What if kids do not want to eat?

Children who stop eating does not make such a radical choice from mere caprice. Their behaviors are adaptive and purposeful: children try to avoid or 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 have to change something." When it comes to babies and small children, we must be sensitive to their non-verbal behavior to understand the message behind it. Our task, before you make any attempt to remedy the problem, is to carefully start noticing your child does and think about the meaning of the behavior.

We must ask ourselves: "What messages are we sending a child?"

If you refuse to take food or fluid, a child tells us something about anything and everything of the following:

First The child is not hungry or thirsty.

Second Something hurts him during the meal.

3rd A child experiencing emotional discomfort as a result of previous negative experiences feeding.

4th He has learned how to behave in a certain way and thus get something they want - whether it's about a certain food or special attention.

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

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

7th With a person's diet and eating enough without problems, but this is not the case when it comes to other people.

Once we recognize which of these situations affect a child's eating, we have a better chance to find out what should be done to help the youngster eagerly eaten.

First Physical experience of hunger or thirst. Regardless of age, children are very different in the need for food and drink. Their "method" of eating and drinking are also significantly different. Also, if a child took pre-meal snacks or drinking a lot of fluids, they will not be hungry.

Second Physical discomfort. Go to your GP without delay if you notice that your child during meal shows any of the following: vomiting and the zagrcava, floods, food ejected through the nostrils, discomfort in the stomach, bend back like that

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

3rd Emotional discomfort. Nearly 95 percent of children who do not want to eat, according to the emotional discomfort associated with feeding. Often it is the site of a spoon, pinch stool or just enough to mention lunch at children challenges anger or fear. Older children, on notice that it was time to eat, I can now complain of nausea. "Emotional" behavior is often a reflection of the past, and sometimes unsuccessful attempts feeding raw and require, 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, screaming, tight closure of the mouth, fending off food) actually learned responses acquired in interactive experiences with parents. These reactions, often referred to as avoidance responses, 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 the main foundations of assistance.

4th Preference for certain foods and excellent response. Some children refuse to eat selectively - are entirely satisfied by taking only one type of food and refuse to eat almost everything else. For some reason, the parents of these children were found early in the baby food you eat and keep fit as well as the provision of food, often for several months. When a child has been talking about chocolate pudding enriched with vitamins. In the second it was the pasta and sauce. A child would not rule 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 royal battle and suspension of further efforts. Eating food is not only selected as the second group was controversial children. Their efforts are directed toward another goal: they are determined to do anything to their parents took in his arms or in order to gain their full attention. It can be a signal that the child in the family has received little attention. In fact, most of the family interactions occur during eating. In this case, children will learn that when you eat quickly, quietly and well, gets little recognition or love, but when a real fuss about food, receives a lot of attention from their parents. Then the problem of feeding the lower dynamics of family relationships.

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

Acquired their refusal of food is not related to lack of knowledge of the natural consequences of eating.However, a small number of children dohranjivan is some other artificial means. These children are much more at the hospital, or directly to the failure in weight gain and growth, or because of the great physical hardships they stepped on the road since birth. (Hospital stays can dramatically disrupt the normal routine of feeding, causing varying degrees of rejection of food.) Because of the need for extensive feeding addition, the children did not understand that eating mouth can produce a pleasant taste and / or reduce hunger. In a real sense, these children have had little interest in the process of feeding. They were fed by someone else's schedule. Without a doubt, they experienced the feeling of hunger, but have not experienced any kind of active, personally driven process 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 children and he is expected to eat alone; Furthermore, in connection with the amount of food that a child should eat, how much to offer, When a meal is considered complete, the child should eat while in the arms or while sitting alone, and many more other things that usually are not a problem child who eats a relaxed and appropriate.A 12-month-old baby was breast-fed at random, from the bottle and the glass. 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 a parent (adults), but not for anyone else. Finally, some children are showing a clear preference that "who" will and with whom to eat. Sometimes the person selected only the mother, and in other cases only the father. There are cases when a nanny easily feed the baby, and neither mother nor father have no success with it. A child who eats at someone, perhaps with the exclusion of all others, tells us that the method of feeding the person, from the child's perspective, the best. One of our tasks is to accurately analyze this method in order to help others to emulate.

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