’re done. But we’ll have a snack after nap time!”) and they get it. They stay at the table until they are really & truly 100% full. The first time being a hard ass totally sucks though.
If you’re nearby here, sign me up for that daycare! It’d be so much easier to just not give a s***– keep fighting the good fight, for the benefit of future society!
Let’s keep in mind all kinds are not the same. I have one kid who eats wonderfully. The other kid does not. I use the same tactics on them, including going hardcore and ogre like you describe. It has no effect on the younger one. It’s humbled me to the point where I like to point out to others that just because it worked on your kids, doesn’t mean it works on all kids.
I have no shortage of this problem around my house! My youngest will go so far as telling me that the same food item (IE. Granola Bar) that I get for him is no good..but will take a different one out of the box himself and THAT one is Perfect!
Although the best is when he thinks I’m not looking and feeds his dinner to the dog, only to tell me 15 minutes later that he is hungry!
I avoid this problem by just not asking crappy toddler what he wants, ever, but simply making whatever I like and refusing to make him anything else if he doesn’t want it. If he won’t eat it he gets a banana, which he never fails to demolish. easy.
Yep, I never asked mine what he wanted ever in any circumstance except the truly trivial (red cup or blue?). He’s going on 6 and is just being introduced to the joy of decision-making…
This would never fly when I was growing up, if mama made it you ate it! We were all scared not to!
Gah, it doesn’t end with toddlers either! My Miss nearly-6 has taken to not liking just about anything. Even stuff she loved yesterday. Also has taken up saying “I don’t know” or ” I can’t decide” when given two choices. Therefore, if she won’t decide, she gets what she’s given and eats it, or goes hungry. Mostly, after complaining, she eats it, so I wonder why she bothers expending e energy to whinge!
Ha! good to know what to look forward to! thankfully, my 17 month old is going through the everything gets a “no” answer but she eats it anyway. I know she doesn’t mean her “NO’s” when they are related to blueberries. Blueberries = baby crack.
Blueberries = baby crack for my 12 month old, too, but unfortunately they’re giving him some awful diaper rash. His dr told us to cut back yesterday. He’s going to hate me.
My nearly 2yr old is the same as Crappy Baby. When I provide the requested food, he shakes his head, mournfully looks up at me like I’m an imbecile and says “nooooooo” in a very sad voice. If I persist in telling him that this is indeed the food he requested, he’ll smack the food out of my hand and tell me to “GO AWAY!”. Yeah, fun times.
When my son was a toddler he used to play those games with me. Ask for Mac n cheese then after its ready he change his mind and want spaghetti n meatballs. Then me, being a complete idiot and wanting to please my child, would make the spaghetti and meatballs then he change his mind and want oatmeal… 🙁 It took me a while to stop wasting food like that.
I’ve gotten to the point with my kids (1 picky eater, 1 EXTREMELY picky eater to the point of losing weight) where I make their meals, dish them up and ask if I should just throw them straight in the garbage or if they’d like to play with their food first.
wow, you are better than me. I would eat their food. In fact if they iddn’t eat, I would justmake what I like since they won’t eat it anyway….and just leave them a supply of /\p/b and bread
How nice that you let your children decide what they want to eat. That ain’t happenin’ at our house. Mean momma here. 😉
Love your blog!
Right on, right on
I swear all children get together in some sort of secret society and try to figure out the best way to press our buttons. XD
This I can believe. I often marvel at the genius, well beyond their years, in coming up with the absolutely most exasperating thing to do or say.
My 2 yr old still fits in a high chair, and I think if she outgrows it I will have to find a bigger one. It makes her slow down long enough to realize that she is actually hungry. I am lucky she eats almost anything, she just doesn’t want to stop playing long enough to eat.
My 2 year old doesn’t do this stuff. She will happily eat anything. It’s my 36 year old husband who pulls this crap. Somehow I would prefer it to be the 2 year old doing it, I would have more patience for it….
