If you've been around Alex much, you may have realized - he'll eat anything. In fact, I've come to believe he thinks if he's awake, he needs to be eating. Sadly this means that he has the paci more often than I'd like because if the paci is in his mouth, it means most other things are not. It's the best way I've found to keep him from eating the entire time he's awake. And before you say it, it doesn't matter if we've put all actual food away out of his reach. The child will dig through the trash can or try to take the rabbit food (which could get him bitten as the rabbit is pretty selfish with his food) or just find something he stashed 3 days ago that is now petrified. So for now, the paci is the "plug" with which we can temporarily block out other food.
This does mean, though, that at meal times, Alex is all about the food. You don't need to tell him twice to eat. In fact, if you dare to put him in the chair before the plate is in front of him - he'll let you know rather quickly that that behavior is unacceptable. His brother, on the other hand, is not so compliant when it comes to eating.
Ethan is usually way too busy talking (yes, I know - he's my child) or playing or debating even, to be bothered with food. He'll eat when he wants to but that doesn't really work for us. We have a good kitchen table and have had for about 6 months now and so have tried to do real "family" dinners and get the boys in the habit of eating at the table, etc. Rather than an enjoyable relaxing way to get good family time, Ethan makes dinner a dreaded event.
Until recently that is - I've developed a tact to get him to eat more easily. It isn't that he doesn't like the food; he does. He just doesn't want to take the time to eat it (it's like he wants to eat via osmosis or something - if he sits there long enough, it'll just be in his belly with no effort on his part). So now, he's gotten to the point of saying, "I'm done" after 2 or 3 bites. I tell him he's not done yet and he'll eat another bite. If he's close to being done, I'll let him do the "3 more bites" thing I'm sure you've all done. "You can be done if you eat 3 more bites." He counts with me - but only the big bites count. "One....nope, that one was too little, it doesn't count....two.....just one more.....no - has to be a big bite....ok....three....now you can be done. Please scrape your plate and put it in the sink."
Two nights ago Ethan said to me as he sat down to eat, "Mama, I want you to count with me." Me: "Ok but it has to be more than 3 bites because you haven't eaten anything yet. So let's see how many bites it takes to finish your dinner." This idea was a huge hit. We counted. I was getting Alex a drink when Ethan took a bite and he wanted me to count it. I told him I hadn't seen the bite - was it a big one? His response? He opened his mouth to show me how much was there. Nope - that one doesn't count, there's not much in your mouth. He'd put more on his fork and ask "is this a big bite, Mama?" Me: "No, a little more." He'd get the right size bite and then we'd count. We counted 20 bites - he likely ate 40 or so but he ate every single bite and with a smile on his face.
Last night, we weren't counting but he still looked at me after eating a bite and said, "that bite doesn't count, Mama, it wasn't a big bite....is this one a big bite?" with the next bite at the ready. Pretty smart kid. He's learned this concept pretty well. Lucky for me, he hasn't yet realized that I judge how much food is left on his plate and how far I'm counting to determine if the bites are big enough. "3 bites" can be more like 10 based on how much food he has left & how much he started with but as long as he doesn't realize that, dinner time can be less of an ordeal and maybe we'll learn to count in the process.
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