Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Bad
I feel like a bad mom. My baby just woke up crying because he was hungry even though we tried to make sure he ate enough at dinner. Just now he drank some milk and ate some blueberries and cereal bar. Will we be able to catch him up so he won't be so hungry? Anyone else deal with this? I don't think he ate enough at daycare either, but he's probably so distracted. I swear I have the worst time when hunger is an issue for E. It feels like such a basic failing.
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5 comments:
You are NOT failing. Eating can be tough! Especially when they get into the I-Can-Do-It/I-Will-Feed-Myself stage and dont want the spoon. What we did in the beginning of the self-feed revolution at our house was feed them close together. For example, now, they eat breakfast around 9am, lunch around 2pm, first light dinner around 4pm, and then a light dinner of whatever we are eating around 7pm. They get milk sometime during the day, prior to naptime. Then, they get milk fortified with rice prior to bed, around 9pm-ish. In the beginning, since they werent very good finger feeders and more food went on the ground, I would feed them every 2 hours or so. Once they became more effective feeders, we started dropping back on feedings. And now, this schedule works for us. But, still, sometimes they are hungry, even when they ate at X time and ate well. So, we feed them a snack.
You are doing a GREAT job. It's a learning curve for baby and parents. He'll get there.
You are NOT a bad mom. Not even a little bit. Bad moms ignore cries of hunger, need, and pain. You do nothing of the sort.
Both my kids get distractible and don't eat sometimes. Once they got old enough to know when mealtime was and to behave at the table, we stopped giving food other than at mealtimes and snacktimes. But E is still too little to know that - I say keep doing what you're doing.
He also could be doing some serious growing - kids need more at those times but their tummies can only hold so much at once. Please don't beat yourself up, my friend. You are an excellent mother.
Don't worry. It's not you, it's him. Babies are weird (and sometimes a little stupid) and we totally had the problem of Elizabeth eating just enough so that she wasn't hungry at that very moment but it wasn't enough to last her. In fact, she also did that this morning at breakfast. Then she told me all morning "I need a snack!" (She's older than E though, so I told her to suck it up until it was lunchtime and next time, to eat your breakfast when your mom makes you homemade french toast and gives you honey to dip it in.) Hang in there, eating got easier when Elizabeth was a little older than E is now.
Definitely not a bad mom! Now that he's old enough to be more in charge of how much he eats (or asks to eat), it's his problem! Sounds mean, but your days of making sure he's EATING enough are over. Now it's your job to make sure he HAS enough food. It's his job to discover when his tummy is hungry, and he'll learn quickly to eat the food you give him, when you give it! I stopped worrying about Meridian eating a while ago - I finally realized that everyone was right - when she's hungry, she will eat. Ewan is just moving into that stage now, and it will prob just take a little bit for him to get on board.
I'm struggling with similar guilt, but about sleep.... Kate's tired and it's my fault. :( parenting is so hard....
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