Snack Monster.

I have been reduced to bribery in parenting. Eli doesn’t eat at daycare. He’ll eat snacks all the live long day, but he will not eat a meal. I don’t even think he tries things. Yesterday they had chicken strips and fries. WHAT KID DOESN’T EAT THAT? And now it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy because he’ll say “I don’t like the food at Constances.”

Constance is the name of his daycare provider. Isn’t that a great name?

I’ve bought a special book that I told him he gets IF he eats at Constance’s house. I’ve had it for weeks.

To be fair, he is NOT a superstar at eating lunch or supper for us either. It’s very hard to get him to try something. We want to have the expectation that he has to at least TRY everything but if he doesn’t like it, that’s okay and he can eat what he does like on the table. But just getting him to try something is so hard now.  Part of this could be that we have been living at Greg’s parents and have been more lax with him. Plus Grandma and Grandpa get to spoil him some, that’s their right. And we aren’t going to make Constance battle Eli and his strong will towards eating. We’ve gotten him to try things by bribing him with dessert… somehow that doesn’t seem smart…

But sweet Eli, he’s a little carb fruit monster and it needs to stop! Seriously. Cereal, crackers, toast, rice = love. Fruit of any kind, yogurt, granola = heavenly. Praise God for avocados, he will eat them along with some other random foods. SNACKS are his favorite. MEALS are death.

I don’t get it. He loves spaghetti and will eat adult-size portions. But if I make ravioli or lasagna or something that’s basically spaghetti but a different look? It’s like pulling teeth to get him to try it. Sometimes I’ll say “it’s cheesy spaghetti” and then maybe he’ll try it. I don’t get what is going on in his brain.

Any parenting wisdom to get our used-to-eat-anything boy to be more meal-friendly? I’d say we’d eliminate snacks but when he’s at daycare two-to-three days a week, I can’t control that. And dang-nabit, I’m not going to let mom guilt over Eli not eating have me stop working part-time. There has to be a way to get him to be a better meal eater or at least a try-er. Eli is often SO CRANKY at night because he’s not eating enough good food. And it’s not like his snacks are pure sugar either. He doesn’t often get sugary stuff from us, rarely has juice, he really doesn’t like meat (unless it’s spaghetti or tacos), he has a love/hate relationship with cheese, loves hummus with pita chips or cucumbers, does some veggies well sometimes and others never ever… it’s just hard to figure him out.

Perhaps, along with potty-training, this will just be something to tackle when we are in our own house again. We can let him go hungry if he won’t eat a meal (and we’ll listen to the extreme whining that will inevitably follow). I’ll also get back to sneaking vegetables into muffins and all that fun pinterest baking. And I’m pretty sure when Annalee gets older we can manipulate him with “oh, look at Annalee eating the green beans… go Annalee!!” and he’ll be all jealous of the attention. That works, right?

Smoothie King.

-Heather