I really dig the notion of intuitive eating for kids (ie. chill.. if not interfered with we actually know what we need to eat, how much, and when, at any age), which is discussed in this piece, Grow up already from Shapely Prose. (I also really dig the word “dig”, I’m doing my bit to bring it back or keeping it in circulation, or something).
In every extended family there must be at least one otherwise lovely person who seems to enjoy an occasion to be a sanctimonious prat about your parenting. Between my politics and my feminism I’m already a little feisty at certain gatherings so mostly I hold my tongue when this person starts up (and in this case their children are younger than my daughter and I’m waiting for their own high horse to take care of business) but every now and then I allow myself a little down time and I snark back. When the snipey comments started up about certain children at the birthday gathering, including my own, being allowed to indulge in a little soft drink I was pleased I’d just read that piece, Grow up already. Instead of sarcasm – hey, why don’t you light up another cigarette, top up your rum and coke and tell us all about your views on healthy living? – I hauled out my soapbox and climbed aboard. I made polite conversation gave a thinly disguised sermon about intuitive eating and why it was important to me. I won’t give you my little F.U. speech because everything I paraphrased was once written much better by Shapely Prose (check ‘em out) but I will elaborate here on how we’re trying to apply intuitive eating with our almost four year old daughter and what is working for us.
It is difficult to write about this without sounding a little preachy, so forgive me, I’m not wanting to criticise your approach (in fact I’m more than curious to hear from others about their approaches and ideas – we’re still learning).. but here is where we’ve been and where we’re going.
First of all I breastfed her on demand as a baby, which turned out to be a great introduction for me in developing a trust in intuitive eating for my child. When she started solids we made our own baby food (I still find this unbelievable – so not me) in order to know exactly what was in it and exactly how yummy it was. Doing so meant that we could introduce her to modified versions of the spices and styles of dishes that we eat and helped her to acquire a taste for them from quite a young age. As a baby we favoured vegetable dishes over fruit dishes with her because we’d heard about all the toddlers who liked fruit but who wouldn’t eat vegetables. Either that worked or we just got lucky, but so far she is a kid who loves her vegetables.. and her fruit. (Can I offer one tiny bit of tactless advice to non-vegetarians? Some of you – not all – can’t cook vegetables for shit, probably because the meat dish is usually the king of the table, but in any case it is no wonder your kids think vegetables suck, consider using some good vegetarian recipes from time to time to jazz up your veggies).
During the first two years we were restrictive about the foods we offered to her – essentially no highly processed food, and no ‘treat’ food (ie. party food/junk food). I figured that if you’d just arrived on planet earth in the last year or so that there were plenty of amazing foods to sample before you got to chocolate milk and corn chips, why not save these for a little later down the path? This was our most hypocritical stage because we still sometimes ate these foods, we just weren’t offering them to her. The turning point for me came when she was old enough to become aware that we, and others around us were apparently eating foods we enjoyed that she wasn’t being offered. (This happened around two years of age, who knows if we’ll get the same period of grace with the second child). I didn’t want to lie to her – “this food is yucky, you wouldn’t like it” – or do anything else to inadvertently make a fuss of certain foods so we started slowly introducing her to ‘treat’ foods when we were eating them. Initially a lot of the sweet foods were too rich for her to enjoy. I acknowledge that this is a very tricky step to judge.. and certainly the relative I referred to above is taking a very different route to us with this quandary in their family – they’re flat out fighting their kid off the cake that we’re all yum-yumming over and singing a toddler-attention-grabbing verse of Happy Birthday around.
We are vegetarian so from fairly early on we talked about being vegetarian and about not eating meat and about why we didn’t eat meat. Call it indoctrination or call it preparation, basically we knew she needed to be able to understand one day why some people were eating foods that we weren’t and essentially why we didn’t want her to eat meat. So far, so good. She is a very proud vegetarian, in that way that all (almost) four year olds are where they think their families are shit hot. When we arrive at a party I quietly point out to her which food is meat and which isn’t so she can snack away without any awkward moments for her or the host. I notice that she has also learnt to check quite comfortably if a food is meat when it is offered to her by someone else. Because she is vegetarian we probably make slightly more of a big deal over protein-rich foods than other foods, like, your body might like these nuts or this hommus because it needs plenty of protein.
