Recently, I was doing an assessment in my clinical practice and reviewed a video of a family meal – Mum, Dad and their four-year-old daughter. The meal lasted 58 minutes! How could a four-year-old sit at the table for that long, I hear you ask. Well, she did a pretty good job of it. It was her mum who became frustrated, angry and sick of being there for so long.
Stress at mealtimes
The fact is that the child eats all she is hungry for in the first 10 minutes. However her parents don’t trust her appetite and think she hasn’t eaten ‘enough’. The remainder of the meal is spent with the parents bribing, cajoling and pressuring her to eat. They use every trick in the book to get their daughter to eat more. These kind of meals are unpleasant for everyone, don’t achieve what parents want and certainly don’t help the child to become a competent eater. In fact, the child may end up eating less rather than more because of this. Stress can lead to anxiety around mealtimes. Anxiety is known to decrease appetite. A child may be anxious even before she gets to the table if mealtimes are often stressful.
How much is enough?
I am always intrigued when parents feel that their child hasn’t eaten ‘enough’. How can someone know how much is ‘enough’ for someone else? I certainly can’t. Appetite varies from meal to meal and from day to day. If a child is growing well, then they are eating enough for their unique needs.
The trust model
We need to trust our children’s appetite, knowing that when there is food available, children will eat enough. An infant who is breastfed knows how much milk to take without anyone else knowing the exact quantity they are taking. We feed when the baby is hungry and stop when they show us they have had enough. At every age, it is up to the child to decide how much to eat from the food that is offered. When we don’t let the child do their job of deciding how much to eat, we are interfering with their natural hunger and satiety cues. We are giving them the message that we don’t trust their appetite. Unfortunately, this lack of trust can result in children overeating or under eating and not having the body they were meant to have.
I am reminded of children’s variable appetite when I take my three year-old granddaughter to have sushi for lunch. Each time she chooses the packet of baby tuna sushi. There are six pieces of sushi in the packet. Some days she eats all six pieces and some of mine as well. Other weeks she stops after three pieces and other times she may have less or more. I have no idea how much she is going to eat before the meal starts.
Letting your child eat according to his/her own individual appetite is one of the best things you can do for her/him to become a competent eater – a competent eater enjoys eating, comes to the table when called for mealtimes, learns to like the foods his/her parents like eating, and regulates the amount of food eaten based on hunger and satiety.
The challenge I have (with my 4 year old) is that she does mostly eat what she’s hungry for in the first 10-15 minutes, and then gets pretty silly and plays with her food or makes poop jokes. And then sometimes she’ll continue to eat a bit more. Typical age antics, but not awesome for dinner time, so I will check in to see if she is finished by asking, “Are you done with your food or are you hungry for more?” The thought is that I don’t want meals to drag on if she’s just goofing around, but I also don’t want to deprive her if she is still hungry, nor do I want to send the message that her food will be taken away the minute she pauses from swallowing to chat or tell a joke. But then meals can get so long! I’m truly not trying to get her to eat more, just trying not to artificially cut off her meal. Do you have a suggestion?
Hi Susan
It seems to me that there is a difference between ‘getting pretty silly and plays with her food or makes poop jokes’ and pausing to chat or tell a joke. If she is getting silly and mucking around, I suggest that you ask her if she wants more to eat and make it clear that if her silly behaviour continues, that will be a sign that she has finished and you can clear the table. If you end the meal because of her behaviour and she is actually still a little hungry, she will learn to behave at the table so that she can eat as much as she wants. You will be teaching her how to behave at the table, as well as setting reasonable boundaries.
My 2 year old son doesn’t eat the majority in the first ten minutes… actually, he’s really good at sitting, talking and engaging and then will suddenly surprise me by eating something! I’ve read recommendations to remove food after 20 minutes but I am not sure that would be fair to my son. In fact, often if I try to remove the food, saying “looks like you aren’t hungry right now” he’ll then start crying and saying “more food” which makes me feel like I was threatening him to eat when that really wasn’t my intention.
My son it autistic and is an extremely picky eater. We regularly get into power struggles during mealtimes. He was a great eater as a toddler, but now as a preschooler his diet has become very restricted. The issue is mostly him not accepting his options at mealtimes. I do always provide something relatively healthy which I know he’ll eat along with something that’s not preferred. The problem is that instead, he wants candy or cookies. I can’t really follow his lead with this, for obvious reasons, yet don’t know what to do about the meltdowns he engages in if he’s not given his favorite sweets. I’m not totally sure what to do about this.
Hi Natalia
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