36 y.o. husband should make his own food…he obviously had a mom that catered to him…another reason not to be a short order cook
Ain’t it the truth? Tough love, tough love
hahaa! i so could have written this! but it’s my 42 yr old husband! and when he tries to do things like push broccoli around on his plate he TOTALLY gets the ‘mom stare’ where i am mentally threatening him if he doesnt eat that broccoli and be a good role model LOL meanwhile, 5 yr old and baby are happily eating whatever… mostly.
i am one optimistic and stubborn woman – took me 10 years but he now eats pasta sauce. (husband, 5 yr old i am still working on LOL)
My husband has resorted to hiding the vegetables he doesn’t want on our daughter’s plate when I’m not looking, instead of the other way around!
My partner has got to be the weirdest guy ever. He’ll eat almost any meal I make him even if its something he isn’t hugely keen on (like veges) but he’ll eat anyway because its food made by someone else and he’s hungry.
But, there have been a few occasions where I’ll be eating something that doesn’t appeal to him.. and yet, he ends up helping me eat it. Example:
Significant Other: ”what are you making?”
Me: ”Spinach and mozzerella pizza” (frozen, from the store)
S.O: ”ewww…”
Me: ”so you don’t want any?”
S.O: ”nah, I’m good.”
S.O: (Ten mins later, when pizza has cooked and I’m eating) ”eww that looks gross… its got too much spinach”
Me: ”Its nice, I like it”
S.O eyes me eating for a few moments. ”can I try it?”
Me: ”sure” (hands him a slice)
S.O eats the slice in just a few bites.
Me: ”what did you think?”
S.O: ”nah too much spinach”
(when I’m eating my next slice) ….(eyes it) …”can I have some more?”
Me: ”but you said you didn’t like it…?”
S.O: ”yeah, but I’m hungry…”
MEN!
my baby wants to eat kleenex and lick Doritos…and then give me the soggy chip. feeling the failure.
I did the first “you-didn’t-eat-it-for-lunch-now-look-what’s-for-dinner” routine just last week. In the span of 4 hours, homemade pizza rolls went from poisonous to incredible! I get this a lot with my two spectrum kids.
Girl-I swear you live in my house! 🙂
I know this doesn’t work for all kids, but my boy (4 years old) thinks that reverse psychology is hilarious – and has since he was at least 2! So our convo would go: ”Here are your pancakes” Boy: ”No!” Us: ”Oh, right you don’t want to eat these, their gross, yucky. I’m just gonna through them out. DO NOT eat them…” Cut to him shovelling the food down and laughing hilariously 🙂
Bwhaahahahahahahhaha… yes.
My baby is 17 now, so I don’t have to deal with this anymore (phew!).
When they were little though, twas a different story.
so and so loves salt and vinegar chips.
today, hates them. Husband says “It must be Tuesday…”
It came to be a catchcry “oh it must be Tuesday”
🙂
When my kids were little lunch was a battle. It was “what do we have” and I’d list the lunch things we had (usually spaghettios, grilled cheese, mac and cheese, those type things) and I got sick of repeating these. So I made a “menu” of the lunch items I always had (with pictures for the three year old) and they could choose and I didn’t have to consider hurting them. It didn’t ALWAYS work, but it did help with some of the stress! 🙂
My little guy is the same way. My other favorite is this. Little guy puts his plate of half-eaten snack on counter. I say, “are you done?” He answers yes. I go to eat what is left in the bowl, and he freaks out-“don’t eat my snack!!” I give it back. He takes one more bite and then puts it back.
My little boy is EXACTLY the same! Ha ha! So glad there are others like us out there!
Thank you. Seriously needed a laugh after tonight’s attempt to get picky 3 yr old boy excited about food by involving him in cooking. He picked every aspect of meal and helped. ( I made meatballs for the first time EVER) and when placed in front of him, had a screaming, ‘you are torturing me’ meltdown. Didn’t even taste it. He ate a hotdog.
I have also tried to involve my picky eater in cooking, since that’s supposed to help (she’s 4.5 and has been picky since she turned 2). It is a failure. I mean, she loves to help cook, but she is as disinterested as ever at actually eating the food we made together. For a year, the only new food we could get her to try would be candy and cookies. Now, she actually tries new food and so we are slowly adding food back in (instead of just peanut butter… we can now also make sandwiches with jelly and/or nutella) … it’s been a rough 2.5 years of many, many hot dogs, though!
my youngest, now 9, literally LIVED on peanut butter sarnies for about 3 yrs … eventually she ate real food… but then i was just grateful that she ate anything at all! (i swear we went thru 1kg of peanut butter every 2 weeks!)