Although we’re a little restrictive about some foods (eg. meat) ourselves, here is where I have some trouble with certain members of the sugar police (like our extended family member above) – because they impose restrictions on their children that they themselves aren’t following. No cake for you, you can’t be trusted with it, but cake for me is ok. Vegetarianism is a restriction and maybe we’ll inadvertently create a taboo interest in meat for our daughter but I feel ok with it because we’re being consistent about it as a family. We believe in it strongly enough to all be doing it and she has some vegetarians among our friends and extended family. Contrast this instead with the way her father and I occasionally have a sneaky chocolate stash, just for us, hidden in the house. This is surely nothing but trouble – we are so lurking around bad, bad eating habits here. How to not eat intuitively: food that must be hidden, food that must be eaten secretly! In general I think our daughter should be able to help herself to anything in our cupboard, it is up to us to make sure the cupboard is full of options we’re happy with her eating. (Boo hoo).
We offer her new foods even if she thinks she won’t like them. We never force her to eat something but we do praise her for being adventurous enough to try something new, and every time we’re eating them ourselves we offer her all the vegetables, even the ones she says she doesn’t like. We also talk about why we like the taste of a particular vegetable that she hasn’t yet tried, in part to inspire her curiosity. Sometimes a new food has appeared on her plate ten or so times before she has finally decided to try it and often she ended up liking it. In the end we’ve generally got a child with an adventurous palate but whether we got lucky or actively facilitated it is hard to say. Just in case I try not to be too smug.
We never make something conditional on finishing her plate. We don’t fight with her about eating “just one more mouthful” or anything else, but then we’ve got the advantage of having a kid who eats well so I’m fortunate enough to have not been tested by a really reluctant eater. We let her judge when she is hungry and when she is full, although we’re not above reminding her that bedtime is soon and is she sure she isn’t hungry for dinner. Her taste for sweet foods is often satisfied by fruit but when it comes to sugary treat foods I’ve often been surprised by how little of that food she’ll actually eat once she’s been given it. It is an insight for me that she doesn’t gorge foods when she feels free to try them. And I recall a father once talking to me about their practice of having a sweets jar in their cupboard that they allowed their daughter free access to. They then guided her through the “natural consequences” of her eating patterns in evaluating her decisions herself. Apparently it was highly successful, she ate sweets intuitively, that is sometimes but not all the time and not to the point of getting sick. I can really see the logic behind it but I haven’t tried it myself. But lately our child has been fixated on sweet foods and this has both prompted me to consider further the wonders of the sweet jar while simultaneously fearing it even more. (Note to self: believing your child will eat something uncontrollably is not practising intuitive eating).
Our conversations about food with our daughter are often about the ways food can make us feel and what our bodies might be trying to tell us. This actually sounds much more orchestrated than it actually is, we’ve simply used opportunities when they’ve arisen. For example, over Christmas when she felt ill after eating a lot of rich sweet foods we talked about why that was. And after recovering from a mid-morning empty-stomach melt down we gently pointed out how much it helped to have a healthy snack to calm her (the fuck) down. Having established a link between what you eat and how you feel afterwards I’ve just recently started encouraging her to take responsibility for her own food choices. If she asks for a treat while we’re out I ask her if she feels like her tummy has had enough fruit and vegetables today. She doesn’t always make the decision I’d make but she has impressed me with her response to this new decision making power.
