Mommy Needs a Time Out!

Posted on January 29, 2008

It’s my fault, I know it’s my fault. Chloe continues to fight me on the food thing. She will only eat snack food, and it’s making me crazy. She eats all day long, so she is definitely not starving. I try really hard to make the food she eats moderately healthy, I mean, there’s only so much you can do with a picky eater, but in the end, its still snack food. Yogurt, applesauce, cereal bars, boxes of raisins, crackers with peanut butter, rice cakes, and pretzels. If I offer her anything else, she acts like I am trying to poison her. The last time I went to the doctor, he said, “Don’t worry, toddlers snack, that’s what they do.” He basically gave me permission to keep offering her food all day long. The problem now is she is starting to reject some of the things that were actually worthwhile. Like cheese, for example. Chloe will no longer eat cheese. I have tried cheese in slices, cheese in cubes, cheese in sticks, and cheese in sandwiches. She won’t have anything to do with it. She used to eat bagels, now she won’t. The only meat we were ever able to get her to eat was chicken in the nugget form. Lately, she’s been refusing them. I have even tried the “novelty” approach to serving her food. I have made her food into all different shapes, sizes and colors. It works for a little while, then she starts refusing those, too. My only solace at this point is she really likes breakfast, so I try to get as much healthy stuff into her breakfast as I possibly can.

I blame myself because I think I gave her too many options at every meal. “You don’t want this, how about this, or this.” I just kept telling myself that she needed the nutrition and it was better for her to eat something, than nothing at all. Now, that’s what she expects (and rightly so).

Last night, she threw a huge fit because I wouldn’t let her snack before dinner. Then we offered her what we were eating (falafel, which she has eaten before) she threw the mother of all fits. She acted like we were trying to poison her!

Today, she ate a bowl of oatmeal, a handful of cheerios and a cereal bar before lunch. Ellen and I took the kids to the mall to play, and when it was time to eat lunch, I offered her chicken nuggets. She didn’t want them. Okay, whatever, she’s not hungry, she had a lot to eat already, I really didn’t expect her to be hungry. The annoying thing is she started crying for her snack bag. She wanted to eat, she just wanted to eat her snack food, not the chicken. Standing firm, I told her that her option was chicken or french fries. (I know, real healthy, but it was the principle of the thing.) She cried, she whined, she reached for her snack bag, she cried and whined some more and she refused to eat anything. (I think she was also ready for her nap, so that played into it.) I tried to cram my food in my mouth so we could quickly leave, go home and both take a nap and poor Ellen desperately tried to mediate.

I understand why Chloe was upset, and I know its my fault, and I think that’s why its so hard on me. But, she has developed a really bad habit, and as the responsible (as if) parent, I need to help her break it. Even if that means that she goes hungry a couple of meals and I slowly lose what’s left of my sanity.