vendredi 27 février 2015

Why and how I feed my daughter the "American" way.

I am an ABCD SAHM mom married to a man raised in India. I have a daughter who turned 4 in December. I am making this post to let you know that mealtime can be pleasurable for both mother and child and not the stressful chore you make it out to be. Children don't naturally "hate" eating and do not regard it unpleasant until you make it unpleasant by force feeding and stressing out about them not eating.

My daughter actually loves her meal time and has been self feeding finger food since 8 months and proficient with a spoon since 14 months. I haven't physically fed her anything since she was 16 months. Any time that I announce a meal or snack, she runs to the table and eagerly sits in her chair and starts eating when I place the food in front of her. She wakes up on her own between 6:30 and 7AM DEMANDING breakfast saying "MOMMY, I'm HUNGRY!" This is because I give her dinner at 6PM every night and put her to bed around 8PM on school nights (preschool starts at 8:30AM) so she goes 12 hours without food and wakes up hungry.


We sit down at the table together for half an hour and eat side by side. I serve her food she likes and never make her finish her meal. Whatever she eats in half an hour, so be it. Even if she only eats a few bites, she eats them happily. I respect her appetite and food preferences.


When she was teething or having a cold she would eat way less (sometime she said she was done after 2 or 3 bites of mac and cheese and one strawberry). When she was having a growth spurt, she would eat way more than usual, gobbling down an entire sandwich, a bowl full of blueberries, and asking for more food. The key is I always respected the amounts she ate. If she eat very little, I'd offer a snack a couple of hours later. When she was first spoon feeding herself, 1/3 of the food would end up on the floor, 1/3 on her body (including her hair!), and maybe 1/3 in her mouth! Yes, she'd make a mess but it would only take 5 minutes to clean up after the meal and she had a lot of fun and developed some motor skills while she learned to self feed!


She is not a large child; she is on the small side and only in the 19th percentile for weight but she is healthy and enjoys food.


In my circle of stay at home mom friends (all raised in the U.S, some ABCD, some white Americans, some other Asians, and one Latino lady), ALL our kids enjoy their meals and none of us have feeding issues. That's because we allow the CHILD to determine how much they want to eat and only serve them food they like! (There are rare cases of non-Indian kids having food issues for medical reasons and in that case medical intervention is given to solve the feeding issues but I'd estimate less than 1 percent of non-Desi kids have food refusal issues).


Contrast that to what I see with my husband's India-raised friends and how about 90 percent of the moms have food issues with their kids. I see moms running behind their 3-8 year old kids as they play with their friends, watch TV, play video games, trying to shovel as much food down their throats as possible in any-which-way they can. Kids dread mealtime and so do the moms! They keep their kids up until 11PM on SCHOOL NIGHTS spending 3 hours feeding them dinner forcing them to finish no matter what. Then they complain about how hard it is to wake their kid up for school and force feed them breakfast in the morning. The number one complaint from Indian moms is their kid doesn't eat enough and how much "work" it is to feed them all day.


Feeding your child should not be "work" but a pleasant, happy experience of spending quality time sitting side by side. It is okay to physically spoon feed or hand feed a young toddler but only if they are willing. Other than that, encourage them to pick up food on their own and enjoy the food together. If your child doesn't like a particular food, offer an alternative. My daughter has some likes and dislikes but I'm always able to give her healthy food she likes (whole grain mac and cheese, steamed carrots, cheese sandwiches on whole wheat bread, tandoori chicken, roti, etc). She does not like dhal, spinach, or broccoli so I don't ever force her eat it (although I've disguised spinach in pasta salad which she eat happily!)


The bottom line is 1) Respect your child's likes and dislikes and serve them food that they like 2) Respect their choice in quantity and don't try to force them to eat more than they would otherwise. Sit down at the table together for half an hour and whatever they eat in half an hour, accept it and do not try to force them to eat more. Set the timer and take the food away after half an hour. If your child wants to get down in 5 minutes, tell them we are sitting together until the timer goes off. You can physically feed your child if they are willing to accept but encourage them to eat on their own because messes take only 5-10 minutes to clean up as opposed to spending hours running behind the kid force feeding. Mealtime should not last for hours. 3) Relax, relax, relax. If you think your kid is too thin, take them to a doctor and see what they say. Usually as long as your kid is above the 5th percentile, it's okay. If your kid is way off the charts (less than 1st percentile), maybe work with the doctor to implement a feeding plan.


I would love to hear from any other Desi moms (raised in the U.S., India, or elsewhere in the world) who have had success in the "American" way of feeding their kids.


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Why and how I feed my daughter the "American" way.

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