Eating habits

What is your Lo's habits like? Lucas is horrible! He no longer will sit in a highchair and freaks out when we try so now we have him sitting at a chair at the table. This works fairly well, however he is constantly up and down during dinner time. This isn't a major issue, but he doesn't eat a lot. Also, he is very grabby and walks up and grabs things of people's plate and sticks his fingers in their food. We stop him, but it doesn't seem to do much. It is so bad DH and I have started calling him Helen Keller :p what are your LO's doing?

ummm, very similar. :( mostly the won't sit still to eat. She will sit if DS sits, but he eats so darn fast and she's so darn slow at eating that she eats less than 1/3 of what he does. She's fairly picky and hates veggies too. *sigh* I just keep telling myself to keep offering good healthy food and they will eat it eventually.

A lot like that. Lyla hasn't been in a high chair in a long time, but she's constantly up and out of her booster seat. If she's near enough to someone else she will take things off their plate or put stuff from her plate on their plate (or at least try to). She's also taken to not using her utensil and eating with her hands, which naturally creates a MASSIVE mess. Overall she eats less than Kole and is messier about it.

Similar here. Juliet was getting in and out of her booster. We took it away. She eats a bit, then gets down. She comes back for some desert, then eats most of the rest of her main meal. It can take over an hour. We leave her plate on the table.

She also refuses to use utensils. She was really good with them. Her 6 yo brother also has issues with using his fork. It's a stage.

We went through this about a month ago? We got rid of the highchair and got her a booster seat, which seemed to help some. She still doesn't eat dinner very well but does have her "ok" nights of eating.

We've had Aiden in this booster since last winter. He doesn't get out of it much. If he does, we clean him up because he's clearly done eating. Staying around the table begging for food will get him talked to and put back in his booster. VERY rarely ever an issue. If Aiden doesn't want to eat we don't make him stay at the table, and he goes off to play. We do save his dinner in case he's hungry later. Usually if he says he's all done and hasn't touched his meal, he'll come back to eat it later. Or he just goes to bed without dinner. Doesn't ever affect his sleep.

This was/is Ds1. He's really picky and messes around every dinner time. He whines the whole time he's eating "I don't like it/this is dirty/can I just eat 4" He's often like it as soon as I tell him it's time for dinner. It started when he was about 18 month old. He refused to sit in his high chair and wouldn't sit nicely at the table. He just wouldn't eat and cry/yell/scream the whole time we were eating and go to bed with no food. He's so picky on what he'll actually eat it's stupid but the past 5/6 months he has got a bit better. Still a lot of moaning and fussing if I make something he doesn't fancy that day. He still eats really slowly and only a tiny amount of what I give him. I'm hoping he'll eventually grown out of it and eat like a normal person

Tobey on the other hand sits quietly in his high chair and eats everything on his plate in a respectable fashion regardless of what I've given him :lol:

Isabelle is usually up and down at meals as well, the bad thing is that she is still in her highchair so I am constantly lifting her in and out. I need to get her a booster or something, but I don't want her to be able to run off with something messy in her hands. She will say she's done, get down to play for a while, then want to eat again. Meals here can also last over an hour, it really is exhausting. I confess to occasionally sitting her down in front of the TV for dinner as she will pretty much let me shovel the food in while she watches-I hate the idea of her associating eating with watching TV as a habit, but sometimes I am just too exhausted to do the long drawn out dinner marathon.

And she loves to eat other people's food, she doesn't grab (usually) but she will come up to you with her tongue hanging out and if it is a treat she will climb onto your lap until you share.

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Originally Posted by Cherrychip

Isabelle is usually up and down at meals as well, the bad thing is that she is still in her highchair so I am constantly lifting her in and out. I need to get her a booster or something, but I don't want her to be able to run off with something messy in her hands. She will say she's done, get down to play for a while, then want to eat again. Meals here can also last over an hour, it really is exhausting. I confess to occasionally sitting her down in front of the TV for dinner as she will pretty much let me shovel the food in while she watches-I hate the idea of her associating eating with watching TV as a habit, but sometimes I am just too exhausted to do the long drawn out dinner marathon.

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This was DS. If I sat him in front of the TV he'd eat anything but if I made him sit like everyone else did he'd eat nothing. And I was exhausted too at the time it was going on (heavily preg with Tobey then a newborn and him being stupid) We really cracked down when Tobey started on solids.

Lurker...

Some of the stuff my daughter had to deal with with her stepson (DSS) was the result of medical problems in infancy. When I met him he was around 7 years old and a very happy kid who loved everybody. But mealtime was Hell. He hated new foods, gagged, wiggled all over, disliked many things that required chewing and asked only for pizza and Kraft dinner. DD began making pizzas from scratch with him so that he at least got healthy stuff. She wouldn't allow KD in the house. The worst thing of all was his whining and complaining. Finally she was able to convince DSIL that this behavior was disagreeable and rude and needed to be worked on. So for ages (years) the boy had to leave the table and go to his room if he whined and complained. (every single meal at first!) It took forever, but I'll tell you, this child changed! It was especially hard because his mother was not on the same page. But now, at 13, he'll try new things. He understands he cannot whine, and best of all, he experiments with new things. One of his favorite places to eat is the Ethiopian Restaurant. So ladies, there is hope!

I'd avoid the TV/meal combo if possible because eating together is very important to me for family conversation. It was an important routine at our house over the years. And later, it is super nice if you can take kids to other people's homes and restaurants without punishments or embarrassment!