Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Becoming a picky eater or just a stage??

So, what do you do when you have a child that used to be a super good eater and all of the sudden she doesnt want to eat anything unless it is yogurt or juice??

I am about to go crazy these last days. Rachel was a happy girl, eating everything and anything you would put in front of her, specially if it was rice and beans, meat, banana, breakfast  cereal (honey bunches of oats) and now she doesnt want to eat anything. Seriously, I dont know what to do!!! I've tried everything already. She wont eat unless I am by her side and threatening her that she wont have juice or go play after dinner/lunch until she eats everything. Sometimes i just give up and let her go... and i end it up feeling so bad that she might be hungry during the night.
So, please, give me some advise.
I just want her to be a good eater again. I love seeing her eating everything in her plate and even asking for seconds.
Sometimes I think it is just a phase (an early terrible twos, maybe??) and that she'll go back to her eating habits again in a few days....but it's been a couple weeks already and nothing has seemed to work.

Please, help!!!

PS: I made this post on my personal blog and some friends gave me their opinion and help.  Some of them told me it might be just a stage and that my daughter will get back to her eating habits; others said I could try some different strategies to get her excited again about food. If you have sometime, go check the answers out at my blog

3 comments:

Kika VilaNova said...

Bekinha, how is Rachel doing? As I posted on your blog, I hope it's just a phase and that it will pass soon! I guess now I would say to give her the things she likes and that you feel comfortable with her eating, at least it's something, right? Let us know how things are going ok? hugssss!

Liesl said...

My two did this, I think it's a stage of many picky stages to come unfortunately because mine seem to go through different picky stages all the time. It's hard, because you don't want to just give them unhealthy stuff all the time but you do want them to sleep at night. One thing that has seemed to help is if I let them help me cook the food then sometimes they will be more motivated to eat it. Also I try and give them choices of what to have before I make out my dinner menu. For a while the only way I could get veggies in them was by making popsicles out of carrot juice. Anyways, hope that helps a little! I still am struggling with them being picky :( Some foods that they seem to be more willing to eat are spaghetti, oatmeal, cream of wheat, burritos, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pizza, soup if they get to help make it, and casseroles that I make up silly names for.

Mara RĂºbia said...

I don't know, Rebeca...
But I think if she knows she has the things she likes, she will don't eat what she needs.

You understand me? Once my son don't would eat the lunch because he would eat the cookies. I just told him that he could only eat the cookies if he have lunch. He ate no food. One or two hours later he ask me to have lunch.

I don't know if you have tried this, but can give right...