How to Get Your Charlie to Eat

Charlie has been on an all-carb diet for a few weeks now. The kid would eat bagels, graham crackers and cherrios all day long. And he would drink soy milk. All. Day. Long.

And that's it. No fruits. No vegetables. The occasional chick'n nugget (yes - the fake veggie stuff) and fish a la stick. And that's it.

Well, except the chocolate chip cookie we'd buy him at the store to keep him occupied while we bought 80 bucks worth of food he never ate.

I'm speaking in past tense, because Mrs. Breedorf pointed me to Amalah's blog entry about this same topic. Amalah bought this book called "How to Get Your Kid to Eat... But Not Too Much" by Ellyn Satter and suddenly, her son Noah ate lentils.

Lentils.

So I grabbed my purse and made Mrs. Breedorf drive me to the awesome Third Place Books so I can get myself a copy of this magical tome. (I can drive - but her car was blocking mine, okay? Sheesh.)

I read it overnight and officially started the process today. Here's the deal - it's not rocket science.

I let him snack all day long. That tends to fill one up so once dinner is served, one ain't hungry. That's stopping. I also let him drink all day long. That also tends to fill one up, unless he's drinking the hoochie hooch, which just makes you sloppy. And I also was forcing food on him - playing the airplane in the hangar game just to get him to taste the damn applesauce - just TASTE it, damnit! So forcing is not good - cuz here's the thing about toddlers - the minute they know you want them to do something, they do the opposite. It's way easier to stop a toddler from doing something than it is to get them to do something you want them to do. So if Charlie is about to play in a container full of broken glass, I can stop him from doing so with little effort. But if I want Charlie to wash those same hands I was just protecting, well forget it.

Also, I hated having food forced on me when I was growing up. My dad made me sit at the table until I finished everything. I would store the food in my cheeks, go to the bathroom, and flush it. Like, when I was 14. Can we say eating disorder????

So here's the new routine - breakfast at 8, snack at 10, lunch at 12, snack at 3, dinner at 6 - all in his high chair. I provide the well-rounded meals, he decides if he wants to eat or not. If he doesn't, that's cool - I take the food away and don't give him anymore until his next feeding. It's like running a zoo, actually. Though I doubt the African elephants are leaving any food on THEIR plates.

We did it today and he was PISSED at ME. Hooooooey. At one point he was leaning against the pantry, crying, while listlessly flinging his arm into the door as if he didn't have the energy to give it a solid whack. But then, something happened.

At dinner, Charlie ate shrimp.

He never had shrimp before. He's never even seen shrimp. And he popped it in his mouth as if it was a Goldfish cracker. He didn't eat any veggies or fruit. But he ate shrimp. So I take it as a victory.

Thanks Mrs. Breedorf, Amalah and Ellyn Satter. It takes a village to feed Charlie!