Would You FEED This Kid?

[countrymom]

[QUOTE=Crystal;67428]Misol, with all due respect, we are talking about an 18 month old here. Yes, he will learn with time to eat or he will be hungry, BUT there is absolutely NO reason to re-serve his LUNCH for SNACK when the provider knows good and well that he will NOT eat it. Therefore, the child is going HUNGRY for 8-10 hours a day. As a provider, I am apalled that another provider would even consider allowing a child to go hungry for that long, even if she did offer him (the same) food all day and as a parent I would be downright LIVID and probably calling licensing about it.

Now, if we were discussing an older child, it would be a LITTLE more understandable to re-serve lunch for snack, but even then I'd be questioning why anyone would think that's okay.

I do agree that I would not hand-feed him. He is quite capble of that himself.[/QUOTE

get a grip!! go back and reread what was written. no one is starving a child 8-10 hours a day. Oh and I guess you have never heard of leftovers. also its not that the child is not wanting to eat the food, he's refusing to feed himself, thats 2 totally different things.

[Crystal]

[QUOTE=countrymom;67437]

Misol, with all due respect, we are talking about an 18 month old here. Yes, he will learn with time to eat or he will be hungry, BUT there is absolutely NO reason to re-serve his LUNCH for SNACK when the provider knows good and well that he will NOT eat it. Therefore, the child is going HUNGRY for 8-10 hours a day. As a provider, I am apalled that another provider would even consider allowing a child to go hungry for that long, even if she did offer him (the same) food all day and as a parent I would be downright LIVID and probably calling licensing about it.

Now, if we were discussing an older child, it would be a LITTLE more understandable to re-serve lunch for snack, but even then I'd be questioning why anyone would think that's okay.

I do agree that I would not hand-feed him. He is quite capble of that himself.[/QUOTE

get a grip!! go back and reread what was written. no one is starving a child 8-10 hours a day. Oh and I guess you have never heard of leftovers. also its not that the child is not wanting to eat the food, he's refusing to feed himself, thats 2 totally different things.

If you know that the child is not eating what you serve him, and you do not offer him anything else at another meal/snack time, then yes, it is starving a child. I assume he is care full-time. If he's there for a couple of hours, then I am sure mom will feed him what he will eat at home and wouldn't worry about it.

I agree that he needs to feed himself, but it is not okay to re-serve the same food knowing that he will not eat it.

You can disagree with me, that's fine, but this is my stance on it and I don't care if anyone else like it or not. It is NOT OKAY to let a child go hungry. PERIOD.

[mickey2]

No way would I feed him

18 month old little pistol, knows perfectly well how to feed himself but refuses. He gets offered the same food at the same times as all of the other kids, if he doesn't eat his lunch I save it for snack. It's not that he can't, he can pick up cookies, crackers, chips, raisens etc. etc. but give him meat, veggie, pasta etc and he refuses. There are days that go by that he will only eat a bite or two of food all day because I refuse to feed him. His Mom doesn't seem to care, because he will fill up on junk and milk when she gets him home. My scale is broken but he weighed over 30 pounds in June when he started, I would guess that he weighs about 45 now.

Sometimes he will eat better if I pick it up and feed it to him, according to Mom she does not do this at home. Would you?

I would NOT feed him, at 18 months of age he is perfectly capable of feeding himself. I would however encourage him to eat and praise him when he does take a bite. After a reasonable amount of time I would just remove his food and tell him that lunch time is over. At snack time be sure to offer him a nutritious snack. If he does not want to eat it then so be it.

I have a question though. Is he perhaps very tired by the time lunchtime arrives? Maybe he is just too tired to eat so just sits there. I have a little boy who is 3 1/2 now whom I have had since he was 11 months old. He was doing this for a while. Once I realized that he was just way too tired to eat his lunch I started feeding him earlier & he began eating better. He arrived some mornings at 6 30 so by 11 am he was too exhausted! Poor baby. Maybe a VERY good nutritious snack mid morning then if he does not eat his lunch at least he had something nutritious. Then give him another very good snack as soon as he wakes up.

