Just leave the lid up

[zonewombat]

Advice?  Mal pretty much can't sit still and eat.  We force him to sit with us at the table for dinner, but because he gets antsy the minute his ass hits the chair, we don't make him sit long.  This means he doesn't get dinner.  On weekends, he won't sit to eat lunch, and he never sits to eat breakfast.

I've taken to setting a plate of finger food on the floor of his room, which he can graze off of all day while playing.

When that's not an option (breakfast, workdays, dinners out), any ideas how to get a kid to stop playing and eat?

Comments

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

No assvice, just, that's totally normal. We had huge ridiculous battles with Casper trying to get her to sit at the table and eat, and finally realized it was us being unreasonable. I think grazing is a good strategy, and it can work for breakfast - a tray of dry cereal or bits of toast and fruit laid out as his level as the getting ready progresses?

We've just hit the age of "attention span too short to sit at a restaurant for the time it takes to actually eat" with the Dillo. I expect we'll come out of it by, oh, 3 or 3.5. Sigh. It was a nice few months that both of them could be taken out in public, while it lasted.

[zonewombat.livejournal.com]

I love the photo that's your icon, btw.

I used to put out cereal and dried fruit in the morning, but now we do protein shakes, and I have less mess to clean up.

I'm glad to hear it's not just Mal. We've had dinner with a family who has a son Mal's age and one who's almost 4, and they are both so focussed on sitting and eating, and then eating some more. Of course, their parents whack them with a wooden spoon as discipline, so we are clearly taking different parenting paths.

[cashmerepett.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not just Mal! We have the exact same issues with Owen (and now Liv, since she's no longer in a high chair).

For the most part, we can get maybe 5-10 minutes with BOTH of them seated and eating but for the most part, one or the other are up and running away from the table. Liv actually will crawl ON TOP of the dinner table when she's wanting something on someone else's plate. We're working on discouraging her from doing that.

We figure all we can do is continue to set a good example for them by shutting off the tv, sitting together and trying to show them what a good, sit-down meal is and suppliment that with grazing snacks.

Breakfast is often a juice box or a plain, frozen waffle out of the toaster or a banana. I try to eat lunch with them sitting down, even if we just get fast food on they way back from the park but again, it's only a few minutes until they break down into their usual selves.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

I made a decision early on to never have a fight with Emmett about eating. There are too many weird control issues that can occur around food, and ultimately they eat when they're hungry.

But the whole three square meals thing is culturally deriven. It's not necessarily what their body is telling them.

I'm still confident that was the right choice, even though I have to spend a little more energy civilizing him now.