Good eating habits for fussy toddler

I watched a programme last night called "Child of Our Time" where a parent threw her son's dinner into the bin when he refused to eat it. She made no fuss.


My going-to-be three daughter is a pain to feed. We have to turn the tv on or give her toys to play in order to lure her into eating. Sometimes we'd have to bribe her: "If you finish your dinner, you can have ice-cream". Other times, we are feeding her while she is moving around.


Sometimes we give her congee (which she hates) simply because it's easier to feed and she tends to spit out chunks of meat from her food. Having said that, she seems to enjoy eating chicken wings and drumsticks, and have no problem with them being chunky.


I'm a bit worried because I know that I'm probably introducing bad eating habits but I'm uncomfortable with throwing her food into the bin for fear of "starving" her. For example, if she hasn't eaten her lunch and breakfast, how is she going to last a day at school up until 5pm?


My question is, should I just let her starve (no fuss and throwing her food in the bin like the programme I watched last night) regardless of whether or not she goes to school in an attempt to change her bad eating habit?


Any suggestions on what can be done?

Try the "Supernanny" book. In a nutshell though, children look at eating as a game, one where they have control of the rules. When you accept that your child is telling the truth "I'm not hungry!" and you then throw the food out (I did not do that - when they said that, I simply reached across and took the whole plate of their food onto my plate and ate it at once - there was no recourse, and NO seconds for them) then you acknowledge several things:


1. My child is truthful - I believe you

2. There is no fuss - no coercion and no bribery

3. If you are hungry - eat. If not - do not eat. This sets a good eating habit to prevent obesity

4. Consequences: if you don't eat, there are no sweets to fill up on, and so I need to wait until the next meal.


It also teaches the parents to be consequential. Good luck!

Hi ! I posted a thread about this recently. And I know and understand exactly how you feel. My almost 4 year old is not a PAIN to feed, it's impossible. She won't eat. I have tried EVERYthing and EVERY way.


Finally, my husband and I agreed, there might be something wrong with her physically? Before we conclude it's psychological.


Just to give you an idea how much she eats, she ate 2 chicken wings and just lots of water over 3 days.NOTHING else. When she DOES want to eat, which is like once in 2 weeks, she will eat willingly, but she would throw up the whole meal if she eats more than half bowl portions. A few times in the last 3 months, we forced her to drink her milk (1 cup) it took 3 hours. (I thought the milk would turn into cheese). She ended up throwing it all up, you can tell she purposely induced her throwing up. Two weeks ago, she had a mango pudding, she looked forward to eat it, but after she ate about half, she said she wants to throw up. She tried a few times, I stopped her (screaming) while we were in a restaurant.


So, we took her to the doctor.

I told our ped that I know all mothers say their kids don't eat, or not eating enough.... I explained our situation, and he took me seriously.


We ended up holding a sheet for the lab saying "Anorexia cause?". It's sad, but I am glad we did it.


We took her to get a blood test, she was freaked out. And, a urine and poop specimen is also required. Just to rule out any physical problems, or infections...etc


After that blood test, since then, my daughter feeds herself, and eats everything off the plate, and drinks her daily milk now. No more screaming, yelling, no more time outs, no more toys, no more Tv, no feeding ...etc.


I don't know whether to be happy or not because that means, she was SO stubborn before that no matter what we did, bribe, coax, reasoning, disciplining, punishing, time out, ...etc. Nothing helped. She was purely doing it just to go against us.


Now, she understands, if she doesn't eat, she will need another blood test.


We didn't do it to scare her, but this is how stubborn a child can be. I am sure your kid cannot be possibly as stubborn as mine, the advice given above are all good, however, for me, none of the above worked.


I don't know how long this will work, but for now, everyone's happy that she's finally eating well after almost 3 years of problem eating.

Yeah, my husband and I wonder... how long is THIS one going to work.


I am STILL waiting for her to "poop" so I can bring it to the lab.


It can't be overnight... (the lab says) but she likes to do it at night EVERY day. So, now every afternoon, I am asking her to try... she just replied "Mommy, it's not going to come out right now. I can't." ( LOL)