Hi there

Well, she's two and a half years old and whle she's not at the House of Tiny Tearaways level of screaming and refusing to eat anything but yoghurt, I feel as if we're not doing very well at holding the boundaries at mealtimes. Stuff like:

- not wanting her main course, just wanting to go straight to dessert stage, or post-meal biscuit;
- not wanting whatever is on her own plate, just wanting what's on ours (which is, of course, exactly the same stuff);
- getting frustrated and throwing her plate and cutlery around;
- climbing out of her high chair and onto our laps
- generally mucking about

Anybody got any useful hints? I don't want to up the ante too much so that meal times become a BIG ISSUE, but I don't know if we should just be stricter at this stage, even if this means she just throws a wobbly and has no tea at all.... or should I just chill out and stop worrying? Anybody's opinions here welcome....

Thank you

Not sure what to say my daughter is only 16 months and we already have dramas most meal times.

I deal with it by just leaving her to it if she doesn't eat so be it.

I need to own up to the treats I give her treats and she knows where they are so just stand pointing at them.

Because she has been ill this week I have let her get away with it but no chance next week we can have tiers instead.

If she does not want her meal then remove her very calmly ( you be calm - she'll no doubt throw a real wobbler!) and tell her that it's ok if she doesn't want her meal but there will be no pudding or treats. Just keep calm if she throws a tantrum.


Cos' I am softie I would allow a second chance to return to the table and try again. If no joy then that is it until next meal time.

Continue until she realises that you are being firm but calm. I don't expect my son to eat all of what I put in front of him cos' we don't have to like everything and sometimes I don't want all of my meal but I expect him to try to eat is and sometimes I do the " eat 5 spoons of that please then you can have your pud"

My son went through a phase of wanting to sit on my knee and I allowed this but he had to wait until I had finished my meal first then he could sit on my knee - to be honest I know I should have been stricter but that is phase and not something he'll be doing when he is 18 so I couldn't be bothered to get all strict about it. Bad mummy.

Our girls are just over 2 and can be nightmares. We have a strict 'stay in your seat' rule which we've maintained by just putting them back over and over and over again. They still climb but a few reminders to sit still works.
We also work on the 'one more spoon then you can have dessert' regime which we rarely have to enforce thankfully, cos I hate it.
We use time out mid meal if necessary. I'll often reiterate that they can get down once we've finished eating. It's rarely a matter of a few minutes, we have to eat fast to keep on top of everything.
I can't suggest much with cutlery, one of ours still does it but rarely intentionally and I mostly don't care yet, I'm more concerned with getting enough down them.
We never skip to dessert and they know that so they don't try it on and we ensure that whatever we plan to eat for dessert is out of sight. If I got ice cream out to soften then twin 2 would never eat!
You could consider using the restraint straps on the high chair again until you can build some trust. It might be worth a few screaming sessions to keep her on good table behaviour.
We haven't strapped ours in for a good while but the threat of doing it is still used and we only had to go through with it twice in the last 6 months.
That might all be no help but at the very least you'll know you're not alone :)

Thanks for these good ideas and suggestions. Need to have the summit meeting with the Daddy so we're singing from the same page... will definitely try some of these ideas.

Hope others will continue to post more suggestions... and as you wrote Zebra, it's good to know others have the same stuff going on.

i no this may sound daft have u tryed making her tea with her letting her do it it might b messy but maybe she'll eat it if shes made it her pizza or sandwich or sumut mine always eat it all when they made it there self :hihi:

We've "acquired" a 4 and 3 yr old courtesy of social services. Mealtimes are a real shock to the system.

I agree with a lot of the advice already posted - the "no pudding if you don't eat your dinner" rule really works - and both have seen it in action so know we mean business.

I think it is also helpful to remember that generally no small child is going to starve his or herself - if they are hungry they'll eat.

It took us a while to get the size of mid morning and mid afternoon snacks right so they were just hungry enough by proper meal times.

One that really helps at the moment - courtesy of a very experienced parent I know - is "the peas will be really lonely and sad if you leave them on the plate - they want to cuddle their friends the fishfingers that are in your tummy" - although sadly this one will stop working at some point in the next 14 years.