I allow my boys (3 & 5) to choose what they eat for breakfast and lunch, but I pick dinner. Dinner is what it is and if they chose not to eat it, our not enough if it, they are welcome to go to bed hungry.
They get to pick breakfast and lunch but once they pick and I make it, they can eat it or go hungry.
My 3yo is pushing it though, as his standard response lately has been either “poop” or “nothing”.
It must be the age. My 3yo girl’s standard answer to every meal-related question is now “poop!” too.
POOP! giggle giggle I was hoping it was just a 3 year old stage, but then I remembered almost all the adult males I’ve known…
LOL Oh my toddler is pulling that… asking for something, I cut it all up for her, put it down in front of her, she looks at it blankly and then says, “No.” Arrrggggggggg!!
My two year old currently throws a fit when he finds out something he wants needs to be cooked first like pancakes, or eggs, or mac&cheese. The conversation typically goes like this.
Toddler: Want ______.
Me: Ok, I’ll make you some _____.
(one minute later)
Toddler: Pleeeease, want _____.
Me: Just a minute, it has to cook first.
Toddler: No have to cook.
Me: Yes, I have to cook it before you can eat it.
Toddler: NOOOOOO! NO HAVE TO COOK!
(insert tantrum)
My son (18 mos) is also incapable of waiting for food to cook. While I try to make dinner he rummages through our cupboards and pulls out all sorts of snacks that he wants me to open for him. I have resorted to trying to fend of the impending tantrums by feeding him snippets of not-yet-cooked food (uncooked pasta; bite of an onion; etc.)
My kids simply cannot handle significant choices at breakfast time. They get oatmeal, day in day out, and we have enough parmelat and propane to keep us eating oatmeal through the worst of storms.
Nevertheless, the older boy once spent 55 minutes rolling around the kitchen floor crying, because I put brown sugar (not white) on his oatmeal within the time it took him to change his mind.
I have a 20 month old whom will have pancake bites on her plate. After she’s done throwing them on the floor, I get her out of her seat…and she suddenly becomes interested in them again. Yes, mom of the year for letting her eat off the floor…but if it gets her to eat, it gets her to eat.
I don’t have kids yet, but I don’t intend to short order cook. I don’t even let my husband pick what I cook. If I cook, you eat what I feel like cooking. If you want to pick what we’re eating, you cook (and I will eat whatever you serve). I don’t think the kids will get quite as much autonomy to pick what we eat though.
My mother didn’t short order cook either. You ate what was served. If you didn’t like it there was always bread and butter and milk. If there was something you really wanted you could ask nicely well in advance and that might be what was served.
You’re never as good of a parent as you are when you don’t have kids.
I said that exact thing many times BC, but now, while I don’t jump to any demands, if you let them pick between two things, and even if they choose, it doesn’t mean they’ll eat it.
Ask your mom how she dealt when you were a toddler, betcha it’s different than what you remember as a school aged kid.
Teresa, I totally agree that you’re never as good a parent as you thought until you have your own kids, but as the primary caretaker of my three kids, I assure you that she is totally right on track for her vision of dealing with kids at meal time.
Don’t lose faith, Tricia! Pick through all these comments and you’ll find plenty of people who don’t torture themselves by caving in to a toddler’s psychological games, and their children are very well-fed and happy!
I am also encouraging you to stick to your philosophy, but just remember that it’s okay if you cave sometimes. and I actually don’t think this post mentioned Crappy Mom cooking a whole new meal–just the meltdown that followed a specifically requested meal. And last I checked, even if any of us were short order cooks, you can’t just send your food back because you changed your mind. At most restaurants you’d need to buy a whole new meal.
i have a 156 month old who just informed me she doesn’t eat turkey and has never liked it – ??? she ate TWO turkey burgers last night?!?!?! oy! vey! … think we’ll try the pancakes tomorrow … sigh…
Conversation with my 2.5 year 45389764967 times a day:
Me: Do you want strawberries?
Him: No tank-ooo.
Me: Do you want a banana?
Him (angrily): No! I want strawberries peez!