I try not to label foods as ‘bad’ or ‘good’ though I notice her father and I are both still struggling with this – we slip sometimes. Instead I am following lauredhel’s advice (NB. must find the link to her specific post) and talking about needing a range of nutrients, and that some are found in ice cream but others are found in spinach pie. Equally, we make a fuss over our favourite foods regardless of whether they’re more or less nutritious, so spinach pie for instance gets greeted with excitement because we all happen to love it, just as chocolate mousse would. I never talk about diets or my own body image issues in front of our daughter and I try really, really hard not to use ‘treat’ foods as rewards or bribes. This is difficult for me because bribery is incredibly effective in the short term and I am someone who is seriously tempted by quick and dirty solutions.
We don’t usually have soft drink/juice in our house, some people do and that’s cool, but we don’t. We’re pretty boring, wanna come over and hang out? However, when we’re at a party or out to dinner and everyone is having soft drink or juice then we let our child join in. Knock yourself out kid, be part of the group. Same goes for party foods. And thus we came to be at a family birthday party where our child was drinking soft drink, along with her cousin and some of the adults, when a certain relative piped up with the judgemental comments. Looking back at what I’ve written we still seem pretty uptight for parents trying the intuitive eating thing. I think we’re getting closer to what we’re trying to achieve but I’m aware that we’re also trying to overcome a bit of baggage here. We have to undo old patterns, think hard before we speak, and try not to freak out with the rest of the nation about the so-called child obesity epidemic.
Anyway, it seems writing know-it-all parenting tips wears me out, I must away to sleep and dream up more of my parenting perfections.
Oh, so true!
I wonder if you have heard about BLW? It is a way of introducing (your own) food to babies that doesn’t involve the pureeing. Erm, link here: http://is.gd/hipQ and she now has her own book now, which is excellent. Really fits in well with the intuitive eating thing.
Oooh I was the sugar police with my daughter! – particularly when she was a lot smaller (but she’s got a sweeeeeet tooth and will eat till she’s sick), but now she understands one piece of cake, or some lollies etc and she politely refuses when offered more than she knows she can handle. My son on the other hand doesn’t love sweet stuff so I haven’t had to monitor him so much. So I’ve loosen up and I wouldn’t eat stuff in front of kids that they wouldn’t be allowed to eat, nor want I tell another parent what to do/not to do (Hey I’ve made plenty of decisions that I thought were good and then decided in hindsight weren’t so, wouldn’t want to foist my mistakes onto others, plus kids and families are all different so what worked for me could be a disaster for any else).
My sister has a very restricted healthy/organic diet and is bringing her son up the same way and I feel bad when they visit that I have so little to offer him, plus my kids are eating rice crackers in front of him (stuff which I think is fine and healthy she doesn’t like) but she doesn’t say anything to me about my choices – she just won’t let me give most of it to her boy.
My child eats too much junk food. I eat too much junk food. So, there’s the reason. I agree about not imposing rules on your child that you’re not going to follow yourself.
I strongly agree with not forcing a child to eat something. I really don’t like the “finish everything on your plate” philosophy. But I also don’t like the rule of having to try everything. I was (and still am) a VERY picky eater. I had many aversions to foods growing up. If you’re not a picky eater, it’s hard to relate. But it makes me cringe when I see parents fighting with their kids. “Just one bite!” That one bite can be scary. I think next time a parent considers doing that, they should imagine someone saying the same thing to them. “Just eat ONE cockroach. Then you can have dessert.”
Most of my food aversions disappeared on their own. In my own time (without force) I decided to try them.
My son has never liked vegetables. We did do the fruit first thing despite the warnings. I’m not 100% convinced it’s true. I’ve heard some people just taste vegetables differently…it’s bitter to them. My son TRIES to like vegetables. He really wants to like them and keeps asking to try them. He puts it in his mouth and then makes this face. But some time later, he’ll eagerly try again.
Another thing that annoys me is when parents lie about a food. For example, someone hates green beans but wants their child to like them. They’ll lie and say “They’re so yummy!” and then pretend to eat them. I’m honest with my son. I think it’s best to say I don’t personally like it. But you might. And it’s very healthy for you. He eats a lot that I don’t because I’m vegetarian. He and his father are not.
Although….I have a VERY strong aversion to Mayonnaise. My son seems to be developing the same feelings. I try to remind him that it’s me who doesn’t like it. He can eat it. But he won’t.
