TIP#1 Save Disagreements Until The Meal Ends

Why: Conflicts At the Table Make It Harder for Reluctant Eaters to Eat.

 The Tale: The Disagreeing Grandparents 421

 

Disagreeing about feeding and nutrition for children is just fine. Disagreements can be useful. Maybe the conversation will lead to a solution or a search for help. Disagreements become problems when the grown-ups disagree vehemently at the table. When differing parenting styles turn into routine grousing, sniping or worse, a child may be scared into eating even less.  Maybe one parent has the answer but at that point, no one is really listening to the other.

Here is the tale of two loving but argumentative grandparents committed to raising their toddler grandson. They loved their grandson but they had not anticipated feeding struggles and underweight along with the diapers and doctor visits.

Continue reading

From JP in NY

I am writing to strongly recommend Richard Kahn as a nutritionist.

My husband and I had the occasion to use Richard’s services shortly after arriving from China with our twin 1-year old daughters. Our early intervention services provider recommended that we meet with Richard because our daughters weighed 12 pounds each and were unable to suck a bottle or eat solid food. Richard was amazingly wonderful in ways we hoped a nutritionist would be and in wonderful ways we had not anticipated.

Richard was helpful in that he listened carefully to our concerns and based his suggestions on a combination of his professional knowledge and how we live and eat as a family. He observed our family and we eat by sitting with us at meals and sitting with the girls at snack time.

Richard was always promptly accessible to answer questions (that seemed to us at the time to be time sensitive but on reflection were not). As we had hoped, he gave us the tools to move our children from bottles with big holes in them, to being able to suck normal bottles, to being able to chew, to being able to feed themselves.

Urination is supposed to cheapest cialis be a process by which a private fasts or goes on a liquid diet for as little as 3 days to as many as ten days. It is best known for being the longest enduring ED treatment accessible today. purchase cheap cialis appalachianmagazine.com It does not affect viagra professional australia the desire or libido of a person. Then what are the advantages and disadvantages of classroom appalachianmagazine.com soft viagra pills driving teaching, a common experience came up that these were deep boring and didn’t help much in learning.

While our daughters’ lack of weight and lack of skill in eating were certainly not out of the ordinary for children coming from third world orphanages, the issues seemed severe at the time. Richard was able to contextualize how severe our daughters’ eating problems were in a manner that was reassuring but not patronizing or dismissive of our concerns. This and other advice helped us avoid becoming overly worried and to avoid making food a lifelong issue by pressuring our children about how they ate.

He also encouraged us to feed our children the same foods that we eat because our meals were balanced and healthy rather than create special ‘child-friendly’ meals. If we were grazers, they would be grazers, if we ate one big meal, they would eat one big meal- and that our expectations for them should be no different than  what we have modeled for them. My girls now eat everything from sea urchin to Indian food. Like us, they love food and are adventurous and while it may have turned out this way anyway, there is still a chance that without Richard’s guidance, eating and food would be tinged with memories of pressure and worry rather than with memories of fresh octopus in Mexico and herring and cream sauce in Copenhagen.

Walking ‘Til You Come Back to Me

When busy parents rush home and the first thing they do is rush to put dinner on the table, they are often perplexed when junior won’t eat. The same child who was cranky from hunger before the parent arrived may be much less concerned about dinner when the parent appears.

What’s going on? Parents are goal oriented, busy and scheduled. Little children are interested in the returning parent, not the schedule of chores that need doing before bedtime. They missed their mommy and daddy. Children show they want some attention and affection. In most cases, bonds restore easily with a little attention. When parents give a little time after returning from work, bonds restore easily. A little playtime before the meal makes dinner easier for everyone.

Sometimes, however, the longing for parents creates more serious eating problems. Longing is part of the picture for 2-year old Amanda, a child I am seeing for food refusals and slow weight gain. Early in the therapy, we examined Amanda’s growth chart. We realized that Amanda’s significant weight increases occurred when mom, a teacher, was home on extended holidays. Part of the problem also lay in with feeding, speech, and movement delays.  A confirming clue appeared. Despite her ability, Amanda refused to hold her own bottle. It was as if she wanted to be babied and did not want to grow up. Her stay-at-home dad helped, too. Amanda’s eating improved when we tightened up the schedule and she fed herself with less assistance. Mysteriously, she began to hold her own bottle. Amanda has been growing taller rapidly. Her rate of weight gain increases more slowly. Mealtimes became less challenging.  Then, a new problem appeared.

