Ben Eats Four Things and I Still Won't Cook a Second Dinner

No child has ever starved himself in front of a full table. I've heard that from a woman on a parenting forum and from my own mother, who said it at my kitchen table, kindly, while Ben was under it. Both of them are half right, and the half they have wrong is the one I've spent the summer on.

Ben is two years and nine months old. He has gone from lunch to bedtime on a cup of milk and a hard stare, and he was up at 5:30 the next morning to tell me about it.

What does Ben actually eat right now?

Four things. Buttered noodles, bananas, cheddar cut into cubes about the size of a die and the heel of the milk-and-honey sandwich bread, plain. The middle slices he hands back to me like a bad check.

Milk comes in a cup and doesn't count, though he'd like it to. In April the list was seven, and scrambled eggs, yogurt and peas all fell off somewhere between Easter and the lake for reasons I can't tell you. Penny and Waffle leave an egg in the nest most days, and the one person in the house who won't touch them is the one I'm trying hardest to feed.

His pediatrician looks at the growth curve every visit, says he's tracking along it and tells me to keep offering things. If the list dropped to two or he stopped growing I'd be on the phone that afternoon, and some picky eating is about texture and smell in a way that no dinner-table plan touches. That's a doctor's question.

Today is the first day of school for Caleb and Lily, so lunch for the first time since early June is just Ben and me.

The part of dinner that belongs to me

The sentence that rearranged my table came from a feeding therapist named Ellyn Satter, and pediatric offices have been passing it around for years:

The parent's responsibilities are to decide when, what and where meals will occur, while the child decides if and how much to eat.

Ellyn Satter Institute

I decide what goes on the table, what time and where, which in our house is six o'clock at the kitchen table with the phone in the other room. Ben decides whether any of it goes in his mouth and how much. I used to think I was in charge of the second half too. I ran dinner like a negotiation and said things across the table that I had to go back and apologize for, which I wrote about in what to say to your child after you've yelled, though getting out of the fight in the first place took me a lot longer than saying sorry did.

I don't make a second meal because a toddler learns fast, and if refusing the chicken produces noodles in four minutes then he has been taught that refusing works. He'd be right, and I can't argue with a lesson I taught him myself. I gave up the one-bite rule too, and the clapping that went with it, since he took to spitting the green bite into his hand to show me what he thought of the applause.

How many times do you offer the same food?

The number I keep seeing is somewhere between eight and twenty calm tries before a child accepts a new food, and most parents quit after three to five, which is where I quit on the peas in April. I've started over without any comment from either of us. The peas sit on his plate next to the noodles while I eat mine, and last week he pushed one off the edge with a single finger, which I'm counting as contact. A pea that arrives with a speech attached doesn't count toward the twenty.

Where I bend

Plenty of writing about not making a second meal sounds like it was done by a person who has never met a toddler at 6:40 in the evening. Mine has some give in it.

Something Ben will eat is on the table at every dinner. If we're having chicken and rice and green beans, there's a small bowl of cheddar cubes next to his plate or a banana on the counter, and he can reach either one. When I make pasta I scoop his noodles out of the pot and butter them before the sauce goes on. I don't count any of this as a second meal, since nothing got cooked for him that wasn't already cooked. A few parents have told me that's cheating and I've stopped arguing about it.

If he has truly eaten nothing, a banana at the counter before his bath is allowed. I know how that sounds. David is softer than I am, and he sits next to Ben, and a cheese cube will travel across the table when he thinks I'm looking at the green beans. We've covered this kind of thing in when Mom says no and Dad says yes, and I've decided his half of the table is his half.

The kitchen is the one place I don't give. When dinner is over and Ben has eaten two noodles and announced that he wants chicken nuggets, I tell him dinner is done and snack is at seven. He yells and I let him, and it only works if I stay as boring as the wall.

What's the table for, then?

I think about a verse in Proverbs more often than a verse about toddlers should be asked to carry:

Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife.

Proverbs 17:1

I don't claim that was written about picky eaters. I think of it at 6:40 anyway, when the green beans have gone cold and I notice my voice has climbed over a noodle.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if he refuses dinner and wants a snack an hour later?

Tell him dinner is over and snack is at a time you've picked, and say it flat, with no lecture. Expect some yelling. Ours still yells some nights, and I'd rather have the yelling than the second dinner.

How long do I keep serving something he won't touch?

Longer than feels reasonable. Put it on the plate, eat it yourself and say nothing about it. Some foods take months, and I can't promise yours ever comes around.

Is it ever okay to make something different?

I think so, if "different" means a plain scoop of the pasta or a piece of fruit and not a whole second dinner. You know your kid and your evening, so you decide where the line is. If you've been making nuggets every night for a year and you're tired, I'm not going to scold you. I just wouldn't start the habit if I could help it.

When should I worry about a toddler who eats only a few foods?

When the list keeps shrinking, when he gags or panics at certain textures or smells, or when his weight stops climbing. Any one of those is a call to your pediatrician and maybe a feeding therapist, and sooner is better. A short list on a kid who's growing and in a decent mood is common and often passes, though it's the pediatrician's call and not mine.

Five library books are due Friday and so far I've found two of them, one under the driver's seat and one in the bathroom basket.

with love, Melissa