I love Elsa. She has many, many wonderful qualities. She’s often sweet, usually funny, and tries very hard to make us happy. <\/p>\n
But. . . <\/p>\n
There’s one thing that’s driving me nuts and making me completely worried about her future.<\/p>\n
The girl likes to eat.<\/p>\n
Of course most parents of 3 year olds would think this is a GREAT thing. On the outside looking in I would also think this was a great thing. I can’t think of any food that she consistently rejects. Some days she rejects everything, but sometimes she eats anything. Erik went through the typical white diet–only eating white foods. I’ve read it has to do with evolution and survival of the fittest. White foods are not likely to be poisonous like a nice red berry might be. <\/p>\n
When he was little I refused to fight about food. I provided him healthy food and always made sure there was something he would eat (I refuse to deal with a hungry child. In my personal experience hunger is the number 1 cause of meltdowns and bad attitudes). I lived by the wise words of some random child development book that said children know how to regulate their own hunger. They will not starve or overeat if left to their own devices. <\/p>\n
It worked well with Erik. It drove me crazy to keep offering things I knew he wouldn’t eat since I hate waste, but the whole food thing was not much of an issue. <\/p>\n
I only describe all this so you’ll understand why I feel like a total noob with Elsa’s issues. I’m supposed to be an experienced parent, but I am at a complete loss with this problem.<\/p>\n
Elsa will not stop eating. She wants food when she’s hungry. She wants food when she’s bored. She wants food when she’s upset. She wants food if she happens to see food. Get my drift? Girl wants food.<\/p>\n
If we’re on a playdate or whatever, she’ll find the food and just sit there and eat and eat and eat until I put an end to it. It pains me to do so since I firmly believe hungry children should be fed, but there is no way in hell that she can actually be hungry. <\/p>\n
She can throw an hour long fit because she wants a bowl of ice cream or sprinkles. Doesn’t matter if I have them in the house or not. If she decides she wants it, she screams and screams and screams and cries and kicks and it is completely awful. <\/p>\n
I do all the things I know to do. Ignore her, put her in her room, hug her close and tell her I wish we could eat ice cream all the time, pretend to give her silly ice cream treats, play distracting games. Sometimes the tactics work; sometimes they don’t.<\/p>\n
I’ve done a lot of the obvious things. I’ve replaced most of the junk with healthier junk (frozen yogurt vs. ice cream; WhoNu or Kashi cookies; lots of fruit). I offer her strawberries and other good choices when she’s hungry. Sometimes I just flat out refuse to feed her, which hurts my mommy heart. <\/p>\n
My next step is to completely get rid of all the junk. It’d be better for the whole family (don’t even get me started on my self-sabotage and complete inability to get back into WeightWatchers. I KNOW it works. I KNOW I need to do it. I HATE the unfairness of life and refuse to help myself. Yadda yadda yadda boring body stuff) if we didn’t have random junk food around here. <\/p>\n
I think I’m going to have to set up a much stricter meal\/snack schedule. I’m terrible at scheduling, especially when it comes to food. We do a lot of playdates and park days so I hate to be locked into something. Can I really deny her food when it is not the proper time? I’ll become the one woman I really can’t stand! She only feeds her children at certain times (no snacks) with absolutely no deviation, ever. She’s crazy! I don’t want to be crazy, but this is getting out of control.<\/p>\n
I’ve had to ask people to stop giving her snacks at playdates. She goes up to everyone and tells them she is hungry. I feel like a heel when I tell them she can’t have pretzels (or whatever–not like anyone is giving out candy), and sometimes she completely loses her shit, but she’ll sit there and eat non-stop for the whole time if she’s allowed to do so.<\/p>\n
I am really worried that she likes to eat when she’s upset or bored. She’s too young for that! As a fat woman who has never known a skinny day in my life, it worries me more than words can express that she seems to be following in my footsteps. I want her to be happy and healthy. I have never been happy with my body. How can I save her from the misery that’s plagued me my whole life?<\/p>\n
I guess I have a game plan, but I am not thrilled with it. I don’t think it will solve the one thing that drives me absolutely insane. She constantly follows me around and says “I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry.” She ate three adult size pieces of pizza today. Before we were even out the door she started in on the “I’m hungry” business. <\/p>\n
It’s hard to be strong in the face of constant crying and whining from your child. I just want it to end. I give in to her more than I should and I know that. I kick myself for that. I hate that I allow myself to be worn down. I know that if I love her I will deny her all these sweets that she demands, but it is hard to take the long view when she is in my face crying. <\/p>\n
I need to talk to her ped about it, though I don’t ever find the ped particularly helpful. I suspect they will say “Just don’t give her junky food.” Maybe they will have something better than that. I hope! Her 3 year appointment isn’t until mid-May since I was recovering from emergency surgery around her birthday last year. It is so silly how they can’t have their well child check even one day before the anniversary of their last well child check. I suspect it has something to do with insurance, since the 3 year visit does not include a vaccination.<\/p>\n
Anybody with practical experience have any words of wisdom for me? I need to hear that this will turn out ok and she won’t be damaged for life. Food and I have a horrible relationship. I truly believed I could change that in my kids since I have all the knowledge to prevent the food craziness–just not the will power to take care of myself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I love Elsa. She has many, many wonderful qualities. She’s often sweet, usually funny, and tries very hard to make us happy. But. . . There’s one thing that’s driving me nuts and making me completely worried about her future. The girl likes to eat. Of course most parents of 3 year olds would think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}