We suck at feeding our kid
Apr. 13th, 2012 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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plan_surviveA while ago I posted about our 2yo's too late (for us) bedtimes and there were various theories involving being stricter about them, or cutting his nap out, and similar.
I think everyone has a point, but one of the biggest issues seems to be food.
What happened was that once I posted, he stopped it for several weeks. Now he's started again. And both times it has been associated with what appears to be real late-evening hunger, and a growth spurt. It's a little bit complicated because he just acts awake and naughty, or asks for treat food ("cupcake! cupcake!"), but what makes us think it is real is that he will stay up for hours being awake and silly, but once he has a lot of milk and a big helping of crackers or similar (offered by us without prompting), suddenly he passes out and sleeps.
The question is then, how do we stop this? He refuses additional food with his normal dinner, he seems to want us to give him an extra meal at 9pm. Do we just accept that that's what his growth spurts demand, or is there some way to encourage him to eat more at 6/7pm?
We also struggle to work out how much of what we say about this he actually understands. He has an age-appropriate vocabulary (I don't have a count any more, but say he has 300-ish words and short sentences at least some of which aren't fixed phrases), and remembers stuff we've promised in the future (like going to the pool, say) for a day or two, but I think "if you don't eat now you will be very hungry when it is dark" isn't a thing that reaches him. I think he's some way off arguing meaningfully about this!
I suppose one possibility is giving him much more regular snacks, but I hate the waste of it so much. Feeding him seems to involve throwing away about two thirds of the food we offer him.
In terms of the "comfort briefly and leave" strategy for bed time, it's difficult to implement. He can open doors now: he can reach and turn adult-height door handles and descend stairs by himself. (We can't install locks, it's a rental house.) He can easily lower himself out of beds. He also knows that smashing stuff and climbing up things and jumping off brings us running, and will use this if he has to. So it's not a question of leaving a drowsy toddler in bed, it's a question of leaving a very hyped up very active and quite determined toddler alone in a dark room.
As usual we're going through this when we've both been quite sick too, so actually we really need him to start sleeping more in order to recover.
Some notes:
He's 95+% for height (approaching the height of a median 3 year old at 26 months), and given genetics we're surprised this isn't higher, if anything. Not sure about weight, 50–70 depending. Kids aren't measured that often in Australia, he probably won't be measured medically again until next year now. So those figures are rough.
He's in long daycare 4–5 days a week, so I don't have a heap of fine control over his portion sizes and similar. All I can tell you most days is that he eats somewhere between "most" or "all" of the food served at daycare. He often asks for food immediately on pickup.
I think everyone has a point, but one of the biggest issues seems to be food.
What happened was that once I posted, he stopped it for several weeks. Now he's started again. And both times it has been associated with what appears to be real late-evening hunger, and a growth spurt. It's a little bit complicated because he just acts awake and naughty, or asks for treat food ("cupcake! cupcake!"), but what makes us think it is real is that he will stay up for hours being awake and silly, but once he has a lot of milk and a big helping of crackers or similar (offered by us without prompting), suddenly he passes out and sleeps.
The question is then, how do we stop this? He refuses additional food with his normal dinner, he seems to want us to give him an extra meal at 9pm. Do we just accept that that's what his growth spurts demand, or is there some way to encourage him to eat more at 6/7pm?
We also struggle to work out how much of what we say about this he actually understands. He has an age-appropriate vocabulary (I don't have a count any more, but say he has 300-ish words and short sentences at least some of which aren't fixed phrases), and remembers stuff we've promised in the future (like going to the pool, say) for a day or two, but I think "if you don't eat now you will be very hungry when it is dark" isn't a thing that reaches him. I think he's some way off arguing meaningfully about this!
I suppose one possibility is giving him much more regular snacks, but I hate the waste of it so much. Feeding him seems to involve throwing away about two thirds of the food we offer him.
In terms of the "comfort briefly and leave" strategy for bed time, it's difficult to implement. He can open doors now: he can reach and turn adult-height door handles and descend stairs by himself. (We can't install locks, it's a rental house.) He can easily lower himself out of beds. He also knows that smashing stuff and climbing up things and jumping off brings us running, and will use this if he has to. So it's not a question of leaving a drowsy toddler in bed, it's a question of leaving a very hyped up very active and quite determined toddler alone in a dark room.
As usual we're going through this when we've both been quite sick too, so actually we really need him to start sleeping more in order to recover.
Some notes:
He's 95+% for height (approaching the height of a median 3 year old at 26 months), and given genetics we're surprised this isn't higher, if anything. Not sure about weight, 50–70 depending. Kids aren't measured that often in Australia, he probably won't be measured medically again until next year now. So those figures are rough.
He's in long daycare 4–5 days a week, so I don't have a heap of fine control over his portion sizes and similar. All I can tell you most days is that he eats somewhere between "most" or "all" of the food served at daycare. He often asks for food immediately on pickup.
