I'm a bad feeder

    Every since that first day in the hospital, struggling to get Liam to latch, on to the first month of endless lactation lessons, prayers and techniques, through the following year of choking, spitting everything out and licking his meals up, even to last week where we sat at the dinner table for 45 minutes trying to convince him to eat a full bite of food before getting down...Liam is a bad eater. I've spent so many frustrating hours of meal prep, trying to figure out how to make foods interesting and get his caloric intake up. Luckily he does like a few surprisingly healthy foods, green beans, blueberries, strawberries, bananas and even broccoli, but its the amount of food he eats that has always troubled me.
    Nursing was a huge disaster, I spent two months stressing, pushing and honestly pressuring my baby into doing something that he wanted no part of. I felt inadequate as a mom and build a strong foundation of doubt in my abilities to care for my childs physical well-being. Luckily we found a formula that he really took to and was able to watch him grow into a healthy baby within a few months but as we introduced new solid foods, his famous 'Liam tongue' refused to let most of it in. He did what we lovingly called 'taste testing' and licked all his food, never actually taking a bite but instead, lapping it up. It never looked like he made even the smallest dent in his meals but we were grateful that most of the foods he ate were healthy so at least the little he was eating was nutritious.
   Now that he is off formula, and off the bottle and almost off his sippy cup, I'm trying to make sure he's getting all his nutrients in without milk or supplemental drinks ( I don't want him on enfamil or any of those nutrient supplementing drinks if I can avoid them). I've really focused on food groups and making sure he gets a wide array of options, which is great but he's still just a nibbler. These past few months, dinners have been rough, I spend so much time trying to make sure we have a healthy homemade dinner every night so that things are predictable and routine for him (he rocks at routines so it's made me step up my game) so its very frustrating when I set the table and wait to see a happy full baby and he touches everything, 'taste tests' a few things and eats almost nothing before he begs to get down. I responded by telling him that he would not be excused from the table until he ate X amounts of bites or that he needed to finish his chicken or broccoli before he could get down. This just kept us at the table for 20-30 minutes long and I rarely if ever got the results I wanted, if anything he would take one more bit and out of frustration I would let him get down because my patience had run thin and I couldn't wait another 20 minutes for a tiny nibble. We started to get desperate and our consequences for him not eating were becoming less effective and compatible to him not eating.
     I buckled down a few days ago and researched the issue (which I've stopped doing, I've just asked friends and family but with this issue, I felt like I needed some outside perspective. Almost everyone I know has the opposite dynamic, kids that eat a TON, an issue I'd found myself wishing for). I read a lot with what seemed like the same solutions I had heard before but that didn't really apply to my little man. Til I finally ran across an article that clicked with me from the first sentence.

Main points from the article:

- Don't set unreasonable expectations from your kids, there may be suggested serving sizes for kids but those sectioned plates don't have to be full, sometimes our kids honestly just aren't as hungry and get full faster. If they aren't eating the recommended portion sizes, change the portion size for them. Keep it consistent and comfortable but doable!

-Keep providing healthy foods, don't give into the temptation of feeding them only what they'll eat. (not really news for me, I've always introduced new foods to Liam and made sure he had lots of variety) But it's nice to hear I was on the right track with something. I'll never make him eat something he doesn't like, but I'll always make him try new things. The article touched a lot on this and the damage we can cause by forcing foods.

-Here's something new! It makes so much sense but when you're a desperate parent sometimes the common sense stuff goes out the window. *Don't save dessert for last. find a small place on the plate for a treat or a little dessert. Feeding them dessert at the same time will put all the foods on the same playing field and it also takes away the temptation to brib your kids with dessert in order to get them to eat. Bribery is never a good parenting tool. It gives kids the idea that they don't have to do something unless they get a reward and entitlement is a bad habit to introduce in any sphere! No more "Eat your broccoli and I'll give you a cookie!" or "You can't have the Popsicle until your chickens all gone." I think every mom has her moments where it seems like a harmless plea but it's not.

-Perhaps my favorite part was when the author explained that we are establishing our kids relationship with food. When we say things like, "I want you to eat everything on your plate" or you haven't eaten enough, finish this" We're telling them to ignore their natural instincts and eat x amount of food. I haven't trusted Liam at all at meal time. He knows what hungry feels like, it's my job to help him identify when he's full, not to tell him "how much" that is. If I ask him questions like, "are you full?" or "have you had enough to keep your belly happy" then I can follow up with that when/if he's hungry 10 minutes later by teaching him that if he eats enough at meals times, we wont have to stop and eat snacks  while we're playing or doing something else, encouraging him to eat until he's full at the appropriate times of the day.

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    I started my homework right away. I prepare the same healthy meals I was making before but this time I put a little less on his plate and asked him to try everything, once! He said no but as I watched, he tried everything, even if it was small bits. He asked to get down shortly after and to his surprise I said ok. I asked if he was full, He looked at me with a confused face and i realized, that was new terminology for him. I explained it a little and he ate a few more bits of his favorite part of the meal and hopped down from the table. About an hour later he was hungry again and I sat him back at the table and got out his dinner plate that was still 1/2 full and reminded him to eat until he was full so we wouldn't have to stop playing and sit at the table again. He ate a few more nibbles and got down again.
   The next few days went about the same, but he's starting to understand that snacks aren't happening all day long and the kitchen is only "open" for meals. If he does get a snack its because he ate til he was full at his meals time or its a very healthy snack that's replacing something he didn't eat. He gets a little treat at each meal which hasn't stopped him from asking for more but surprisingly, when I say no, he understands why and doesn't ask again! His intake hasn't changed too dramatically but I am much more relaxed and in control of the situation, which makes me realize that Liams not a bad eater, I was a bad feeder. I forced so much on him and didn't really give him the chance to show me that there was another way. He still is probably not eating as much as other kids his age at each meal but he's eating enough and he isn't establishing some crazy life-altering, unhealthy food relationship. He's a pretty perfect kid and I'm lucky, as a very imperfect parent, to get to learn so much as a first time parent with such a willing and forgiving specimen.