Ah! I just asked him why. It’s because he has a fear of a certain brand of candy–so bad he’s requested all of us not to eat it. He felt it was fair (in return) that he not eat the food I so strongly dislike.
We offer the kid everything (unless it’s dangerous, like alcohol, or whole nuts when he was six months old etc) with a no fuss approach. I try to encourage people (ie. the Bloke and his family) not to hail the crap food and talk down the veg & fruit. We don’t tell him he has to clear the plate or have one more bite, but we do tend to sit at the table chatting til he gets hungry and tries things. He is fussy like a toddler, but more adventurous and varied in his eating than some of his adult male relatives, so I figure we’re winning.
Hmmm… yes… I agree with this ‘intuitive eating’ approach, for me, and for our girls, but with a caveat. I seem to be a supertaster/a>, as does my elder daughter. As an adult, I’ve learned to like more and more vegetables and fruits, but there are some I avoid. For example, I often find oranges and strawberries too tart, or too intense, and I rarely choose them for myself. My younger daughters are not so taste sensitive. However my elder daughter seems to be even more sensitive than me. What it means is that I make sure we have apples and bananas available most of the time (apples won’t be all that good right now after months in storage, and I haven’t seen any early ripening Sunrise apples available here, due to Australia’s non-tariff trade restrictions with respect to NZ apples), and cheese and plain hummus (homemade in great quantities), and I work hard on making sure that vegies are well prepared so that she can enjoy them (last night we had crunchy green beans – yum! – with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar drizzled over them – yum! yum! It’s a matter of thinking carefully about having enough palatable food available for her, instead of just what my partner and younger daughters and I eat.
Damn! Stuff up the html – sorry!
I’m so glad I read your blog. The Moog is now 3 months old, so it’s a bit early for solids, but this seems way more sensible to me than any other theory of getting kids to eat that I’ve read. Thanks for the heads-up!!
You have to watch the parenting police, some people just really get their jollies from trying to parent everyone’s children.
I’m all about the moderation approach to sweet stuff. We don’t really keep junk in the house, so the access is limited. Witholding birthday cake from a child who is old enough to eat it (toddler) while you are eating some is cruel, plain and simple.
We make our own baby food as well… I started out with BLW.. but then little bit choked on a bite of banana and I pretty much freaked out and went to smooshed versions of everything till he is bigger.
A very interesting post. It got me thinking about my own food policies when my son was young. You see feeding him was one of the places I’ve always thought I really fell down on when it came to parenting. My son was hyperactive and not at all interested in food. Getting him to sit still long enough to eat was difficult and he was a picky eater. Not having food in his system often spelled disaster. I was also working full time and going to school so spending a lot of time cooking or preparing or even figuring out what good food he would like just wasn’t happening. So I forced myself to be ok with just getting him to eat. He ate a lot of junk…I’m talking fast food and things out of a can (and not always heated up since I didn’t have a microwave and he didn’t seem to tell the difference). If he ate standing up or walking around the room I was ok with that (his father, not so much). I ate healthy and generally cooked healthy for myself. I used to feel horrible that I’d let him eat things I wouldn’t dream of eating myself. We never kept soda in the house but he was allowed to have it outside of the house. He had a sweet tooth and I would fight him for sugar packets in restaurants if I wasn’t fast enough to move them off the table.
Fast forward many years of these eating patterns and I have to say, although he is still a fairly picky eater (as I am myself) he mainly eats healthy balanced meals (as best you can living at a college). He doesn’t over indulge in sweets or soda, eats a variety of vegetables, will try most everything and likes many so-called “exotic” dishes and spices. He also eats only until he is full and no more, no matter how much he is enjoying it. He also knows how to read his body and, at a fairly early age, was able to say when he needed “real food” as opposed to junk. I think I did always talk to him about his food choices and how they affected his body but I didn’t do that as any part of a parenting plan.
