I’d like to hear about parents who give their toddler/ kids a lot of food and or when kids eat a decent amount of food and ask for more they keep giving them more…so much food, way beyond what someone should be eating? Thanks

I actually agree with you (are you kidding me) , my neice is the same she wont eat anything when her mam is about just junk but at mine for a week without mam she ate everything my kids did very small portions for a 9yr old may i add , my 1 yr old neice eats more , but she ate what i put out i allowed her to leave foods she didnt like as long she tried it but each time she comes up ,i put them on , on the hope one day she will just eat it, and if she eats each meal then shes allowed junk but not too much oviously . But she worries me sick shes nine but the size of a 4 yr old and skinny as rake and ill looking all of the time no engery very lithargic for a child , but she aint my kid so what can i do??

Well, I’m not sure how terribly helpful this is two years later, but I suppose I can offer my two cents. I completely understand your husband’s want for her to be happy since he sees her for so little of the week, but he has to try. After a few weeks, she should come to realise that her eating habits don’t change based off of where she is and she has to eat correctly all the time. I’m not a parent, but I care for my brother and make most of his meals, so here are my tips.
1) Make meals chocked full of vegetables. I normally try to serve at least three in two different styles, which adds variety.
2) Don’t always make desserts an option. For my brother, dessert only comes on nights when I take the time to make something, we don’t have packaged sweets. If I haven’t baked, plain and simple, there probably is no dessert.
3) As hard as it can be, stick to it. For my brother, when he refuses to eat, he has to eat all of his vegetables and half of his protein to get up from the table, all of his food for dessert (which again is fine because he never knows when dessert is coming, so he’s inclined to behave regardless)
4) Adopt a little Japanese eating mentality. If he leaves behind 10% of his food after saying he’s full, I accept it. I do the same for myself.
5) It will be hard, especially if she’s started associating you guys with eating junk, but you must break this mentality. My food suggestion is stir fry with cabbage, onions, and carrots, baked tonkatsu chicken, thinly sliced raw cabbage with tonkatsu sauce, and rice. That meal makes him clear his plate no matter what.
6) (My favorite) Lunch time is your friend! When I’m giving my brother a new food, I pack a small amount into his lunch box to test it. He already knows to eat or try everything in there, so if he comes home and the pickles are barely touched I already know what to expect when supper comes.
7) My two veggie method is GREAT for picky eaters. Say she doesn’t like the raw cabbage in the above meal, simply tell her “Fine, but you’ll have to eat more stir fry.” They can pick their lesser of two evils while you can take comfort that they’re still getting their vegetables.

Unless your child has a underlying medical condition, DOR works for big eaters as well as limited eaters. It is all about trusting your child to eat what they need and letting them become aware of their own hunger/satiety cues.

But dessert doesn’t have to be every night and it can be really healthy. When my Grandkids want a TREAT, I cut a banana in half, put a bit of whipped cream on it, and some crushed peanuts and make a monster!. The eyes are raisins. By the time we think we have figured out what works, they are on to something else to make us crazy! By the time they go to college, all will be fine! Some of the Mom’s on this thread sound a bit angry or like they know it all for every ones child. HA!! The older you get, the more you find out, you just don’t know everything and life gets easier when you don’t feel like you have to control every thing your kids do.

You could go by the expert on your child: your child. They should be able to eat just like you and I do: when and how we want to.

I also feel the need to mention that my husband was frequently forced to sit at the table for hours until he’d finished his food, and I really think that probably played into his picky habits now. My siblings and I have very few dislikes, and the older we get, the more that list shrinks.

I also remember my mom and dad discussing an aunt and uncle of mine once. They said she was an AWESOME cook, but that when she married she lost a lot of confidence, because her husband disliked her cooking. Eventually she learned to be an AWESOME cook of junk and unhealthy foods, which was what he liked. I can remember my dad saying “It’s too bad that we didn’t know then that it takes time to learn to like different kinds of food, because now she hardly ever cooks anything healthy, and he and she are both unhealthy as a result.” (Not those exact words, but that was the message he related) :-)

When I was growing up, our main rules were these, and they seemed to work great:
1. Starting at the ages 4-6, we graduated into dipping our own food almost all of the time.
2. If we dipped our own food, we were required to eat it all (unless another family member was willing to finish it for us)
3. If we had dipped a younger siblings food (frequent in our family of 8 children), and they did not finish it, then we were required to finish it (again, unless another family member wanted it).
4. We rarely were allowed snacks.
5. We didn’t have to try everything at the table, but we weren’t allowed seconds if we hadn’t tried everything.
6. We almost never had dessert (my dad was diabetic, and we felt that many of the sugar substitutes were more unhealthy than sugar itself. But in respect for him, we had no sugar in the house most of my growing up years)
7. There were many times that we were allowed to put our leftovers in a marked container in the fridge. We weren’t allowed to eat any other food until we’d eaten what we’d served ourselves (sometimes this would result in one or two members eating the same leftovers through the course of several meals, but not usually)
8. We had different sized plastic cups for different age ranges, and we were required to drink a full glass of water before we were allowed seconds. It was frowned upon if we didn’t drink the whole thing even without getting seconds, but was generally not required.

We rarely had juices, soda pop, or junk foods.
I love that the points you mentioned in your post are a lot of the same things I experienced as a child. I rarely felt that the rules were unfair, even if I was one of the ones who had to save my leftovers for the next meal. It was frustrating to eat my younger siblings leftovers if I’d dipped them too much, but that rarely happened because I learned to dip portions they would eat. :-)

I now have three children of my own, and our rules that I feel work especially well for our family are:
1. If you don’t eat your food, then you can’t whine about being hungry later. Totally not acceptable. (We DO usually save the leftovers to be reheated when they get hungry, though)
2. We aren’t allowed to say “I don’t like…”

Rule #2 is inspired by a friend of my husband and I, who once told me that neither of her two daughters knew that she disliked eggs until they had nearly reached adulthood, because she knew eggs were healthy and didn’t want her girls to claim a dislike just because she did. My husband is EXTREMELY picky. He likes quite a few healthy foods, but he dislikes MANY, MANY, MANY healthy foods. Inspired by our friend, we have chosen not to let our children know what we do not like, and they aren’t allowed to say they don’t like things either, as it may influence their siblings or friends.

This whole entire passage is wrong. You sit there until it is gone, and that is final! I never died or had mental problems because my parents made me eat my dinner. No I grew up appreciating all the little things I have and respect. Now there are times I will ask everyone in the house what they would like for dinner, but that is not often. If I am making a meal, it will be eaten. Screw all of this BS give kids choices madness, this is why our future generation is screwed because of parents like you. Your grandma was in the right, she bought the food, cooked it and it was your duty to eat it whether you liked it or not.