Toddler Dinners: When shit hits the fan
Let’s get something straight. Just cuz I take photos of the food doesn’t mean it goes well. I do that BEFORE. We still have the HORRIBLE meltdown nights. This week for instance. See Tuesday? I made homemade pizza. It was awesome. Pineapple and bacon people! Now see Landon doesn’t like pizza. I know. WEIRDO! So being the accommodating mom I am, I gave him some turkey pepperoni and cheese instead. Well, I pretty much gave him poison in his eyes. He ate his mangoes and some salad and then the screaming started. He wouldn’t even try the pepperoni. NO NO NO! There were tears and twisting in the high chair. Screams of “my belly” where he struggled against it. It was quite annoying (but the reason we are still in a high chair). All we wanted was for him to try it. All he had to do. Terrorists, we are.
That is our rule: you have to try it. If you try it and don’t like it…that’s fine. So we push. Maybe we shouldn’t but we do. It is rare. We can usually ploy him into it. And USUALLY he likes it. Like the spinach artichoke pasta the other week. Or the first time he had chicken sausage. You tell him there will be no special treat unless he tries. He tries and then exclaims “i like it!”. This is the reason I push. Landon is MY son on a lot of levels. Stubborn, hyper, daredevil, always hot…so I also applied to food. There isn’t much I won’t eat. So I figure he isn’t a picky eater and I push new foods.
If he doesn’t like something, that’s fine. I might put it on his plate another day with more things he does like. I also don’t push new foods on fussy evenings. I am not dumb. It just depends. I accept he won’t like some things but I also don’t want to be making special meals for him until he is in college.
So how do you deal with food challenges? Tantrums at the table? Do you think I am terrible for pushing new things on him?
Note I only did 4 days on here. I am on vacation and my photoshop is not with me.
Also be sure to follow me along throughout the week with your creations on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #toddlerdinners.
Well, I think your kid is a rock star just because he’ll eat spinach and broccoli! Allan is a pretty good eater but when it comes to the dark greens it’s hell to the no. I ditched the high chair just before he turned two, it was more of a battle to get him in it and he’d figured out every way possible out of it. It ended so many dinner battles. 90% of the time he eats what we eat and with us. He cannot get down until Mommy and Daddy are done. I’ll let him color at the table or get down and play with trucks next to the table on a really bad night. We’re pushers with food too (he ate pecan encrusted triggerfish last night), I want him to try things and I’ve told him enough that I want his tummy full of good food to make him big and strong that he’s started saying that to other people!
Both my kiddos have feeding issues. My nine year old we terrorize. . . the five year old is on the spectrum, and so befuddles us that the answer to “So how do you deal with food challenges?” would fill volumes, and changes daily. So much for consistency.