my son wont eat?

Question

my son is 4. when i feed him he willl eat very little and tell me hes full then 20 minutes later he says hes hungry again. i continuously make him sit there and eat i have spanked and nothing seems to work. anyone have any advise?

Answer 1

Don't try to force him, that'll just make it worse. Serve him smaller portions, more often. This is a power struggle, and you're losing by resorting to spanking. If he gets hungry enough, he'll eat, but forcing him to sit there isn't going to make it happen. Serve him, let him eat his fill, then take it away, and DON'T give him anything else to eat til the next mealtime - just make it a little closer then usual....say 3 hours away, rather then 5 or 6....

Answer 2

#1 spanking doesn't solve anything so you need to stop that. Make him breakfast and let him eat what he wants. Then when he says he is hungry in 20 min tell he he has to wait for lunch. He will more then likely kick up a fuss but ignore him. When lunch comes do the same for dinner. Also alot of kids eat junk food and that is all they want. Tell him if he finishes his meal he can have a treat. Now don't make him too much to eat cuz you will just be asking for a upset child. BUT you have to be consistent ALL the time. It may take a few days to a week but if you don't give in he will figure it out and start to eat right. Good luck.

Answer 3

This has become a power struggle between you and your son. While you do not want to be too controlling about food you also do not want him to continue the behaviors he has started. He needs three healthy balanced meals and at least two healthy snacks a day. Place the food in front of him and let him eat what he wants. Before he is excused from the table remind him when the next snack will be. If he choses to not eat he will then have to wait until the next meal or snack. However eating every 20 minutes is not good for him. I would also recommend a few other things:

1. Do not let him eat anywhere but at the table or counter. Make sure all distractions like the TV are turned off. The will help you determine if he is really hungry or if he is just mindlessly eating.
2. Give him choices at both snack time and meals. Let him help chose the menu (within reason of course) and offer him a choice of two healthy snacks he can pick between.
3. Limit between meal snacking and keep snacks healthy.
4. Limit treats, i.e. junk food.
5. Make sure he isn't just bored. When my daughter asks for a snack I can tell how hungry she is by what is offered. If I offer foods she will eat, but are not suger or fat loaded she will eat them when hungry and tell me no thanks when she is just bored.

Answer 4

I have a 4 and a 6 year old sons, and I definitely understand your frustration with food. I agree with some of the previous answerers that forcing him to eat or spanking is not necessarily the best answer, since your son will start to associate negative feelings with food because he thinks mommy gets upset everytime it's meal time and he doesn't like mommy getting upset.

There are a number of things you may want to consider. If my kids have a lot of junk food, like all the candies they bring back from birthday parties, they won't have good appetite. So keep junk food out of reach for him in between meals.

He maybe going through the "I don't like this" and "I don't like that" phase. I think my kids pick them up from school. My older son has gone (and still is) going through that phase. Like one day he decided he didn't like tomatos. I asked him why, and he said he just didn't like it. I said you need to give me a good reason why you don't like it. I said to him, if you can give me a good reason, besides "I don't like it", then he doesn't have to eat it. Otherwise if he can't give me a good reason, he needs to eat it. At the end, he ate tomatos.

You may want to try to tell him what might happen if he doesn't eat certain food. I said to my son, if you don't eat tomato, you won't get enough vitamin A and you won't see well at night (I think my reason could be completely off any scientific basis). So now he understands something bad might happen to his eyes, and eats tomatos.

You may also get your son involved in the cooking process. Kids're usually very proud of their own creation and will gobble it down.

Peer pressure may help to. Having other kids around similar age eating may get him to eat.

Although I must say, my sons are not 3 meals a day type kids. They're more like 5 meals. I think kids in general know when they're hungry and want to eat. The parent's job is to create a good environment in which they can get the best type of food when they're hungry, and to build some daily rountine around eating.

Good luck.

Answer 5

i have a daughter and a son who eats that way , they eat small meal throughout the day,, i don't see anything wrong with it as long as you not giving him junk food

Answer 6

well, my borther doesn't eat either. everytime its time to eat, he only eats a little and drinks alot. then, he says he's full. my dad said that he will have to eat it all or my dad will let him starve (of course he's just saying that to scare him) so u can just try to scare him like that and maybe he will eat.

Answer 7

DON'T SPANK HIM. CHILDREN AT THAT AGE EAT WHAT THEIR BODY NEEDS. GET HIM CHECKED HE MAY MAY HAVE A PROBLEM WITH SUGAR. THAT COULD CAUSE HIM TO EAT SMALLER AMOUNTS MORE OFTEN.

Answer 8

dont worry about it kids go through those periods that they dont eat dont make a big fuss of it...he might have worms too...arh the joys of parenthood