Cooper is three years old and is still 100% bottle-fed. We’ve moved
from breast feeding to formula to a shake of pediasure/almond milk/pureed fruit
or veggies with beans or scrambled egg. Aside from this issue he is doing
remarkably well. But this is a huge issue that has completely overwhelmed
me and despite seeking outside therapies at two separate places (one of which
could have been called “How to make a feeding problem worse”) and taking
two months off of work to “do it myself, “ we have made such little progress
that I have at times lost hope that I am capable of helping him. It
should also be noted that he was accepted into the intensive feeding therapy
program only to be denied by my insurance company. Don’t even get me
started on that one!
Here are the mistakes that I’ve made that have led us to
where we are today. My hope is that by getting them out into the world, I
can stop beating myself up over them. I’m seeking liberation from my
guilt so that I can refocus on Cooper and what he needs. Hopefully some
of my mistakes can help other people go a different way. Get ready
because it’s complicated!
Mistake #1: This is the big one so I’m getting it out
of the way first. I forced him. I’m going to quit pretending I
didn’t do this. There have been times over the last few years when I just
put the food in his mouth despite his adamant refusal. I did it out of
frustration. “Just eat the damn cracker!!! ” Nice. Yup.
I did that to a little boy who had low oral/facial tone and didn’t know what to
do with it once I shoved it in there or have the ability to manage it in his
mouth. And I scared him. The thing is, I knew that he couldn’t manage it on his own.
I was tired of nothing happening followed by nothing happening some more -- for
months on end. My own frustration overwhelmed me and I tried to make him
eat things he was not yet capable of eating. This is perhaps the thing I
feel the most shameful about. I never held him down and flooded his mouth
with food. I never put him in danger and I didn’t physically hurt him but
I did bully him and it was borderline abusive and completely wrong and
definitely contributed to his oral aversion. I have to own it and let it
go because it is keeping me from being effective.
Mistake # 2: I over-encourage. Pressure can come
from both positive and negative places. Forcing him to eat =
negative. Throwing a freaking parade when he licks a spoon with puree on
it = positive.
Both = pressure and pressure = refusal. When you
over encourage you are essentially robbing a child of any intrinsic motivation
to honor their own hunger. They are licking the spoon because they want
you to cheer, not because they want to eat. And like all external
motivation it doesn’t last. So the few times that he’s eaten tiny little
bits of anything, I’ve cheered and danced and guess what? He won’t eat it
again. It has happened so many times and I’ve banged my head against the
wall (yes, literally) over why it doesn’t “take.” It doesn’t take because
it’s not about the food. He just enjoys seeing me act a fool.
Neutrality is the key. I have learned this recently and am working on it.
Mistake # 3: I’m inconsistent. Being a fulltime
working single mom leaves me with a couple of problems. The first is that
I’m not home with him during the day. I’ve not been able to effectively
communicate my expectations to caregivers and for the first few years our
daycare situation was so ridiculously complicated that there was almost no
point. But I should have tried harder. The second is that by the
time I get home, I am so tired (oh yeah, Cooper is also a terrible sleeper so
most days start with minimal amounts of sleep from the night before) that some
nights, I JUST CAN’T DO IT. I don’t have the patience to endure it (see
#1). But consistency is the key. Opportunities to practice eating
have to happen on a schedule and several times a day. Like every couple
of hours…that’s a lot.
It's hard to not feel like a failure as a parent when your child won't eat. I feel like a failure. I wrote this hoping that it would help me overcome it because the feeling of failure is what continues to keep us in neutral.
Breathe. Trust. Breathe some more.