Just a thought. :-)

[Francine]

I just wanted to pipe in here again about what kind of food we are talking about, I am not talking about yogurt, mashed potatoes or the like. I am talking about chicken nuggets, french fries, grilled cheese, pizza, pb&J, fruit, veggies, waffles, scrambled eggs and toast etc. I'm not asking him to eat it with a spoon and fork, I want him to pick it up with his fingers. If I put it into his mouth he will eat it just fine, he just won't pick it up. He can, I have seen him eat plenty of crackers, cookies, fruit snacks etc. He tends to want to play around during lunch, twisting in his chair, talking, throwing his arms around so that his food ends up getting either scattered around the table or dumped on the floor. He doesn't just sit and eat like the rest of the kids, he is a very busy kid. He eats breakfast before he gets here, he gets offered a.m snack whether he eats it or not is up to him, he gets offered lunch whether he eats it or not and afternoon snack. Yes, if lunch is something like a pb&J and it went untouched because he was messing around during lunch I will give it back to him for snack. I don't leave his hot lunch sit on the counter to get cold and then give it back to him for snack and expect him to eat it.

He is by no means going hungry, he still wakes up in the middle of the night for 8 ounce bottles of milk, sometimes more than once. A week or so ago Mom told me that he had woke up at like 4 a.m., they gave him 3 8 ounce bottles between 4 and when they were ready to get up just to keep him quiet. His bed is in his parents room so they do whatever they can to keep him quite, milk keeps him quiet.

[nikia]

Miss joy your last post speaks volumes. He is 18 months and still bottle fed still waking up in the middle of the night STILL is treated like an infant IMO.

I think maybe trying to feed him before the other kids so he doesn't show off which I think is what he is doing. Do the other kids laugh when he is twisting around and playing with his food? Can you feed him one piece and then put one in his hand and the guide it to his mouth ? I know it will be time consuming for a bit but he is being treated like a newborn at home IMO and needs to work on being a toddler. KWIM??

[Daycare_Mama]

Totally agree with the person who said "have you ever heard of leftovers?"

There is nothing wrong with reserving food that went uneaten for the next meal/snack. That is exactly the definition of leftovers. It's not like you are not offering the child food. THAT would be starving a child, but if you offer a child food and they ARE hungry, they WILL eat it. Bottom line.

Now, I'm not saying every single meal that's not completely finished should be saved for the next meal/snack, but there's not a thing wrong with doing that once in a while, especially when they didn't eat hardly anything.

My 20 month daycare boy is pretty picky and sometimes will only eat his meat for lunch. There's plenty of times that he doesn't touch his blueberries or green beans or whatever and so I give wrap it up, stick it in the refrigerator, and give it to him at snack when he wakes up, and what do you know, he eats it all up! What a mean daycare mom, giving the boy leftover lunch from 3 hours ago! ::

I think it is MUCH more appalling to throw away and waste perfectly good food that was untouched, then to offer it at the next meal. It's not like it gets served meal after meal after meal, day after day until he eats it. Get a grip is right!

To the original poster, I would not feed a child that age his whole meal. But once in a while, when I give dcb something, he just stares at it like he think he won't like it. So, like the other poster said, sometimes I'll pick up one bite and feed it to him, he realizes he actually does like it and he eats! But no, never a whole meal or anywhere close to it. That's how you end up with a 4 year old that is still spoon fed by her parents... true story! My mom's coworker's niece will not eat a single bite herself! And she is very capable..parents just baby her.

[QualiTcare]

[QUOTE=Crystal;67448]

If you know that the child is not eating what you serve him, and you do not offer him anything else at another meal/snack time, then yes, it is starving a child. I assume he is care full-time. If he's there for a couple of hours, then I am sure mom will feed him what he will eat at home and wouldn't worry about it.

I agree that he needs to feed himself, but it is not okay to re-serve the same food knowing that he will not eat it.

You can disagree with me, that's fine, but this is my stance on it and I don't care if anyone else like it or not. It is NOT OKAY to let a child go hungry. PERIOD.

i agree. i mean, would you give one child a meal that was different from all the rest of the children just because their parents said, "they don't like chicken stir fry (or whatever)?" NO - you'd say, "they are going to be served whatever i serve the other children. it's not fair for one child to be served something different bc the other children might want it, etc." why is it okay to serve one child something different because THEY didn't choose what you served?

there are some battles that aren't worth fighting. if a child doesn't eat their green beans at lunch, you don't give the other children yogurt with gummy bears for snack and put green beans in front of the child who wouldn't eat them for lunch.

your job is to offer the children a good, nutritious meal - whether they eat it is not up to you. do you think depriving them of yogurt at daycare is going to change their habits if their mom has a bag of cheetos waiting in the car? NOOO.

if you KNOW a child won't eat your food that you paid good money for then don't give them a large portion - but don't put that same food in front of them while the other kids have something different.