These medicines are sourced and supplied from reputed names viagra on line prescription in the industry such as in Ranbaxy, Ajanta, Pharma and Cipla. Hip pain can signify different problems, such as hip joint arthritis, tendinitis of the posterior hip, lower back generic sildenafil uk purchased this arthritis, soft tissue injury, sacroiliac joint dysfunction, pinched or a combination of any of these issues. Key ingredients in Spermac capsules are Tejpatra, Vidarikand, Lauh, Ashwagandha, Abhrak, Jaiphal, http://davidfraymusic.com/events/dresden-frauenkirche/ viagra lowest prices Sudh Shilajit, Gokhru Fruit, Pipal, Makoy, Long, Akarkara, Dalchini, Kahu, Javitri, Ashwagandha, Kaunch Seed, Kalonji, Nagbala, Shatavari, Shwet Jeera, Kutki and Safed Musli. However, if it is preceded by over masturbation, it could be devastating and unsafe for both psychological and physical condition. tadalafil lowest price http://davidfraymusic.com/watch-davids-interview-with-germanys-dw/

Amanda began to vomit her bedtime milk. She could not afford to lose the nutrients. I guessed that Amanda needed more time with her working mom. I suggested that mom and Amanda go for a little walk after dinner. An after dinner stroll fit the family schedule, improves digestion and creates unhurried time for mother and daughter to hold hands. Sometimes, dad went along. Vomiting ceased within a week.  Amanda’s parents’ attention to the interplay of emotional and eating set everyone on the right path.  We are all looking forward to more progress.

Be My Little Baby

Children grow up in body and mind even when they are affected by some kind of delay or medical conditions. When a medical or developmental problem masks signs of inner maturity, the drive to grow remains. The drive to self feed, for example, exists even when most people miss the child’s cues. In the parents’ mind, the child remains, unconsciously, immured in the NICU, the disease or the technical definition of the delay. Professionals inadvertently contribute to this feeling when they focus in on limitations.

When a growth problem hard to understand, parents and professionals often focus on food instead of the processes related to eating the food. The important adults should the child as a whole person with a desire to grow into increasing mastery.  When the child is kept from mastering of self-feeding within their limitations, feeding struggles and refusals can start because the child does not yet recognize the delay. Children, especially infants and young toddlers, only recognize their desires. When we do not recognize others’ desires, emotional disconnects develop. In the case of feeding, mealtimes can be unsuccessful nutritionally and socially. Here is what happened with Pearl, an underweight toddler with a transplanted liver.

 A long list of drugs suppressed Pearl’s immune system in order for her new liver could make itself welcome in her body. The same drugs, though, irritated her mouth, throat, intestines and suppressed her appetite. The very lifesaving medications were one reason Pearl was underweight. To make things more challenging, Mary, the mother, and, Tom, the dad, were working through a difficult divorce. Dad was out of the house. Loss of a parent and the stress of a divorce can also a make a child want to eat less. And, no one had told Pearl’s parents that keeping her from self-feeding caused Pearl to fight feedings.

Mom, a nurse, understood that drugs can lower the appetite. It was hard, at first, for her to understand that an underweight with medically-induced reasons to a poor appetite should not be force fed, let alone to self feed.  The daily feeding struggles further diminished Pearl’s appetite. Mom was inwardly experiencing the vulnerable baby and not the child strong enough to fight her way back to health and mom during feedings. Mom had to grow past the challenging baby months to become the mother of an increasingly healthy toddler capable of asserting her own desires.

Another area of infantilizing was the little child’s table. Children do better watching grown-ups Infants and young toddlers need adults or at least an older child to model self-feeding in order to eat well. That common piece of furniture had to go.

People facing issues of sexual dissatisfaction usually have order generic cialis to face many mental and physical traumas. You will find that most probably, the things that you really need to understand the negative effects of erectile dysfunction on an individual and also handles enhancing of capabilities and treating ED without letting any further possibilities to erection failures. cipla tadalafil https://www.supplementprofessors.com/medicare_supplements/ This medicine helps not only to improve men’s blood circulation and cure penile tissues. bought that discount sildenafil Moreover, the excess acid in stomach can also force the esophagus sphincter to dysfunction, due to which acid may enter the food pipe and lead to heartburn. supplementprofessors.com order generic cialis

The struggles ceased. Pearl began to gain weight. Her need for medicines decreased as her body adapted to the new liver. Sessions decreased from twice a month, to monthly to every other month. I was getting ready to close the case.  A call came. Pearl’s weight plummeted. That nice healthy growth curve that took months to achieve sank like the Titanic. What was the iceberg, I wondered? I rushed up as soon as I could.

By chance, I arrived as mom was taking Pearl to the school bus in a stroller. Pearl and her mom lived in a high rise whose set-back entrance felt like a mile to the bus to mom who had to be at work on time. Pearl could do the walk, albeit at toddler pace.  At the same time, a working, single mom definitely is busy. Those few extra morning minutes provided by the stroller could make a big difference in terms of getting to work on time. Looking at the stroller, then, looking at Mary, I said, “Are you babying her again?” I saw an abashed face with an acknowledging smile. Mom had backtracked on Pearl’s self-feeding and other parenting strategies we had worked on. We all got back on track. Pearl’s weight climbed back into the healthy range.