My child will not eat

Children who stop eating do not make such a radical choice of sheer capriciousness. Their behaviors are adaptive and purposeful: children or trying to avoid something perceived as unpleasant, or get access to something that is important to them. The child sends a clear message to parents: "I do not like what is going on. If you want to eat, you must change something." When it comes to babies and small children, we must become sensitive to their nonverbal behavior to understand the message behind it. Our task, before you make any attempt to remedy the problem, is to carefully begin to notice the child is doing and think about the meaning of that behavior. We must ask ourselves: "What messages are we sending children?" 

If you refuse to take food or fluids, the child tells us something about anything, or all of the following:

First The child is not hungry or thirsty.

Second Something hurt him during the meal.

Third The child is experiencing emotional distress as a result of previous negative experiences of feeding.

4th He has learned how to behave in a certain way and time to get something they want - be it about a particular food or special attention.

5th A child only has to learn to feed and create a pleasant flavors reduce hunger.

6th The child is confused about what it means to eat the way parents want.

7th With one person, a child eats enough and without problems, but this is not the case when it comes to other people.

Once we recognize that these situations affect the child's eating, we have a better chance to find out what to do to help the youngster eagerly eaten.

First The physical experience of hunger or thirst. Regardless of age, children can vary greatly in need of food and drink. Their "method" of eating and drinking also vary considerably. Also, if a child is taken before meals or snacks drink plenty of liquids, will not be hungry.

Second Physical discomfort. Without delay, go to a pediatrician if you notice that your child is eating during the show any of the following: vomiting and the zagrcava, flood, passing food through the nostrils, felt discomfort in the stomach, bend your back like that

experiencing chest pain or persistent bellyache. Remember, a child who does not want to eat send us a message: his refusal of food could speak to him in pain.

Third The emotional discomfort. Nearly 95 percent of children who do not want to eat, show the emotional discomfort associated with feeding. Often the site of a spoon, approaching the high chair, or just enough to mention lunch for kids cause anger or fear. Older children, on notice that it was time to eat, I can now complain of nausea. "Emotional" behavior are often a reflection of previous, unsuccessful attempts and sometimes rough and require feeding, in young children, an additional step - "desensitization." However, the behavior of a large number of children who are apparently a reflection of fear or anger (eg, throwing on the floor, yelling, firmly close the mouth, pushing food) actually learned responses acquired in interactive experiences with their parents. These reactions, often termed the reactions of avoidance, children are always unconsciously learned intentioned parents who were not quite sure what to do when the child began to rebel against feeding. Problem avoidance reactions, and needs to be "overcome", is one of its main support.

4th Preference for certain foods and valued responses. Some children refuse to eat selectively - are completely satisfied with taking only one type of food, and refuse to eat almost everything else. For some reason, parents of these children were found early in the food that suits the child to eat and they keep on giving and food, often for several months. When a child has been talking about chocolate pudding enriched with vitamins. In another it was the pasta and sauce. A child would not have any problems parents and pediatricians that could survive on chips and soda. Parents report that attempts to broaden the child's menu always result in a battle royal and the suspension of further efforts. Eating only selected foods is not so much in dispute with another group of youngsters. Their efforts are directed toward another purpose: they are determined to do everything to their parents took in his arms, or to gain their full attention. It can be a signal that the child in the family pays too little attention. In fact, most of the family interactions occur during eating. In this case, kids will learn that when you eat quickly, quietly and well, gets little recognition, or love, but when a real fuss about eating, receiving much attention from parents. Then the problem of feeding the lower dynamics of family relationships.

5th Lack of experience of pleasant taste and / or taken to calm hunger. Most children who do not want to eat, even younger than one year, have successfully experienced the different tastes of food and a comfortable feeling that comes due to reducing hunger by eating.

Their refusal of food acquired is not connected with the ignorance of the natural consequences of eating.However, a small number of children dohranjivan the other, by artificial means. These children lived in many hospitals, or directly to the failure of weight gain and growth, or because of the great physical hardships they are prepriječile the way from birth. (Staying in hospital can dramatically disrupt the normal routine of feeding, causing varying degrees of rejection of food.) Because of the need for extensive feeding addition, children did not understand that eating the mouth can produce a pleasant taste and / or reduce hunger. In real sense, these children had little stake in the process of feeding. They were fed by someone else's schedule. No doubt they experienced hunger, but have not experienced any kind of active, personal process driven by reducing hunger.

6th Confusion. Sometimes the child is uncertain about what parents actually want. This happens when parents are inconsistent - in connection with cutlery, then in this regard should you feed the children or is expected to eat alone; Furthermore, in connection with the amount of food that a child should eat, how much should be offered, When a meal is considered complete, should the child to eat while in the arms or while sitting alone, and still plenty of other things that usually do not pose a problem child to eat comfortably and appropriately. A 12-month-old baby was randomly fed breast-feeding from the bottle and the cup. The baby has decided to bring order and consistency in his young life: it is completely stopped eating.

7th A child eats "for" (in the presence) of one parent (adults), but not for anyone else. Finally, some children showed a clear tendency that "who" will, or with whom to eat. Sometimes the chosen people only a mother, and in another case the father only. There are cases when a nanny easily feed the baby, and neither mother nor father have no success with it. A child who eats for one, perhaps with the exclusion of all others, tells us that the method of feeding the people, the child's perspective, the best. One of our tasks is to carefully analyze this method in order to help others to emulate.

From "My child will not eat," Joel Macht, published Achievement, 2005;