Picky Eater Stupid Mother??
Another day, another Mum bashing. If its not the Daily Mail criticising Mum Bloggers its Gino de Bloody Campo, calling Mums with picky eaters STUPID PARENTS. Gee thanks, as if my week wasn’t bad enough.
I was a picky eater.
I remember it well. As a toddler my Poor Mum was at her wits end and spoke to health visitors galore about her inability to get me to eat or try anything new. I caused her a lot of tears and upset. One day, she told me I wasn’t leaving the table until I tried some bread and butter, and so the stubborn little thing that I was, I literally sat there for hours. Hours until she gave in. I went to bed hungry, but I still refused to eat it. To this day, I’ve not eaten bread and butter since (at least not together!!)
It now appears that history is repeating itself, in that I appear to have bred my own mini me’s – the picky eater, the stubborn food fighter, and the ‘I will only eat brown food’ monster.
I am sure there are lots of things we could’ve done differently. We did traditional feeding, starting with baby rice and then moving on to purred foods. She didn’t seem overly interested in food. Whereas some of my friends babies would pop their mouths open like a happy fish, with Erin it was more ‘plastering a wall’ type feeding. I would spend ages making her little steamed pots of yummy vegetables for her to try, and 99% of it went around her mouth rather than in it.
I decided to try pouches, and ended up finding a few meals that she enjoyed. Then? That was literally all she would eat. I would go out with friends and watch with embarrassment as they munched on carrot sticks and broccoli whilst I went off to find a microwave. At 12 months, she refused to have anything with lumps in, and was still eating 10 month pouches. Yes I could’ve been harder on her, but I am weak, and she was so petite anyway that the thought of sending her to bed hungry just didn’t feel like an option. When your child doesn’t sleep, ANYTHING that might make matters worse is avoided like the plague.
As she has grown older we have had some small successes, largely due to nursery and she will now eat a range of food including cheese, pasta (with hidden veg), beans, potatoes, carrots and sweetcorn, as well as the embarrassing ‘slummy mummy’ staples of chicken nuggets and fish fingers.
My cheese sandwich post this morning was half in jest. But seriously this is my life.
And her sister? Don’t ask. History is now repeating history.
Am I stupid? Was my mother stupid? Well maybe Gino, but for once, just once, a little praise for mums somewhere in the media wouldn’t go amiss!
Lucy
