Lately when things have gotten chaotic around here, I notice that I get very snappy and annoyed at the kids. I start to sweat the small stuff when I know better. It’s easy to slip into that negative mode, isn’t it? When the days can wear you down and you just want a break or breather. A little more space to enjoy. I want to enjoy my kids while they are little. I want to sit down to a meal and not yell through half of it over one thing or another.
When we choose to let certain things go and decide they are not really a big deal after all, a space for joy opens up. For a little while, dinner time had started to become a real pain. Paige would whine and fuss about her food, or she’d take an hour to eat (and only pick at her food), or she’d just not eat and would complain instead. I was constantly on her case…”you need to eat!” “a few more bites!” “Hurry it up, dinner is almost over!” “Paige! Stop playing with your elbow and eat!” “Do you hear me?” “Are you listening?” and so forth.
I finally decided that I want to enjoy my meals and stop getting stomachaches during dinner. So, I made the choice to stop caring whether Paige ate her dinner or not. I had to act like I could care less. And you know what? I started having more fun at dinner and it became enjoyable again. If she didn’t eat, she just ate a bigger breakfast the next morning. By not nagging, she began to stop complaining and whining as much, and it makes dinner time so much more enjoyable. It can be easy to nag, nag, nag and I have to catch myself often. But it’s worth it to just “let it go.” I want to enjoy our time together and savor the little moments.
We now all eat dinner together in peace. Paige will say funny things or she will answer our questions about preschool that day. We laugh together and she’s learning all about proper table manners. Noah is now sitting with us in his high chair, even if he’s not eating. He’ll check out his toys and he seems to enjoy just being with us. It’s nice. I’m glad I gave up the food battle. Ironically, she eats better now. Of course.
There are other ways in our lives with little ones that we could perhaps let things go a bit for the sake of our stress levels. For example: potty training struggles (we aren’t pressing it), toy cleanup issues (we only leave some out, and the rest are easy for her to clean thanks to baskets), mess-making (we only do messy activities under close supervision when she can get my full attention), etc. Even without children, there are always areas of life where we can choose joy over fretting.
Is there an area in your life that would be much happier and simpler if you just “let go?”
blogger / watermelon / 14218 posts
Wagon Sr. and I DESPERATELY need to give up this food battle. Some nights Wagon Sr. doesn’t even touch his dinner. I sort of gave it up a while ago, but when I gave it up, Wagon Sr. took it on. Night when Wagon Jr. eats on his own without any prompting from us are so much fun. We need to relax more!!!
grapefruit / 4120 posts
Good for you! Dinner is hard. I have this fear that if he doesn’t eat enough, he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and we will all suffer. But that’s not really based on any experience I’ve had so it’s probably something I need to let go.
pomegranate / 3053 posts
Omg, I though I was the only one battling with a toddler during meals. It’s so true that less prompting makes a huge difference. Whenever there are multiple people prompting my 3 year old to eat he takes an eternity to finish if he finishes! So frustrating because I used to be one of them. I learned earlier this year to not prompt him too much; otherwise he takes 1.5 hours to eat his meals. It’s helped a lot. When it’s just me and him now he eats fast and, like you said, are both enjoying our meals without a fight and he finishes it and we’re both happy.
His pediatrician said do the “eat three bites” thing and be finshed but I added two more bites to it to “eat five bites” and it has worked well because my son will tell me he’ll count the five bites because he likes to count. Sometimes he’ll just finish it and not fight me. But sometimes he doesn’t which fine by me now. I used to worry that he would be hungry but now he just compensates by eating a ton in the morning. His pediatrician also said that as long as he has two good meals a day that is fine. Also not to give him his afternoon snack too close to his dinners.
As for potty training she said to also let him lead me and we are almost there with that too. Glad that you have found some happiness with meals as well!
cherry / 207 posts
OMG!!! Reading your post and everyone else’s response makes me feel less alone in this meal time battle! I was like you, perpetually nagging her to focus and finish her food and she takes forever. Likewise, I had a similar worry that she will wake up at 3am asking for milk cos she didn’t have a full dinner.
What struck me was when she finally finished her food and said ‘I finished my food, you happy now?’ (all said without sarcasm or malice) and my heart broke. Meal times should be a happy time family gets together and talk about their day.
Since then, I decided to let it go, learnt to prompt less, to make meal times somewhat enjoyable again.
Somedays she eats good, somedays not and she may ask for a snack before bedtime. That’s all fine with me. I want a 3 year old who is happy cos she is happy and not to please me.
GOLD / wonderful grape / 20289 posts
Surprisingly right now things are pretty easy for us! I bet I’ll regret saying that later though…. I just jinxed myself. LO’s still so young though. We went to lunch with a toddler yesterday and while my LO was sitting there nicely eating, my friend had to keep saying, “Look, artbee’s LO is eating, you should too.” “You can’t have your drink until you eat 3 more bites.” etc. It made me really love this 10 month old stage!
GOLD / apricot / 341 posts
I’ve been told that when it comes to meals, the parent decides “what” and “when” and the child decides “if” and “how much”. I repeat it to myself like a mantra when meals feel like a struggle and I feel like a failure. My job is just to offer balanced meals every few hours and then I try to let my toddler decide of he is interested in eating and if so, how much he’s having. The biggest challenge for me now is resisting the temptation to offer a second or third alternative if what I’m serving has been rejected. But all in all I find that we have stayed really positive around mealtimes and maybe that is partly why our little one is so open to trying most things…