Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Feeding time nightmare

My 2 year old is currently at a phase where feeding becomes a nightmare. I am not sure if this is part of the package of 'Terrible Twos'. She wasn't like that when she was younger.

Now she will eat her lunch/dinner in a slow motion manner. Sometimes she won't even chew and lunch/dinner can lasts up till 1 hour or more or until I gave up, whichever comes first. I thought she was bored with porridge for lunch so sometimes we cooked her fried rice, sometimes noodles but still with the same results. We tried putting her in front of the TV, letting her watch her favourite programme while I feed her (I will not let her walkabout) and it's still the same. I also tried switching off the TV, remove all the toys and put her on the high chair so she can concentrate and again she's eating in the same manner. Chew 2x and stop, chew again when I threathen her with a rotan and then stops. Papa claimed that we're both getting high blood pressure because of this, me stresses during lunch and he stresses during dinner - we take turns :-)

Dinner is just the same. She'll take so long that her food would turn cold and I'm worried it'll be bad for her little tummy if she's consuming cold food. Please please tell me this is just another one of those ordinary phase that a 2 year old would display. Although she struggled with rice/noodles, she does like soup and can drink half a bowl really quickly.

If this is not part of an ordinary phase, I might really need to look into changing her eating plans, maybe starve her a little longer before lunch and dinner or maybe feed her rice with soup. Will she get enough nutrients with just rice and soup?

And oh, just to put this to note, she picked up a small piece of spinach the other day from her rice and said 'yucks'. Sigh.... and she also picked up a grain of brown rice (we're currently mixing white and brown rice) and said she didn't like it. Double sigh....

4 comments:

Ermayum said...

normal la dear - my second dulu makan 2 sudu da kenyang -she still taking her milk right? try to cut those in the day time because sometimes da minum susu kenyang.:) so maybe you can tell her finish her food first if she wants her milk

Kiasu Mom said...

Ermayum, she's stil getting 3 bottles (6 oz) a day. Can cut back on her milk ah? I thought at this age she still needs them. I'm so confused.

Leona said...

My niece is also like that. And she is 7 years old! She has been eating slow since young and now my sis is still yelling at her for eating so slow!
I was going to suggest giving her rice and soup since soup she likes. Can give vege and meat together with the rice and soup too?

Alice Law said...

I'm in your shoes... since my girl started solid though, lol! My girl is a picky eater, and now it's my son's turn... both hates babyfood(be it puree, cereal or porridge)! I can see some improvement in my girl after she joins kindy, teachers claim she has no problem finish her meals at school(perhaps peer's pressure)!

Decorates her meals like "bentoing" doesn't work on her, but I found my girl eats more if I let her join me shopping, select and preparing her meals. I consulted many ppl, and most claimed it's just a phase of time... so, all the best!