Every day for the past 18 months I’ve loved being a mama. My son is a perfect treasure. Except today. Today this was my life. I’ve gone from laughing at you, to laughing (in an exhausted sort of way) with you. And now, I get it. Sigh.
We are so sorry to welcome you to the club.
We have a saying in our house “you get what you get and you don’t get upset”. Mind you it’s just a saying. They still get upset. But you do get what you get.
Yeah, the last part is definitely wishful thinking. I had never heard this phrase before, but the kids came home last year saying another version of it (as well as this one) they heard at school: “You git what you git, and you don’t throw a fit.”
My kids taught me that one, and they use it on each other. But somehow they don’t see how it applies to themselves.
So about that camera that you have in my house…can you just point it at her crib and link me to the video feed so I won’t have to spring for a video monitor? Thanks.
OMG I just read every single post you’ve made and my husband was looking at me funny because I was laughing so hard I was crying. Everything you’ve drawn/written is so true. Thanks for the laughs.
This makes me so thankful that my children aren’t picky. It would drive me mad!
At snack time, when I ask my 4yr old daughter what she’d like, she often says “Surprise me!”, which means “look into my brain and guess which one snack I want…if you bring the wrong one I’ll send it away!” I hate that game.
My son knows the sound that the chip bag makes from across the house while my husband is trying to sneak a few into his mouth. He always comes running and says, “Me want chip too, Daddy!”
Kate
http://www.justdelivered.net
Yes we have that too! He also can “smell” them. We walk in the door and he is begging for a snack (I think humm something healthy) and my husband is shoving chips in his mouth! Way. to. be. a. roll. model. husband. NOT! I won’t even bring up the fact that I am already starting dinner/cleaning the kitchen/washing dishes, and myself starving while tripping over my son who is still begging for a snack why hubby is shoving food in his face. Oh wait, I just did……. I hate that i get home at 6:30 and have to get dinner and bed and all that in by 8:30 for bed….
The pancake incident happened to me this morning! Luckily, they were leftover pancakes from this weekend, so at least I didn’t whip up a batch. But still…
I really connect, because I, too, have crappy boy and crappy baby. They do the same thing. Except, they are both a little younger than yours, so I just see what I have coming. Crappy baby is STARVING until you put him in his high chair, and then he is ALL DONE! Ugg. My three year old acts excited about most meals and then they sit in front of him for an hour while he talks and does other things, and then I finally let him get up knowing he won’t stave himself.
I think I’m Crappy Boy in this comic–and I’m a 20-something female. I’ll cook dinner and end up wanting something else every. single. time. I don’t give into my whining, though, and tell myself I have to eat what’s on my plate. I’m the biggest meanie EVER! 🙁
I just had this conversation with my sister last night! We were wondering where our children learned this frustrating behavior, and then we remembered our own issues with mealtime. I make what’s easy to cook, serve, and clean up, but not necessarily what I really want. Sigh.
If I ask my daughter if she’s ready for dinner, she screams, clings to my leg, and cries as if she’s starving and can’t wait another second to eat. Then she takes one bite and she’s done.
No problems with my 2y.o, or my 4y.o stepdaughter… No.. it’s the 6!y.o stepdaughter that makes me throw my hands in the air and give up on being able to make one meal.
It can be something she JUST ATE the day or the week before.. or that she PICKED OUT. When it is placed in front of her, she doesn’t want it. It’s gross, “Why would you make something so nasty Katelyn?” Makes me insane, I’m not a short order cook and we’ve stuck to eat it or go hungry, but she throws a wrench in it all the time. If it’s a Sunday morning we get “That’s okay! Mommy will feed me what I LIKE when I get home anyway!” and on Fri or Sat she waits until the meal has been cleaned up, innocently asks to talk to mommy.. and get’s whatever meal she wants through her mothers psychotic screaming at DH.
this is SO my life!!
Mine are 3 & 5, this is our daily argument.
how about a post on sneaking your favorite foods so your kids don’t see because you don’t want to share with them and because you want to ENJOY your treat? i was just talking about this w/ my other mom friends.