I think its great that there are concepts like “intuitive eating.” It makes a lot of sense to me. The one thing I did know–intuitively–was that the more I tried to force what he ate and how he ate the more he would resist anything resembling a healthy eating pattern. I wish I had this concept available to defend myself against the sugar police back then.
Interesting to read, since food is on my mind all the time. Feeding kids is such a personal and emotive thing for many mothers.
My story is probably quite different to most of yours, but here it is – the sugar police should know there’s very good reasons for kids to eat ‘junk’ sometimes.
I started out being all pure and healthy with my boy (which I think is fair enough in the early months, there’s plenty of time). I also tried to do the Baby-led weaning thing, up until he was 9 months old, but then it turned out he was losing weight. I knew that it wasn’t what was going in that was the problem, but caved in to medical pressure and started spooning in whatever I could get in his mouth. I realised he had a liking for salty foods, but continued to avoid them on medical advice. Some months later, he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and pancreatic insufficiency. For those who don’t know, people with CF need more salt, fat and sugar than the rest of us. I should have trusted him all along, he knew what he needed.
These days, he gets to eat whatever he likes, and tends to choose vegetables and other healthy stuff as much as the salty, sweet, fatty stuff – though I still avoid anything overly processed or with artificial colours and preservatives.
I am the ‘bad’ parent at gatherings, making it difficult for the health food families, as my boy gets to eat all the sweet stuff, and gets the other kids whining for it. I have learnt to be a little more careful about this, not wanting to be too unpopular. But it does shit me when judgemental eyes fall on us, without a clue that this is what he NEEDS to eat.
So I have no worries about WHAT he eats these days, but I do worry a lot about HOW MUCH he eats, as he is still underweight. I try so hard not to do the “just one more spoon” thing, but sometimes it just happens. Its so fucking frustrating. And at mother’s groups I get (silently) cranky at the mothers of healthy, plump toddlers complaining what fussy eaters they are – relax, there’s no problem!
oh, this got a bit longer and crankier than I intended, better leave it there… happy eating!
Brigindo,
I think people make judgments when then they really have no idea what they’re talking about.
My two sisters and I (plus a brother-in-law) were talking about nutrition. My older sister and I both have children. We do let our children eat junk food. My older sister and her husband probably do a little too much fast food. My younger sister does not have kids. She and her husband are in the pediatric field and are very judgmental about how we parent. My BIL made a comment on how when they have kids, they’re not taking them to get fast food. If they want chicken, they’ll go home and broil a chicken for their kids. My older sister said that doesn’t always work. Sometimes kids will refuse to eat anything BUT the junk. My BIL said they’ll just not feed their kids and when they’re hungry enough they’ll eat the broiled children.
I think they’re idealistic and naive.
I had a friend who was a gourmet cook. Her child didn’t like to eat. He just wasn’t interested. He was VERY small. Why? His parents were both tiny. But people blamed the child’s size on the fact that the family was vegetarian. “Oh just give that child a hamburger already!” This mom felt so much guilt and pressure. She felt very judged. And she also worried about her child. I think it’s hard when your child doesn’t eat. It came to the point that she was happy if her child ate a cookie.
I think when parents have kids who eat well, they often mistakenly believe it’s all because of their brilliant parenting skills. But a lot of times it has to do with the child.
You can be a great cook.
You can follow all these brilliant parenting tips.
And with all that, you can still have a child who will eat only fried chicken strips and vanilla ice-cream.
It’s great to see your child turned out well.
Liisa,
Two of my brother-in-laws have Cystic Fibrosis. They really have to pack in those calories. And they’re STILL very thin.
Have you seen this website? It has recipes for kids with CF.
http://kidshealth.org/kid/recipes/index.html
I think it’s great that you feed your child high calorie stuff, but avoid the artificial flavors, preservatives, etc. I think that’s the ideal situation. But I say if a child will eat nothing but, I would feed them the junk.
I worked at a Cystic Fibrosis camp. A few times during the day, they came around with snack carts. At most camps, the kids probably get graham crackers and juice. Our kids got a choice of candy bars. There were probably healthier alternatives we could have used. But I think you get to the point where you just want the kids to EAT.
