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When is it ok to let a child go to bed without having eaten their dinner?

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  • 24-11-2011 7:29pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,634 ✭✭✭


    So we're currently having problems with dinner time. My little girl is 21 months old and has now decided that unless dinner is cheese it sucks. We always give her a portion of whatever dinner is on for that day but most of the time she pushes it away, says no and asks for cheese.

    I don't want to slip into being a short order cook (anyway what she loved yesterday she thinks is muck today so no point) but is it ok to put her to bed at bedtime if she hasn't eaten any dinner? Not sending her to bed cos she didn't eat dinner, we're not wanting to turn dinner into a battle ground.

    Any advise very welcome!!


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 6,339 ✭✭✭How Strange


    David Colemans advice on this matter is to give her what she'll eat (as long as its healthy), maybe a little bit of what you're eating too, don't make a fuss if she doesn't eat it and don't make what she does or doesn't eat the focus of dinner time. After that give her healthy snacks when she looks for them. He says fussy eating is something all toddlers go through.

    As for going to bed without dinner ie hungry I don't see what it will achieve. She's too young to understand consequences or cause and effect so all she'll know is she's being put to bed hungry.


  • Administrators, Business & Finance Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,921 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Toots


    Is there any way you could use the cheese as a bribe, ie: if she eats a few forkfuls she gets a cube of cheese? That way she gets her cheese but she's also getting meat/veg or whatever. I've used that one on one of my nephews who went through a phase of refusing to eat anything other than superquinn sausages and it worked quite well.


  • Registered Users Posts: 196 ✭✭Pugins


    Have a similiar problem, unfortunately. Not sure about letting her go to bed hungry just because I wouldn't want to be woken (even!) earlier in the morning because she's hungry for breakfast.

    I have read that some children go through this because what they choose to eat is one of the only things they can control in their life. They are becoming independent but get told what to do all day. So could try letting her make more decisions to give her sense of control which may mean she eats more. Small things like do you want to wear the pink tshirt or red one etc. Didn't work for us!

    What we do now is make one dinner for everyone. Do not give her other options or offer her alternatives if she won't eat whats there. But always include one thing in the meal that we know she'll eat. So we always have beans, peas, chickpeas, cheese as part of the meal. She'll at least eat something during the meal. And sometimes she'll eat other parts too.And it prevents the meal descending into trying to bribe/persuading etc

    Hoping she'll grow out of it. My main worry is her protein and iron intake. She will eat fish fingers and chicken goujons which i make so I know its good quality meat. So we have one of those once a week. She'll eat spag bol so again thats once a week. She loves hummus so has that for lunch twice a week. Pretty much every other lunch/dinner involves cheese but at least there's a bit of variety.


  • Registered Users Posts: 249 ✭✭slarkin123


    Can i ask what time is dinner and what time would she go to bed. I have a 22 month old who is a brilliant eater but would have the odd day he wouldn't eat dinner. No point on making a fuss about it, it will only stress both you out. We have dinner at 5 if he doesn't eat much i would give him a healthy snack about half six. His bed time.is 7.15. And he'd have a bottle going to bed. He may not have had a proper dinner but hes not starving going to bed either. Don't get into the habit of cooking different dinners for everyone. My sis in law did that and even today she would have to make 3 or 4 different dinners a night. One more thing does cheese before bed not give people nightmares. Not sure if its just an old wives tale or not.


  • Registered Users Posts: 157 ✭✭fi1979


    what is it with cheese, they all seem obsessed by it! I know my little one is!
    She's always been a terrific eater, but nearly 20 months now, and starting to get picky.
    I do find however that if I give food to her that she can eat with her fingers, she's happier than if we're trying to get spoonfuls of mash etc into her.
    Don't know if that would make any difference, or be of any help?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,617 ✭✭✭Cat Melodeon


    My boy still goes through phases of this at 27 months, demanding his 'food of the day' at every meal. So I tell him there's banana in his scrambled egg or mashed potato or whatever, or if he's looking for cheese, I just chop some up and put it into his dinner so he gets a little bit of cheese with every mouthful. I also find that finger foods work best. He likes to have control over what he eats now, and likes to have all the different foods separate on his plate - broccoli in one corner, chicken in another, spud in another, none of them touching each other. Apparently, this OCD-type behaviour is quite common in toddlers, it's a way of them exerting control over a small aspect of their life. I don't freak out too much about it, if he doesn't eat his dinner I make sure he gets something nutritious before bed, like a snack of fruit and cheese or yoghurt and a rusk or something. He's healthy and missing the odd meal won't hurt, although I would want him to have something in his belly going to bed, for my sake as much as his.

    I would try and make sure that dinner isn't too close to bed time though. We have dinner at 6pm, bed time is after 8. This is to make sure that dinner isn't being skipped in order to get at the bedtime snack - he has to be hungry enough to eat his dinner and know that there's a long wait til bedtime. Also watch how much fluid your daughter is getting - offer drinks after dinner, not with it, as she might be filling up on liquid, killing her appetite and making her more able to fight over the menu.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,893 ✭✭✭Hannibal Smith


    We had exactly the same problem with our son at exactly the same age. Meal times were becoming a nightmare so I brought him to the doctor. He told me when my son refuses to eat let him down away from the table and don't give him anything until the next meal time. I only had to do it once, he never refused any meal since.

    That was only 1 lunch time I'd imagine dinner is more tricky. Does she get a bottle going to bed? Because on the one hand it might help her last through the night, but its not much of a lesson. Is it only dinner time she does it?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,634 ✭✭✭TooManyDogs


    Thanks everyone, I feel better now that other people have the same thing!

    We eat at 6pm and she goes to bed at 8pm, the way we've been working it is that she can get down from the table if she wants, we don't make a fuss, if she at least tries some of the dinner she can have something else when we've finished eating. If she won't even try it we normally either let her down from the table if she wants to go down or take her down when we're finished and about half an hour before bed we'll offer her a banana or cheese or something similar. Tuesdays are the worst days because my in-laws come for dinner and they focus so much attention on her "oh look at that big girl sitting in her chair", "Aren't you a great girl using your fork", "Look at you eating your dinner", and on and on it goes, she's a shy girl anyway so to have that direct attention freaks her out, and she goes straight down from the table. Drives me nuts.

    I guess I'm frustrated that where she used to eat literally anything now she won't even try it! I think that's one of the most frustrating bits, she gets half way up her chair and looks onto the plate, roars NO and gets back down!!! I have to confess that makes my blood boil.

    I'm extra paranoid because we're vegetarian and I get so many people giving out about me raising a veggie baby, that I won't balance her diet correctly etc etc. I have my niece living with me too, she's 2 and half, not vegetarian and when I realistically look at it my girl actually eats more protein than my niece.

    It's only ever dinner she regularily does it to, occasionally lunch but I've no problem leaving her til her next normal snack time but I guess it is that selfish bit of me thinking there's no way I want to be woken up at 3am cos she's looking for 'nom nom'!


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,128 ✭✭✭cynder


    The go through their phases, Is there anyway you can melt the cheese on what she is having, pasta and cheese, rice and cheese, potatoes and cheese?

    My fella went through a phase of liking cheese and would eat chunks of it, his now 6 and cant stand cheese.


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