He’s won.
I’m admitting defeat.
It is a battle I can no longer do.
My gorgeous little man, who would stand, mouth open like a baby bird, waiting for food that I was cooking-whose favourite expression was ‘me try’, has finally broken me.
Almost every meal he has been offered in the last 3 months is met with rejection.
Rejection sounds like a grown up, almost sophisticated reaction, this is not the case.
First glimpse of dinner elicits the following responses.
I DON’T LIKE THE YUCKY BITS
When questioned as to which are the yucky bits his reply is…
ALL OF IT
And yes this is all delivered in a deafening scream.
Yesterday’s offering of beef stew resulted in a new level of insult….
IT IS LIKE A BUCKET OF POO
Clearly we have a problem, I yearn for the little boy who wolfed through currys, who adored chilli, who ate almost anything he was given.
Yes, it is a phase, and I know this too shall pass but sometimes even this knowledge can’t prevent despair.
There are only so many mealtime battles I can do, only so many times I can bring him back to the table. Only so much time I can spend cajoling him to eat a mouthful, a forkful, a taste.
For now I am accepting that his continual love of pesto and raw carrots is covering the vegetable side of things, mashed potatoes and pasta cover carbs, and sausages and occasional chicken will suffice for protein. For fruit we rely wholly on apples.
It is not varied, it’s not expansive but for now it is about covering the basics, taking the battle out of the battleground.
I might be walking away, he might think that he has the power but that too becomes boring when there is no one to struggle against.
I hope his early love of food, the sheer variety he once enjoyed will mean that while he has won this battle…..I will win the war.
He'll definitely come back to it. He's probably just experimenting with the power of rejecting it; but like you, I'd be much more inclined to just feed him the basics than to try to force anything. You can't force a child to eat but you might die trying.
I have to say I almost sympathise with his position on stew, though. It was never my favourite. I used to sit at the table scraping the juice off the chunks and eating as few as possible.
I'm sure it is just a power struggle at the moment as he seems to be trying to push all sorts of boundaries right now!
I take you're point about stew ( which was always one of my favourite dinners) but I was raging I had wasted some lovely red wine in making it, next time I'll drink the wine and I'm sure dinner will be a much more pleasant affair….for me at least!
Thankfully my little guy has yet to go through a phase of refusing food, though the only vegetable he will touch is sweet potato! Have you read the book 'My Child Won't Eat' by Carlos Gonzalez? It's a reassuring read.
I must have a look. Because he's my fourth I'm not as stressed about it as I would have been. It's more annoying than anything else. My job is to provide him with good food but I realise I can make him eat it!
My 3 and 8 month old is currently doing this. He used to eat raw veg as I prepared them, wolfed down chicken, brocolli, peas, you name it, he ate it. All of his meals were met with a loud "YOM!" Now he lives on Weetabix. This has been the case for maybe 3 months now. After the 9 year old living off milk and one yogurt a day for his first 18 months, it doesn't bother me anymore. No child ever allowed themselves to starve. Or so they say.
That so true, hunger will dictate and hopefully this phase won't last too long!! It's the frustration of it that gets to me but I'm going to have to park that for now.
Ha! Slowly coming out of pasta phase with occasional yogurt and apple. Nearly broke me…!! You would think I'd learn: fifth child to do this….!!
Sometimes I wonder if we ever learn…the 'need' to feed and nourish overrides experience!!