Gosh, I think we’ve been dead lucky with our kid and with our friends and relations. Blessings upon them. We too started sharing our ice cream and so on with the junior when he started noticing that we were enjoying food that he didn’t have. That was probably around 18 months. But back then we didn’t have many treat foods anyway. I remember vividly when he was given a chocolate mint at Aroma’s in Brisbane and his eyes went wide and he said ‘tasty brown one’ with astonishment and joy.
Thinking about this stuff makes me want to cry. Food has been a big source of stress with my kids, particularly with my daughter. I’m actually sitting here wanting to join in this conversation but feeling overwhelmed at the thought of trying to explain what it has been like.
aaaand I just wrote a whole bunch of stuff that on rereading was just too rambling and didn’t really say what I wanted it to. So I’ve deleted it. I’ll just say it’s been difficult and Dina’s comment resonates very strongly with me.
“You can be a great cook.
You can follow all these brilliant parenting tips.
And with all that, you can still have a child who will eat only fried chicken strips and vanilla ice-cream. “
We’ve found that the best approach is to eat at the table (which we never used to do) with a selection of dishes in the middle and everyone helps themselves. It’s often a very simple selection, but the idea is that you can choose what and how much you eat. Grace is a lot more receptive to different foods when she can pick them herself from a plate or bowl.
My partner is a strict vegetarian and I’m not at all, which leads to some interesting discussions about who eats what and why. We try to be honest about our differences without being argumentative and it works pretty well. Grace can go for days only eating bread or pasta with cheese and brocoli, the odd apple and soy milk. Then she’ll surprise me by liking a spicy Indian snack or octopus at a b-b-q. As far as sweets and treats go, if there’s cake or something she can have a piece like anyone else. Sometimes she eats just the icing or the cream, sometimes the cake – she’s starting to be quite discerning as to quality, preferring homemade or bakery treats to crudddy supermarket stuff. As for drinks, we have OJ in the morning and sometimes cordial later in the day. Especially if it’s hot. But she drinks water too. I’ve found some parents visiting us double take about the cordial… but hey it’s my house and Grace has to cope if different drinks are offered at other peoples places.
I love shapely prose too. And read it every day. But I do still dread the day when/if Grace becomes body and/or fat conscious. Would love to be able to protect them all from that.
i’ve never heard of intuitive eating, but it makes sense (gotta go read the piece at shapely prose) and i would not be surprised to learn that we follow it in some ways. bitsy is a great eater, and although she goes through phases — one summer week she ate nothing but blueberries and cantaloupe — she generally eats what we eat, with few if any complaints and with a lot of willingness to try new things.
the thing that has surprised me most about her is what happens with baked goods. that kid loves loves loves to bake, so we bake together at least once a week. her favorite (surprise) is cupcakes. but all she wants to do is like most of the frosting off one cupcake, and then she’s done. usually i make a half-batch of cupcakes and they still go mostly bad. the kid will gorge herself on clementines or cheese, but not on desserts. and yet it’s clear she appreciates sweet foods.
thanks for this thread.
Thanks Dina! I totally agree that it often comes down to the child and not the parent’s cooking or parenting ability, yet people will claim themselves better parents if they have a “good eater” and judge others who do not.
This post and all of these comments are making me think it is far more the messages we send (verbally and nonverbally) about food than any particular strategy. Meaning humans eat and eventually even the pickiest of eaters will find what works for their body if we just communicate honestly with them about food and their choices.
I’m a bit relieved that I’ve had sons rather than daughters, if just for the fact that I don’t have to worry so much about passing along my food and body issues onto them—although I do realize that the way I treat and speak of myself as they grow up will inform them of what women “are like” and I need to be aware of that.
Anyhew. Intuitive eating was something I became aware of about fifteen years ago as I struggled to overcome an eating disorder. A disorder that I think sprung up from having such controlling parents who made dinner time Manners Time and Eat Everything We Serve You time. There was much screaming, crying and stress at every meal.
