I Had A Major Throwdown With The Wife Over My Son's Diet

Nope. I will compromise on most issues but our son's health legacy is not one of them.

 

Interesting take on the situation...Good luck.

 

good thing your actually putting your foot down on this.. my friends wife wears the pants and it drives me insane she doesnt work and he spends all his money and she never cooks and makes him go out to get food all the time but her and the kids never want to eat the same food so he has to go to 3 different places for food and its ridiculous that he just puts up with it.. i can see how he would rather just do it and avoid a fight cause thats usually all they do but damn i would lay down the law in that family. he works 12+ hours a day so hes usually gone and the kids are learning all the stupid shit from his wife. i basically lost a good friend cause of her cause as soon as we go out which is hardly ever she calls him constantly and usually ends up in a fight by the end of the night

ugh. /endrant

 

I fed our son last night because the wife didn't get home until seven (I had to leave work early). I didn't give him any snacks and when it was time to eat I presented the food. He pushed it around but refused to eat. I let him down and he carried on in a fuss for about 30 minutes. I put him back in the high-chair and he ate. Imagine that. He didn't eat all of it, probably not even half, but he ate. String beans, chicken and pasta.

I explained what I did with my wife and all she said was, "Well then you can go through that and feed him every night." Sigh. If I got home at a reasonable time every night I would....

 

stupid.. i hope you get the matters settled and your wife needs to be more cooperative

 

I do not have kids, but I agree with you. Besides, a "picky eater" at 2 becomes the kid at 10 who demands a special type of pizza at a friend's house, who in turn becomes the irritating person at 20 who keeps vetoing everywhere his friends want to go to dinner.

And I think it goes beyond eating. If you teach him that he can get whatever he wants by demanding it now, where does it end? I think it's important to start teaching children that the world doesn't revolve around them, and they have to accept less-than-ideal circumstances, even if it's just at the dinner table.

But again, no kids here.

 

good for you. shows you are correct - and being the parent. too bad your wife won't get on board and make the bit of extra effort it will take to change his habits. too many parents just cave to whatever the kid wants (seen some on this thread).

 

WIN!

 

Well folks, this is why kids do best when they're raised by two parents, a balance of nurture AND discipline.

 

From my point of view, it's little to do with discipline and everything to do with doing the right thing. It physically makes me sick to see him eat crap food all the time. Really. Thinking of how we're surrounded by preservatives and crap ingredients in our food he has a very difficult tide to swim against in terms of healthy-eating mindset when he sets out on his own.

I think my wife wants to do the right thing but doesn't have the patience to do it every night, especially when she would just like us to sit together as a family and eat in peace. And if eating in peace meant getting him fries or nuggets then so be it. And she believes just continuously introducing items on this plate will get him to eat eventually. Sounds good in theory but in the mean time we're starving our kid of certain nutrients. And it fucking blows my mind because she loves to eat healthy.

Anyone got any good reading material on the subject?

 

I wish I could help with the reading material. I share the same symptom in my household. My wife and I agree on most things. She however lacks the patience at times to deal with the "right thing", or can't stand to hear our son cry. Partially because she gets migraines. I can hear him cry for 2 hrs (not that he ever does) and it doesn't bother me, he gets over it and moves on like I did as a kid. I'll be watching to see if any good books come up.

 

I agree with you 100%

My good buddy is "that guy". It annoys this piss out of me because he veto's going to all the restaurants with great food and would rather eat shitty bar food or wendy's instead . It's not because he doesn't want to spend money either...he makes about $10k more a year than I do. The only thing I don't really like to eat is fast food (excluding Chick-fil-a...yummm) other than that I will eat anything and I will attribute that to how my parents raised me.

As for the OP, good job on the dinner the other night, at least it's a start. Force him to eat it and eventually he will learn to appreciate it and will be less fussy.

 

There is a great book that you should read. It is called, Eat This Not That for kids. By David Zinczenko. There is a series of these books. Another good one is the Supermarket survival guide.

 

Well I think encouraging healthly eating habits is wise. However I know a lot of folks that seem more like the food nazi police.

These folks get heart attacks, strokes or old age just like everyone else. Many of them are also overweight and don't know it, based on fat to muscle ratios. The human race has survived just fine for thousands of years. The impact of proper excercise is probably just as, if not more important than diet.

For a two year old, they are not that far removed from 100% milk bottles or tatas. You have to try all kinds of ideas till you hit on some decent ones they actually like. I think an overstrict approach over the course of their entire childhood could have an opposite effect in the future - severe rebellion.

 

I have the "grown up" version. It's a great book. It's amazing at how terrible some of the stuff is for you when you eat out.

 

I agree, w have 5 of them and there is so much info its hard to take it all in.

 

Parenting is hard. It's amazing that she'd sacrifice her child's current and future health and life to avoid some minor and probably short-term conflict and inconvenience.

 

So in the past, or in today's cultures with scarcity, when there was only one or two things available to eat, the kids just died of starvation? Or did they eat what was presented to them when they were hungry enough?

 

you're doing the right thing trying to instill good eating habits in your son at an early age. not to say the occasional junk food that children crave will hurt them.

the cause of fat-fuck kids is on the parents; either being fat themselves or allowing their kids to eat what they want, whenever they want.

morbidly-obese people disgust me.

 

FYI My dad was telling me he has an iphone app that does the same thing. He uses it quite a bit since he travels all the time for work and has to eat out. He has lost 20 lbs since he got it.

I need to look at see if they have one for android since I have an android phone.