[Daycare_Mama]

It has nothing to do with serving children different meals altogether. I would never do that. If my dcb OR daughter doesn't eat their green beans and blueberries at lunch, I sure will give them to them as snack, ALONG WITH what the other child is getting for snack. I'm not going to deprive either kid of what the other is getting. If daughter is getting graham crackers and cheese for snack, so will dcb. BUT if he didn't touch something at lunch, I will give that to him also to see if he'll eat it with snack. If he doesn't, no big deal. But I'm not going throw away food of any size if I know he'll probably eat it in a few hours.

Now, reserving a child their lunch for snack and giving all the other kids a different snack, that is mean. But as long as you ALSO offer the child the snack that everyone else is getting WITH what they didn't eat earlier, that is perfectly fine.

[BentleysBands]

My advice is to offer smaller portions at a time. He maybe overwhelmed with a huge plate
Of food.

I would personally just feed him

[misol]

Misol, with all due respect, we are talking about an 18 month old here. Yes, he will learn with time to eat or he will be hungry, BUT there is absolutely NO reason to re-serve his LUNCH for SNACK when the provider knows good and well that he will NOT eat it. Therefore, the child is going HUNGRY for 8-10 hours a day. As a provider, I am apalled that another provider would even consider allowing a child to go hungry for that long, even if she did offer him (the same) food all day and as a parent I would be downright LIVID and probably calling licensing about it.

Now, if we were discussing an older child, it would be a LITTLE more understandable to re-serve lunch for snack, but even then I'd be questioning why anyone would think that's okay.

I do agree that I would not hand-feed him. He is quite capble of that himself.

I would not hand feed him either, but I wouldn't re-serve him his uneaten food. I would be serving him the same food as everyone else, at the same time as everyone else, and nothing in between. I promise you, he won't starve.

Crystal, what I meant was exactly what Luna said right here. I wouldn't reserve his lunch for snack but I also wouldn't serve him a special snack just because I knew he would eat it. He would get whatever was on the menu for snack that day. Nothing more, nothing less. Now if he didn't eat the snack either, then yes, he would be hungry at my house until his mom picked him up - but he certainly wouldn't starve.

ETA - I agree with other posters that reserving an uneaten meal is simply leftovers. The only reason I don't do this (anymore) is because I've never had any success with it.

[Francine]

I really appreciate what everybody has had to say, I do want to say something to those who think I am being mean by saving lunch for snack and giving all of the other kids something different/better. 9 chances out of 10 he eats afternoon snack by himself, I have 5 kids and all are part time and two of the five are infants. On the days that he is here with either of the older kids he is still sleeping when they eat their snack because they get picked up at 3:00 so I wake them up and give them snack before they leave. He usually sleeps until 3:30 or 4. And I don't always save his lunch for him to eat at snack but there are days that I just assume that he must not have been hungry at lunch if he isn't going to eat so I give it back to him later after his nap when he might be more hungry. There is a difference between saving a pb&j and saving a grilled cheese, the grilled cheese would be nasty and I wouldn't want to eat it left over so I'm not going to give it to him but the pb&j is just fine.

His own mother doesn't sit and feed him, she just assumes that he will eat when hungry. He gets more milk on any given day before he comes to me at 8:30 than I would give my own kids in an entire day, he is not starving, he's not crying because he's hungry, he is not delayed in anyway, he is very strong willed and stubborn.

[Live and Learn]

My kiddies are good little eaters. My dc parents send in lunches we always start with veggies, then protein, then fruit. .....then if there are crackers or something last. Sometimes the parents will send a veggie that the kiddie is suspicious of!::...one parent sends these yummy organic pepper, eggplant, onion combos from our fancy deli here in town...YUMMY! He looked at the eggplants with trepidation!! I poked one in his lil pie hole and he gobbled the rest right down!!....I would never routinely feed an 18 month old. He is capable of feeding himself!! If he is hungry he will eat but I am old school....he can eat his veggies and protein before he is offered the rest. I don't fight with kids over food. I have rules and that is that.No biggie...I don't get upset or anything...you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. I have never had a healthy kid not eat their lunch. If he were healthy and trying to control the food options... like you MISS JOY I would feed him the lunch later. Especially if is just you and him.
Also my dc kiddies drink water only during the day.This lil fella is drinking a whole lot of milk at home. He wouldn't get milk here.

[Francine]

.Also my dc kiddies drink water only during the day.This lil fella is drinking a whole lot of milk at home. He wouldn't get milk here.

Yep, water only here too! I have one little girl that drinks so much milk in the morning before getting here that her diaper is usually leaking when Mom brings her in, pants wet, needing a full outfit change. By 10:00 her diaper will be just as full even if she hasn't had anything to drink here. Mom will bring her in and say " she's had milk but no breakfast" WHY????? She is two years old and it is 8:30 in the morning.