Friday, October 9, 2009

Hunger Strike

Gandhi is living through Luke.
A hunger strike has started in our house.
And its enough to make me insane.

I am an experienced mother, I know that kids eat a ton and then don't eat at all. Sleep a ton and then don't sleep at all. Cry a ton and then don't cry at all. I should know this is not a big deal, but I am going nuts! I think it must be in our Mommy Instincts to make sure that our children eat, to get the good stuff they need to grow and develop into healthy people- so when
all Luke wants to eat and drink is Starbursts and Bunny Whop- what is a Mommy to do??? He refuses to eat anything of substance, and obviously, I am not indulging in this 3 year old's Dream Diet, so he eats nothing. NOTHING.

I am channeling Super Nanny, as always, and her rule is: If you don't eat whats put in front of you, you don't eat. I am going to try to not loose it when I have "slaved over a hot stove" (shout out to my mom) and he just
looks at what I made. He doesn't even flatter me by at least poking at it with his fork, or attempting to take a tiny bite. I would even take him having a bite and then spitting it out, because maybe some tiny morsel of nutrients will enter his body.

I'm hanging in there. We'll see how long this lasts. If only I knew what he was protesting against! His 7 pm bedtime? That "Super WHY" is not shown on Saturdays?...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I taped a 'Super Why?' just so there'd be one in the DVR for him.

He had half a PB sandwich and some strawberries and some carrot shoestrings when he was here the other day and ate it all.
Little stinkpot.
Be strong!
And remember Uncle Charles and the ketchup sandwiches. No permanent harm done there.

mom

M.L. @ The House of Whimsy said...

Oh my goodness, what a challenge. This may not work with Luke, but at least I'll share it just in case. I used it on my kiddos and now I've done it with both my granddaughters. What I did was tell them, "I think you'll be SUPER surprised if you just try ONE bite and I'll even feed it to you myself." Of course, they have to think it over for quite sometime while I would have the tiny bite sitting on the fork. And I would just keep telling them, "Just try this one bite...if you hate it, then you don't have to eat anymore." Eventually every time the (child I was presently working with) would try the one bite, then open their eyes wide and say, "Hey, I DO kind of like it." Then the next time you can remind them..."Remember that time you tried one bite and loved it.....?"
Of course their were a few rare times they didn't like it, but those truly were rare. : )
Good luck. My heart goes out to you if that helps any. : )
M.L.

M.L. @ The House of Whimsy said...

oops...not sure why I typed their instead of there. : )

4Hoffman's said...

I FEEL YOUR PAIN! Last night, in my it's Grey's Thursday/Daddy is not home/I'm not cooking mood, we ran through Chicken Express. Now on any given day my children BEG for chicken nuggets & fries, but last night Austin took one look at his plate and said "Austin no like!!" and flat refused to eat ANYTHING! FUN! He is normally my GOOD eater! And I was feeding him his FAVE food! I think they all go through this "I'm independant, and food is one area that you can't MAKE ME do what you want!!" Hang in there!!

Land family said...

Oh Lord. When my now 9 year old was little, I was LUCKY if she ate *one* decent meal a day. She didn't really start eating until she was in 1st grade I swear. We were lucky enough (????) that she would drink chocolate milk so I knew she got some protein in... but I remember. It was horrible.

Any chance he's sick?

Of course the old recommendation of letting your kid help prepare dinner might work...it never did for us.

Sometimes they just don't eat well. :(

My best bud/college roomie had problems with her first kid. He would only eat McDonald's nuggets. I can't even fathom how that happened, but she'd run by a McDs nearly every day or he "wouldn't eat". I can't imagine.

Good luck to you!