This is so familiar right now. My 2yo got so fussy after a tummy bug, probably because I offered her everything under the sun to get her to eat, and now she will say she wants something and then refuse it when it’s given to her. Lol @ Charlene, agree totally plus the guilt that I don’t want my daughter to use food as a comfort/reward like I do and end up with weight problems and try not to give a bad example so I hide all of the “naughty foods” and gorge after she’s gone to bed
I learned from my middle son that frozen waffles have a “right” side and a “wrong” side, and if they are on the plate with the “wrong” side up they are not edible. Also, PB & J must be made with the PB on the bottom, and if presented the other way round you cannot take it back and flip it…it is not edible. For a good while, PB & J also had to be dipped in ketchup to be edible. Any uneaten, untouched food that has been on someone else’s plate first is not edible.
Haha sounds like my toddler. Thankfully Mr 13mo will eat practically anything, and is nice and chubby. Mr 2.5yo is super picky (or will eat all of one thing so there’s none for anyone else/for him the next day) and is surprisingly (not) rather skinny. I’m just so glad he still bf lots so at least he will get some awesome nutrition everyday. Le sigh.
I love these posts!!!! I will have to try leaving the room when my baby will not eat what he asked for! Your post sounds almost exactly like most of my day,s but my crappy baby prefers to ask for waffles and then not eat them. Tomorrow I am leaving the room! And I love the idea of having the food magically appear! Thanks Heather!
Please tell me this phase ends….my baby refuses to eat anything I give her during the appropriate time frame for eating it….she refuses her breakfast, lunch or dinner until it’s time to leave, clean up or go to bed at which time she realizes that she’s starving. My middle child eats so slowly it’s maddening….he always seems to have a bite in his mouth but chews at a painfully slow pace. My oldest child eats relatively quickly, but does not miss a chance to point out the fact that he IS eating well to the little ones….all this to say, dinner is never enjoyable! Certainly NOT the picture of family meals that I had when I envisioned my life with little ones!
My 17yo won’t eat anything I make for dinner. She wants ramen with egg, black beans and rice, macaroni with garlic and egg, tacos or hamburgers. I can’t eat any of those things. And she weighs 94 pounds. Tons of fun, getting her to eat each day.
Yes! This is the thing i complain about the most. No one told me dinner would be absolutely miserable for the next nine years and counting. And it’s not because we let them misbehave, it’s because teaching them to eat properly, and requiring them to eat good food, is constant, mindnumbing work.
Frozen pancakes!!!! Aunt Jemima brand have no preservatives. Just sayin.
That happens to me every day!
I get requested items pelted at me every day.
Oh my goodness, half insane, that is so true!
Idea: Just don’t feed them. Oh wait, someone would call somebody, wouldn’t they?
ok, bad idea. Sorry. i’ll go away now. My kids are teenagers. I still can’t please them.
I don’t remember having these eating issues as a kid…we just ate dinner. We had the occasional nasty food my parents made us try, like rutabaga or asparagus, that would end up on the floor by my sister’s chair, but dinners were mostly peaceful. What was their secret?
However, my sister didn’t eat a meal for 8 years (she would always shove it under the sides of her plate) and she made it just fine…
I’m laughing! So funny! Even more remarkable is the fact that you can see the pattern in your kids’ behavior. You have a gift.
This blog keeps me sane – it reminds me I am far from the only one with a toddler who does such things. Luckily not frequently but when she does it it drives me up the wall!
Elin, I’m with you – we had meals that we ate (well except my one brother who I think only ate Cheerios). The End. even when Dad made his favourite home made hamburgers served with rice (???).
I have heard that giving toddlers too much choice confuses them/their need for boundaries. Maybe our parents had it right!
I WISH my son would ask for something! We’re going on 3 days of no-junk-food allowed because he won’t eat any actual food! He won’t try new things, and won’t eat what he usually likes. And he won’t ask for things- I’m constantly having to ask if he’s hungry and if he wants this food item or that one, and then he still doesn’t eat what I make him 🙁 I thought if he got hungry enough he would eat, but it’s not working (partly because Daddy keeps forgetting the “no junk food” rule) yet and I don’t want to starve him or anything! So now he’s living on milk and V8 juice (the kind w fruits & veggies).
I always have to hide from the toddlers I nanny at mealtimes, reappearing only to hand out more food. Otherwise they won’t eat a thing.
Its sooooooooooo true…….!! Goodness!