So, I’m with Blue Milk in not forcing my boys to eat anything they don’t want. Two bites at dinner? Fine. Grazing all afternoon because you’re ravenous? Okay. Who cares. Nourish yourself with healthy food (mostly organic, wide variety of choices) and it won’t be such a BIG DEAL.
My 2.5 yr old is now very interested in treats–asking for M&Ms and cookies, etc. (after only eating them on special occasions for the last 6 months of his life) and I too am amazed at how little he eats of them before he’s on to the next thing. There is no bingeing.
I hope things go as well as they have for Blue Milk’s daughter as they grow older…
All very sensible. Thanks for posting this. I’m aiming for a similar approach with my daughter but it has made me realise that what really needs an overhaul is my own eating habits! We don’t usually have soft drink in the fridge but we do eat far too much chocolate and not always enough vegetables. So perhaps it’ll be good for my body as well as hers.
I’ve also caught myself talking about my fat arse in front of her a couple of times and I am completely determined to end that right now, before she can really understand me. Our own body-part-hatred is such an insidious influence on our children. And the thing is, I don’t even hate my body that much. It’s just a habit, like a verbal tic. I’d like her to grow up without that particular hard-wiring…one can always hope!
We have been so lucky with Lily – she is naturally keen on vegetables, tofu, tempeh, beans and fruit and I’m sorry to admit that we can’t take a lot of credit for it. I was a disgustingly fussy child when it came to food and don’t deserve such a vegetable-loving child.
I think that intuitive ‘feeding’ came to us naturally as part of the whole intuitive parenting approach. Anything else just seems disrespectful. Plus we don’t really have any food in the house that I am not happy for her to eat and so I have never been worried about letting her make her own food choices.
Sometimes I get concerned that she seems to be eating nothing but carbohydrates and protein, but then she will go on a vegetable and fruit kick, and then on to some other random combination. Over the course of the week it all balances out. Plus she breastfeeds so often that I am lucky enough not to have to worry too much about her nutrition yet.
The challenging thing for us was the whole vegan thing. I really thought that after being a vegan for 15 years that I would raise her as a vegan. However, she tried some cheese and really like it and so I buy it for her – vegetarian, organic, local, but still Cow’s Cheese. Ditto for milk-based yogurt which she prefers to soy yogurt. I also let her eat food at other people’s houses if she wants to (except flesh-foods), because I don’t like the idea of anything being so special that it is ‘off limits’.
Its been an interesting ride and I am sure that there are plenty of challenges to come. (Such as her recent obsession with the idea of chocolate). However, I really agree that respecting your child’s capacity to make good decisions for themselves is a good foundation.
Food, the control of food, the provision of food, is such a fascinating subject. I think it’s so often because food is the symbol of love. Are we giving our children the good love? Or the junk love? What is good love? Is sweet love okay to have sometimes, even if it’s not been scientifically determined to be that healthful in large quantities?
I think about this particularly because I’m so aware of my different food-brains in shopping and eating. When I shop for food, I’m in my food-provider, self- and other-parenting role. I’m rational and only buy healthy things. When I look for food in the cupboard, especially when I’m not really that hungry, I’m in my food-receiving, self-as-child role. I want sweets, I want white-bread toast with butter, I want hot chocolate – it’s not rational at all.
With my fear of adding the specific association of food-is-love to my child, I let myself not to get too worried about what he’s eating. I know my shopping brain isn’t bringing too much that’s really unhealthy into the house, and if he wants some of it to eat, great, if he doesn’t, at present I don’t need to worry about it. If he’s a picky eater when he grows up, fine. If he isn’t, also fine. It’s just food. It’s not that important.
I don’t know – 3 kids, 3 completely different outcomes. I can pretty much leave the eldest to his own devices, he is old enough to understand why he needs to make food choices and he’s not too bad at it. The middle one is a nightmare, uses not eating as a weapon (which works incredibly well on his father) and really only likes a small number of veggies even when he is deigning to eat. The smallest is still small enough to eat most things, but never everything at any given occasion (the other two were not like that at her age).
