Food for thought

I have never been a big fan of kids eating whatever they want to, whenever they want to and where ever they want to. I'm sure that this goes against all of the "expert" advice about letting kids eat on the run and snack here and there all day long, but at our house, everyone sits down at the kitchen table for meals and snacks. We put the "two bite" rule in place a while back, which means at every meal we offer a nice variety of fruits and veggies, whole grains, meat and dairy, and two bites of each offering must be eaten before anything else can be consumed.

In my mind, this ensures that the kids will have some diversity to what they eat, unlike other kids I know who exist on chicken nuggets alone. Not only do they get at least a little from each food group at every meal, but they also get exposed to new tastes on a regular basis, even if it is only two bites worth. I have found that over time, repeated exposure to a food a couple of bites at a time will lead not only to acceptance of that food, but to requests for it as well. Once they have eaten their two bites of everything, they are then free to ask for more of anything they want. Most of the time this works amazingly well, and we have been surprised and delighted by requests for more vegetables over and over again.

But there are are also days every now and then when meal time turns into a long drawn out process. For example, a couple of nights ago at dinner time, Nicki did not want to eat her meat. When we reminded her that she had to take her two bites, she came up over and over again with a list of excuses as an attempt to stall the inevitable. The conversation started off something like this:

Me: "Nicki, don't forget to eat your meat."

Nicki: "Ok Mommy. But first I need to take a sip of milk."

Me (inwardly sighing because I know where this is going): "Ok Nicki, you had your sip, now have some meat."

Nicki: "But my hair is in my face. Can you please fix my elastics first?"

Me: "Just brush the hair out of your eyes and you'll be fine."

Nicki: "I need a tissue."

Me (after getting her a tissue and helping her blow her nose): "Ok go ahead with your meat now."

Nicki: "Wait, my eye is itchy."

Me (sighing out loud now because I know it's going to be one of those days): "Nicki you're stalling. Eat your meat or your going to end up sitting here until bedtime."

Nicki: "Ok... but first I need to scootch up my sleeves!"

Me (tired of repeating myself): "Nicki this is the last time I'm going to say it. Please eat your meat."


After much sitting there staring at me with a pouty face that I attempted to ignore, Nicki brought the conversation down to this level:

Nicki: "I'm sad at you."

Me: "Why?"

Nicki: "Because I don't love you."

Me: "Why not?"

Nicki: "Because you're not nice!"

Eventually of course, her two bites of everything were eaten, although on this particular night it took much longer than on any other night that she had put up a fight. I wondered to myself why. Usually our mealtimes go quite smoothly and it wasn't as if she was being offered anything she had never eaten before. Maybe she was feeling particularly stubborn that night. Maybe she wanted to see how far she could push me before I cracked. I guess I'll never know.

All I know for sure is that I'm trying to do what's best for my kids and have them eat a healthy and diverse menu of food. I don't see what I'm doing as being akin to force feeding, since it's not like I'm insisting that they polish off a whole plate of food; two bites hardly seems like torture. I just hope that I'm not screwing it up and setting them up for a lifelong battle with eating disorders as those "experts" would have me believe...