Sebastian has always been a slow eater. I would love to say that he lingers at the table to savour every morsel and engage in witty - ok, so he is only four, then funny - conversation. But no, just plain old conversation would be good.
We try to ensure that one adult sits down with him at each meal and we usually succeed. But the one course meal drags on for 40 minutes. There is lots of cajoling, some whining, many deals struck - and lost. Even the idea of dessert doesn't speed things up, and sometimes I promise more than fruit. Instead of conversation, we get chunks of performance art or great arias, sung at full volume and full mouth. I swear that as much, if not more, food falls under Seb's chair than Sophie's - and that's saying something!
I have thought about giving him a time limit and then no more food for the evening. This might be worth considering because his latest move is to announce (post-pee and tooth-brushing) that he is hungry, and he wolfs down his bedside plate (except tonight's leftover salmon which he brish aside with "Not THAT fish").
1 comment:
Tough one. We're dealing with this exact issue.
I hadn't thought of the time limit things. That was fantastic advice someone once gave us about our dog. We used to leave a bowl of food out all day (like my dad always did for his dogs) and Murphy would take a bite every couple of hours. It never seemed like she was eating, but she sure was fat.
Our vet told us to starve her all day and then put out a small amount of food in the evening. From then on, the food was gone in less than 30 seconds and she started losing weight.
The moral: starve your child, then give him 2 cups of dog food at 5:30pm.
Ok, maybe it doesn't apply to humans.
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