So Jonah has quit eating chocolate muffins in the morning… Rather, he will take maybe one bite or so and leave it.
He used to have 3 preferred breakfast foods. Cinnamon rolls, chocolate muffins, or donuts.
Now, the cinnamon rolls Jonah used to eat have sadly been discontinued. Any attempt at a different “brand” are shut down. Homemade cinnamon rolls? Not a chance.
Costco sells chocolate muffins Jonah has loved to eat in the past. Apparently, he has tired of them.
That leaves a very specific chocolate donut as his only option, and it is a tricky one. Here’s why.
If the house is a few degrees too warm, the glaze starts to melt and the donut becomes “sticky.” When that happens, Jonah won’t touch it. But the alternative is to refrigerate the donuts. Jonah would again not eat them because they would then be “too cold.”
When there are NO preferred breakfast foods left, I have two options: let him go without breakfast, or feed him another preferred food item.
But again, this can be tricky. You see, “dinner foods” belong at dinner. And the rejection of a dinner food at breakfast MAY result in the rejection of that food altogether.
If I try to feed him chicken nuggets for breakfast, and he rejects it, he may project his food anxiety on the chicken nuggets and associate that food item with his anxiety, consequently removing it from the already tiny list of food items he will eat.
There have been times when there were simply “no more preferred food items.”
So given the options, “not eating” would actually be preferable for Jonah.
So what do we do?
The best we can.
Skipped meals are just a part of life for us. There are times when he eats one meal a day, and times when he won’t eat ANYTHING all day.
But he will never complain about being hungry. He never has. As an 18-month old, Jonah wouldn’t cry for food at night. He used to climb out of his crib, slide down the stairs, open the fridge, and start eating string cheese through the wrapper. (He won’t eat string cheese anymore).
Food aversions have just become a part of life. Of course I worry about Jonah’s nutritional intake. But I worry MORE about his FOOD intake.
It’s hard to be upset about him not eating veggies for dinner when he won’t eat ANYTHING for dinner.
But, then there are times when he will DEVOUR three donuts in 10 minutes, or eat a dozen lumpia (yes LUMPIA) in a single sitting.
Food preferences come and go. All we can do is continue presenting food choices (new or preferred) in the hopes that he will choose to eat “something.” Because when it comes down to it…
“Fed is best.”
#ausome