Thats when I started saying…do you want mac n cheese or chicken nuggets? Do you want to wear the pink shirt or the blue shirt(the torn red shirt NOT being an option_)? This was my MOMMY POWER lol…….the kids THOUGHT they were in charge….but….really not….this works with husbands too……shhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! Not really, but we can dream!
well, sometimes it works with husbands(;
Wow, I can’t wait til my boy is a couple years older like Crappy Boy so he can pull that one. Clever young man, clever.
😉
I know my next child is going to be a picky eater so I can see what it’s like on the other side. The one I have now pretty much eats anything you put in front of her. We have to hide from her to eat even healthy food if we want any chance of even getting a bite of our own meal….. She will want everything on her own plate and be eyeballing ours and getting nervous if we’re eating too much of it before she can shovel hers down and demand ours as well.
that exact pancake scenario happens all the time in our house, even after he has proudly helped me mix the ingredients… weirdos
Ohh! This ranks right up there with;
“Mummy, can I have a snack?”
“Sure, we have lots of ___ (insert name of food they have been begging for for weeks)”
“Don’t we have anything GOOD to eat?”
Sometimes I reply to this, othertimes, I behave and bite my tongue.
(What do I say when I can’t resist? “No, Daddy and I decided to only buy yucky food from now on, so you’ll eat less.”
Really think it’s an individual kid thing. My cousin’s 3 year old eats everything and demands more. My child is super picky. My sister and I ate everything including spinach and liver happily. My husband and his siblings all existed on plain noodles, PB&J, and american cheese. Same for sleep issues. One child fights sleep with everything every night. Another goes to bed on their own when they’ve had enough.
Trick is just to do the best you can. When times are nuts my mother loves to say, “There’s only one (name insert here) and we got ’em”. 😉
I’m a preschool teacher (don’t have my own kids yet) but here is my most memorable food related story…
The centre I used to work at serves a hot meal everyday as well as a morning and afternoon snack. When I was working in the under 2’s room one day I was serving up the lunch meal. It was macaroni cheese with mixed vegetables as a side. I’d miscounted the number of plates we needed by one and so the final plate had only macaroni as we’d run out of vegetables. We distributed the plates randomly to the children. The child who got the meal with no veges (he was about 18 months at the time) started screaming and threw himself off his chair after looking at his bowl and everyone else’s (luckily they were low chairs so he didn’t hurt himself). He was inconsolable on the ground crying and refused to sit back at the table. We couldn’t figure out what the problem was as he was normally not fussy and he’d eaten mac ‘n’ cheese before. We wondered if it was because his meal didn’t look the same as the other children’s, so I went next door to the kitchen and added some veges from the container set aside for the preschoolers and brought it back to the under 2’s room. Low and behold, when we showed him the veges he stopped crying straight away, got back onto his chair and started devouring his meal.
When I told his mum the story that afternoon, she couldn’t believe he made such a fuss over no veges. Imagine – tantrums over the lack of veges as opposed to the presence of them!
Wonders will never cease, right?
We go through that exact same thing!
Or, even worse, my oldest (6) will say he wants pancakes, so hubby will make some…and then put blueberries in them. Which no one likes. That my mother left here – I have never bought blueberries in my life. And hubby doesn’t understand why no one wants the fricking blueberry pancakes.
I wonder when this wears off. My daughter is 8 and exhibits both Crappy Baby & Crappy Boy’s behaviour 🙁
Thanks for sharing. This made me laugh out loud. I too have a crappy boy (3.5 yr old). My youngest will still eat most things without protest, thank goodness…
Oh my goodness, this post made me chuckle! As I read, all I could think of was my son at the age of four. It was like he was the protagonist of this story! 🙂
My food woe is my older daughter will ask what is for dinner. Usually I try to make stuff that we have already tried before and they have eaten without threats to their life. Whatever food I tell her is immediately poo-pooed or a grumble starts. Unless of course it is frozen pizza, but even my middle daughter will poo-poo this, so I try to be vague when I explain what is for dinner. This buys me time to finish it and place it on the table before I get the grumbles of complaints!
I love this. I used to swing in when you were woodmouse (right?) and now lookie here…. I find you again. Awesome space. Has me laughing every time.
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