Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school 3yo needs so. much. input.

Love the thesaurus implant idea! I struggle with this too.

I am an introvert and DS has been intense since he was born. Up until recently, DH really had no idea what I was talking about when I would say that I just needed a break. "How hard can just one child be?" was his attitude. But when DD (1 month) was born and DH started spending 6-7 hours a day with DS, he suddenly had a whole new appreciation for what I've been through the last three years. Even though he's an extrovert, DH said he's never felt so drained in his entire life.

DH often works 12 hour days, so I instituted a "meal times are quiet times" policy when it's just the two of us, which might seem backwards, but it works for us. He sits at a little table with his snack or meal (in the same room as me) and gets to watch something on his iPad or a video, and I get some desperately needed quiet time. He's also a very picky/resistant/selective eater, so being distracted while he eats helps him consume more, which for us is a plus.

Finding older, verbal, and energetic children for him to play with (neighbors and cousins) has been very helpful as well. I still have to supervise them since DS is also attracted to mischief, but it takes some of the burden for input off my shoulders and tires him out.

I don't have any books to recommend, but this forum has been a life-saver for me. Being able to read about other parent's experiences and to know that I'm not crazy is refreshing.

Hunh. We do the same thing with meal times... not always, but exactly that. He gets to watch a video, which makes him eat more, which is HUGE for us, and I get to take a deep breath.

Interesting...

Same here

Feel free to totally ignore me...but...be aware that there is a lot of research strongly advising against combining TV/video watching with mealtime. Also, you might be interested to know that the worry about underweight children seems to be dying back a little as experts realize that getting small kids to eat however possible can backfire. I had a failure to thrive baby so I do know how it can be, believe me.

Anything TV related seems to be a big no-no. I find that a bit frustrating. I wonder what the research says about combining, say mealtimes and books (which we also do). For that matter we combine mealtimes with discussion, too (sometimes all three, simultaneously ) Or eating and travelling (which we also do) I know the parenting experts here want kids to always sit at a table, and do nothing but eat while the eat. DS, under those conditions, simply does not eat. At all. Well, ok, it's not simply that, he also tantrums extensively about being asked to put down stuff, come to the table, that stuff. And then he's hungry, so he tantrums about everything else, too.

Food is also kinda frustrating. Mine stopped growing taller for a while when he was 2 hitting 3, and when we paid attention, he was eating 300 calories a day, which, uh, yeah, not enough.

Anyway, I'd be interested in following up on the research you mention, we were not given a lot of advice, beyond "add oil," and to be honest, my natural approach was just to get him eating, however possible. I've kept it healthy, but that's my only real rule (I see some people using junk food as a way around not-eating, but that doesn't even work for us, so, ya know. I do let him have more yop/juice/milk than is sometimes advised...)

What exactly IS one supposed to do about not-eating? (sorry, I'm supposed to be able to manage the not-whining thing, aren't I ;))

-Mich

Michaela,

We do the exact same things. I also give him food while he plays, which is also not recommended by experts. We feel he needs good food to grow and that we will focus on sitting at a table to eat later. Like when he is developmentally ready for me to have an uninterrupted half hour phone call. He can do so many things that are beyond milestones, so I think the eating issues are a bit of asynchronousity. His brain is chugging along so quickly now, it doesn't yet recognize the importance of stopping and eating.

At this point, I am going with the most important and immediate issue -- food as the basic building block to grow. We eat no junk food here. A lot (a lot!) of meat, fresh veggies and fruit, and occasionally whole wheat pasta. We go through 3 avocadoes a week. He hasn't gained a pound in over 6 months. I can't imagine how he would do if we didn't distract and feed him with books, coloring, and (when I am exhausted) the tv.

This wouldn't be needed for most kids, but I truly believe mine does not feel hunger. (Full disclosure: DH and I before having him had to remind ourselves to eat because we would often forget to eat because WE were busy with work or a project of some kind. We now are better about it because we make such an effort to feed DS and model better behavior.)

I wonder how many parents here have children who are light eaters. We're in a similar boat. Maybe it's time for a new thread to that end!

My DS (just 5) gained 1 lb last year, but they are okay with it at the ped. He is no longer extremely thin, though. (20%th?) He used to be "off the chart."

