almost 2 and she wont feed herself!!

charlie2505

My daughter will be 2 next month. She has always been this way, loved me feeding her and doing things for her-never been an independant type who wants to do it for themselves even if too young! Which in someways has been great but now, not so great.
My husband is at home with her full time and I back in work. We have a 6 month old too. Just before our son was born, she had started to make some effort to feed herself but still wasnt great-she was 16mths old then. When baba came along, she regressed in a big way-refused to do anything for herself which I assume was a reaction to me looking after the baby's needs so I let it go for a little while. Now baba is 6 months old and I am back in work and she is still refusing to eat herself.
So for the New Year we had a good chat and decided that she would begin to feed herself properly-ie we werent going to help anymore put the food in her mouth-only cut things up or help get things on the spoon if difficult-scrambled eggs etc. It started ok ish and we were strict-if she didnt finish her plate and wanted us to help we wouldnt. We explained nicely, that she is a big girl now and praised and encouraged when she would do it-she is well able by the way before anyone says maybe she cant yet-she most definately can! Then last few weeks she has barely ate anything and also stopped going to the toilet (not potty training just yet) and has now ended up with a faecial impaction which involves taking stupid amount of medication-including movicol which is a powder your meant to disolve into a drink of water-tastes of salt and soap-so really is disgsting. No matter how I have tried to give it to her, she wont drink anything for us now-even though you can barely taste it. So only way we can give it is in 4-6 yoghurts over the day (has to take a huge amount this first week). And of course she is refusing to feed herself and because she HAS to take this medicine, we have had to resort back to spoon feeding her again. I cant help but wonder if she is holding her poo deliberately because she doesnt want us to stop feeding her. Her diet is very good and drinks plenty of fluid and had no problems until we introduced the new rule. She is 2 next month but can understand everything we say and I do try and explain what is going on etc. So thoughts on this extremly long (sorry!) post would be very welcome. Anyone had a toddler do this before? What did you do?

Storm_rages

Hi Op,

i'm just thinking did you take maternity? Is it possible that she is reacting to you being home with her and then going back to work? I'm home at the moment and my 2 and a half year old has started to look for me to feed him (we have a 5 month old too) I think it could just be a stage. Its very hard, like you i know he can do it but i just keep reminding myself that its been a lot of changed recently, and new babies take a lot of time, so i guess its easy to understand that they may be thinking "look after me, feed me". I try the "i do one, you do one" and not have a battle over it...

cbyrd

That's a big change.. how about doing it more gradually.. give her a spoon and every now and again you spoon the food into her aswell.. my 3rd lad is just turned 2 and i still feed him the messier foods like soups and stew cos it's just too messy when he does it and i've enough washing and cleaning to be getting on with the regressions are a normal way of getting attention.. it's no harm to indulge a little so they don't feel left out, it's hard for them to adjust to everything.. think how upside down her world feels. getting attention from not spoonfeeding is getting attention what ever way she can. help her along for a little while she'll eventually get back on track. maybe if she's not eating very much she doesn't have a lot to get rid of? be careful of making mealtimes a battleground.. it can lead to a lot of problems..

sometimes my little lad want's biscuits when it comes to dinnertime and might refuse to eat.. my solution was to put on the teletubbies to distract him from the tantrum about explode and he'd be finished before he knew he started. job done without the fuss and everyone is happy... it doesn't happen all the time but the bigger the deal you make of it the more attention they feel they're getting the more often it happens. . viscious circle and with 4 kids i dont' have the time to indulge him. negotiating with a 2 year old is pointless

slarkin123

I would try making a game of it. Use 2 spoons. You give her a spoonful than encourage her to give herself a spoonful. After a couple of meals you feed her every third or fourth spoonful. Soon enough she'll be doing it all herself. That worked on my son. Though he hit 2 last week and wants to do everything for himself now.

Tombo2000

funny story another parent told me.

They were going to collect their circa two year old from creche early one day at lunch time; the other kids were eating away with their spoons.

The mom said, darling son, why cant you eat with a spoon like all the other boys and girls. Creche employee said, he's been eating with a spoon for 6 months, what are ye talking about.

Point being that he demanded to be fed at home, whereas he was quite happy to go with different rules at creche....