How to get your child to eat.

So...when Owen first started eating table food at about 9-10 months old...he ate EVERYTHING...and by everything...I mean, everything.  He would demolish a can of green peas, steak, chicken, broccoli, brussel sprouts, green beans, butter beans, etc.  It was awesome.

Then...he magically hit a point in his life when he ate NOTHING...and yes nothing...unless it was chocolate, or sweet.  What happened to our sweet boy who was so easy to please??

So in the course of about 2 years we have tried everything...taking away dessert, no snacks between meals, fixing some things he used to like w/some new things...and well NOTHING worked.  He ate what he wanted, when he wanted.

What we didn't want to happen, was to fix 2 meails each and every night...1 for us, and 1 for Owen.  So we continued to try new "concepts" to get O to eat better, and well dinner time, was such a mess at our house.  Everyone was tired and cranky, and all we wanted was for O to eat more than 2 bites and just maybe try something out of the norm.

Well...just as quickly as his eating habits went away...they came back.  I have no idea how it happened but I'm thankful!!  And what "normal" food did it start with??  Steak!! 

We had cooked steak (2 - one for Troy and 1 for me) and O looked at the two steaks and said "which one is mine, why is there only 2 when there are 3 of us?"  So...being the smart parents that we are, we responded "Owen, you haven't eaten steak in 2 years, if you eat steak tonight, next time we buy it...we'll buy your own steak"

So....lets just say a few days later...we had this:

Don't get me wrong, dinner time is still a struggle for us...but now it's only 3 of the 7 nights so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we are coming out of this stage!!

So...for all you other parents who are in the fun years of eating battles....just stick with it, and know that it will eventually go away!!

Good luck!