I recommend Ellyn Satter's work for feeding issues, though I should say that I have a thin child, but not one who refuses food.

The thing that concerns experts is that eating while distracted may seem good now, with a child who appears thin, but as a lifelong habit, it is risky.

ultramarina, I can totally see where that is coming from. But I also think that small children are a lot harder to feed than slightly older ones and habits morph over time. How we get our kids to eat at 1yr is different to 2yrs, to 3yrs and to 10yrs old... We've never really done TV or books to eat (well ipad for the youngest at breakfast sometimes, not so much because she won't eat but so that she will stop talking and we can manage to sort the older two out). BUT our kids have been extremely hard to get to focus on eating, to keep at the table, etc as small children. Miss ADHD is (unsurprisingly) still very hard to keep at the table, but for her we've gone from "exciting stuff at the table to keep her there" as a toddler to "She'll only eat if there is NOTHING more interesting going on". The problem we face and thus the approach we use is quite different at 6 than at 2.

She doesn't eat at school, because there is nothing we can send to school that meets school rules, her dietry restrictions, is practical for school, and which is also tempting enough for her to eat while a) she's on meds so her appetite is suppressed and b) there is so much that is SO much more interesting than eating when her appetite is suppressed. At home, on meds, she will eat - if we feed her appealing enough food in a boring enough environment and an adult supervises to make sure she pays attention long enough to eat.

For us family meals where we all sit at the table and have a conversation are, and always have been, a priority, we work hard to make that work and to teach our kids that this is how you eat. BUT we've done all manner of things along the way that are far from this. We've had years at a time where I fed our eldest the 3-4 foods she would eat on her own and then ate with DH hours later. We pick our battles. Honestly I think a lot of that research is aimed at people who are NOT seeing eat while they watch tele as an evolution, a "What ever works to get us through this one moment" but as the status quo, plenty of adults, couples and families do not see eating at the dining table as a family as what they do every day. So I am not sure how helpful this research is to those parents who know where they would LIKE to be and also know what is (and is not) humanly possible with this particular kid right now.

Oh my goodness, I hate to admit this even in a forum of like-minded people, but raising our little boy has been so hard that we're not sure we can handle having another baby. I look at all the women I know who had kids at the same time we did, and most are on their second baby, and some on their third, and I feel so, so disheartened. I would love for us to have another child, but I'm just not sure we can do it.

And second, the older child thing is interesting. I had been avoiding letting my kid play with older kids (out of a possibly-misguided concern that his emotional development isn't in the right place) but he's been playing with a neighborhood 6yo recently and having a really good time. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.

Anyway, TV, and food. I relate to a lot of what people are saying.

I have a lot of bad feelings and guilt about how much TV my kid watches. My ideal is basically zero, so it's not like we're watching seven hours of TV a day or anything. But I feel bad about the TV we do watch. My husband just said something about feeling awful about "using TV to anesthetize" our son, and that's pretty much how I feel.

I would love to have a calm, vaguely Waldorfy home with no screens and a lot of watercoloring. But that is just not my reality in this moment, and I no longer really feel that it's possible, at least not right now. My son is just so... he's so intense. He needs so much - input, attention, conversation, information. And he's so very persistent. And easily bored by things that do not fully grab him. (That is, I can spend 10 minutes setting up some complex activity I think is going to be very successful, and 20 seconds later he's like "Yeah... I see what you did here. Thanks. What else?")

TV is the one reliable thing that will focus him on something that isn't me for a few minutes at a time. We don't have normal TV (we have a roku, so no commercials) and we restrict his viewing pretty strictly to certain types of programming. So there are certainly ways we could be doing worse than we are. But... I still have the guilt and I wish it were different, but I literally don't know what else to do to cope!

(I too let him eat while playing. I know this is not Ellyn Satter-approved, but like many, he's so easily distractable by non-eating activities. I'm doing the best I can here, and our diet is totally junk-free, so... I don't know. I often think of things I want to change or improve about our family life, and then I immediately think about how I am 100% focused on my child already, I just don't know where the ability to change things like eating while he plays is going to come from.)

Phew. I'm having a particularly hard time today. I'm really glad this forum exists. It's so nice to know that other parents are where I am.