One of the problems with the “teach them the consequences of their food choices” approach is the massive variation in different kids’ physical responses to various styles of eating. The eldest can make himself sick if eats enough rich, sugary stuff, but it is a monumental amount. The middle one has never achieved it. His physical stomach size is the only limitation. I was exactly like him as a child, and am only slightly different now. So if it works for your kid, it is definitely a good choice, but if your kid is blessed with a cast iron stomach, you may have less success.
And blue milk, who knows how your second will go with keeping the sugar at bay until 2, but the odds are stacked against you. I’ve never heard of a second child making it that long, but I haven’t conducted an exhaustive survey, YMMV. I am hopeless in this regard, my 3rd started demanding the good stuff at about 8 months….
I’m the cow with the perfect kid who, when asked what he wants for dinner, replies “Bwoccli… wif potatoes an’ cawwots please!”
I think it’s because we’re vegetarian, and I truly love vegetables, with the exception of mushrooms which I believe are the devil’s food. He even eats those though, because I make a point of being excited about having vegetables and how yummy they are.
That’s great, Anji. I wish I had kids like that. However I wonder if in addition to you modelling all the right things, your lad was also just born that way. I am the cow with twins who slept through from about 10pm to about 6am at 10 weeks, and then from 7pm to 7am at fourteen weeks. I am very inclined to think that it’s as much due to their own dispositions as to our own parenting techniques.
Case in point – a friend whose five children all slept through the night from about 8 weeks. She thought she had it sussed, but then she had to get up to number 6 every night for 18 months.
I’m sure that we can reinforce (or ruin!) the dispositions our children are born with, but I’m also fairly sure that in some, even many, cases, children will do their own sweet thing, regardless of what their parents do.
You make a good point Deborah. Orion slept through from 6 weeks or so and that really was just the way he was born.
He makes up for it with whiny tantrums though.
I think intuitive eating works if you have good eating habits to begin with. My problem is that I have never craved lettuce, or indeed any vegetable. I can’t believe my body when it tells me I need to eat fish and chips 3 times a week, or more. But this is a personal response, related to my own bad eating habits. A child or adult who eats a range of foods is more likely to be able to eat healthily intuitively. Someone with a junk food addiction, like myself is not. So there is a place for the sugar police, but I use them on myself rather than other people’s children. I let my kids indulge at parties, but not too much. A couple of glasses of something sticky is enough.
I agree with you on the double standards thing: if you want your kids to eat their veg, don’t be seen scarfing the fast food and the chocolate.
This bears with my basic parenting rule to model the behaviour you want to see. If you want your kids to be polite, be polite yourself. If you want them to enjoy fruit and veg, let them see you enjoying your fruit and veg (“Yum yum what a delicious salad!”). If you don’t want them to have too much screen time, don’t have too much screen time yourself. If you want them to have a varied social life, let them see you enjoying being with your friends.
This topic makes my blood boil. I’ve concluded that it’s more about feeling judged as a parent than the content of the critique.
Athought I’ve heard it many times, I don’t buy the argument that my kids will be permanently damaged if I don’t keeps sweets in my house at all times. I’d like someone to offer up some research to prove it. All I’ve ever heard is anecdotal evidence and it always seems to be in reaction to a disagreement about household food policies.
There, I said it. We have food policies.
We do have treats in our house, at times. But not often. We allow soda on special occasions and if the other kids are having it, ours can too. But I won’t be shamed into offering pop-tarts for breakfast.
So I’ve been designated The Sugar Police by friends and relatives because I’ve said no to sugar bubble gum for my two-year-old, among other things. Just as I say no to commercial TV. Seems I’m raising little social outcasts. If they can’t drink Coke and watch American Idol, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM??
I just don’t buy it. And if my child is allowed to woof down all the oreos she can at someone else’s house, I’d say the problem goes a bit beyond me.