Eating With A Timeline

Rascal #2 is the most ‘lau hei’ girl (dilly dally) I have ever known. She is as cool as a cucumber all the time and has no urgency to hurry up to do anything – drink her milk in the morning, wash up and brush her teeth, dress up, do her homework and eat her food. She will only get kan cheong (panic) and start to get ready when we are just about to leave the house, else she will dilly dally with just about everything and this is absolutely driving me nuts. No amount of coaxing, threats and reminders will make her move her butt. Sometimes I felt like recording my reminders and play them on the stereo player over and over again!!  Sometimes she will cry when we threaten her that we will leave the house and she is not prepared yet. 

Remember I had mentioned many times that rascal #2 always takes 2-3 hours to finish her meals? Well, I have decided that enough is enough, period. If everyone else has finished their meal and she’s the only one left at the dining table, I will bring out the alarm clock and tell her this “when the long hand points to X number, I want to see your food finished, else I will throw the food away” Sometimes she tries hard to quickly eat but this fler just can’t chew her food and swallow them quickly. I guess I made a mistake right from the very start by blending her food until she’s around 3 years old. She was even fed baby cereal until she was around 3 years old coz she liked baby cereal very much and did not really fancy eating rice with dishes. Up until now, she still finds eating rice with dishes a chore!

My advice here to new moms – don’t blend  your toddler’s food. Let her/him learn to chew and let her learn to eat on her own.  Yes, it’s going to be super duper messy and lots of cleaning up / floor moping to do but ultimately, she will learn to eat on her own very quickly and don’t even want you to feed her.  I have never blended Baby’s food and now, she can eat on her own independently.  I also let her eat on her own during most meals.

A common scene in the evening.  We normally start eating dinner at 6:30pm.  See the clock pointing to 7:45?  She had been sitting at the dining table for over an hour and still, she had half a plate full of food *shake head*

No. of times viewed = 414

HEALTH FREAK MOMMY