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Master of Food

Siferra's picture

Hey all-

I've been a lurker for a good long while now, but I had to share this one.

We have finally found the perfect food arrangement for SS6! He has always been a picky eater and we've gone back and forth between making him eat something and setting a timer and letting him go hungry if he doesn't eat.

Two weeks ago I decided to implement a small dessert (like a mini doughnut or a rice krispie treat) and it magically worked! He gets 30 minutes to eat his food, whatever he wants. If he finishes it all within the 30 minutes, then he gets a rice krispie. If not, then no big deal, but no dessert. Sometimes he decides a particular meal is so not to his taste that he won't eat it even for the treat, but we don't yell at him about it.

In 3 days we went from him only finishing maybe 1/3rd of his meals to finishing about 6/7ths. I've even been giving him challenging things, like shrimp, crab, lima beans, peas, broccoli, REAL FOOD! Without a fight!

When we drop him off with his BM every night and she asks what he ate it's SO satisfying to say "crab, red potatoes with green beans and rosemary sauce, and edamame" and watch her jaw drop.

Comments

Jsmom's picture

If you have a trader joes' get frozen bags of edamame and steam them. Much cheaper than anywhere else. We do it once a week. Kids eat it up!!!

Auteur's picture

I found the shells to be stringy and well, undigestable. Wondering what I'm doing wrong?

daysleeper's picture

Don't eat the shells. Cook them in the shell and then pop them out and eat them, like you would whole peanuts.

Auteur's picture

That's what I ended up doing. GG was less than thrilled b/c he can't stand doing any "hands on" work during dinner.

Auteur's picture

I was told once under no circumstances should I leave shrimp tails on with such dishes as scampi.

I think he's backed off on this b/c at first he was SCARED TO DEATH that his widdle piggly wigglies would choke on something that I cooked at the house. He would literally go through any soup I made looking for "chokable objects"

Then decide my food was "too kid-unfriendly" so he'd crack open a can of campbells chicken noodle soup, heat it up then strain the cumbersome broth out so that skiddies would just have a bowl of over salted noodles. :sick:

daysleeper's picture

Hmm... the only problem that I might have with this is that you're not teaching him much about portion control. If he gets full before his plate is done, if he wants the dessert (kids don't think about being full when dessert is involved, trust me), he'll keep eating past when he should, right?

Siferra's picture

Very true - I try to give him reasonably sized portions to make sure he won't stuff himself in order to get the dessert. I always under-give a little bit, and then ask if he wants more before dessert.

forestfairy's picture

Auteur, you don't have to go through all the work to pop the beans out of the shell. Just steam them whole for about 5 min. and sprinkle with salt. Then you grab a pod and while you hold one end, put it in your mouth and gently close your teeth around the end you are holding and pull. They will pop out right into your mouth. Then just throw the shell into an empty bowl. They are delish! (Same method you would use to eat a whole cooked artichoke and get the "meat" off the leaves).

You can also just buy the shelled ones, which are nice if you are mixing them into something, but I love just eating them from the shell.

Auteur's picture

that's what we ended up doing, but GG was less than thrilled as he would have preferred them "pre shelled"

It was my first time making them so chalk up a big DUH for me! Lol

Doubletakex3's picture

Brilliant. I think Pink Floyd originally suggested this approach:

"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?" Smile