When it comes to parenting Darius, hubby and me have differences and we sometimes argue over it.

I’m the Devil Mummy, and he’s the Angel Daddy. We do not interfere with each other’s methods when each is doing the parenting but we do argue a little about it. I supposed for a child, there must be a balance. I will be the one feeling angry, frustrated and scolding Darius in his misbehaviour while he will do the ‘pacifying’ afterwards.

Because of this, Darius will tend to fluctuate in his behaviour because it is okay with Daddy, and not okay with Mummy. Hubby does try to tell him to do what he’s supposed to do but he’s just not firm enough most of the time.

Example: I will say to Darius in a firm tone, “Darius, you made a mess! Pick up the books!!” Then, I’ll make him take up the books himself(squat, pick), wait for him to put back the books himself and doing it til ALL of them are finished. Even if he’s fussing and in tears about it.  So he gets it that he’s not supposed to make a mess and if he does, he will clean it himself.

For Hubby, he will say in a gentle tone,”Come, Darius.Let’s pick up the books, shall we?” Then, he’ll help him pick up the books, guide his hand to put back the books and when he seemed slow, help him to finish picking and go and do other stuff.

It’s a case of me trying to instil independence in Darius and him a little thwarting it because of not being consistent. I’m not angry about it, just thinking about the differences we have and whether it will affect Darius. His laid-back attitude made me feel very over, thinking whether I’m being wrong to do this with Darius. But, I will still do it because I do not want him to grow up whiny and wilful, too dependent and too lazy. Yes, I believe in “Spare the rod and spoil the child” so I’m quite firm with him. Hubby has since changed after I reflected this to be more firm with Darius.

Today, I was reading Angeline’s blog for inspirations on parenting & handling misbehaviour when I came across her blog post on how eating has been a frustrating topic in her family where her hubby and her have different expectations when it comes to issues of children eating.

Wow, it spoke to my heart because this was what I had been experiencing sometime before, which stopped and now experiencing it these few days again. It’s so similar to what I’m doing and made me reflect on my behaviour.

Read ahead for the long post on:
The issue of ‘Eating Faster’ or ‘Not-eating’ with Darius.

We have been implementing this for one month plus now because of this issue:

• Eating at the table together during dinnertime, sometimes during lunchtime too with me so he can watch us eat and be encouraged to eat.
• I move his hand to feed himself (the spoon in his hand) because I still want him to do a little self-feeding and also to pace his own eating so we don’t gorge him with ‘our’ timing.
• While waiting for him to swallow, I take a bite of food myself.  Because I’m hungry too and a hungry mummy is a angry mummy and he takes so long to finish his mouthful.
• I’ll turn back, check whether he has swallowed, move his hand again to feed himself if he has.

So far, it has been better than the past (it happened once before he was 1 year old) when I fed him and get frustrated waiting for him to swallow. I’m a person who is impatient and I want to do a lot of other things instead of seating there feeding him for very long, wasting time. To me, mealtimes shouldn’t last more than 20mins. (He had always taken 10-15mins to finish a meal). If the meal dragged for too long, I will have to stop and dump the porridge because there’s no point keeping him in the high chair for long with the porridge being cold and tasting even worse by the minute.

But Darius tested my patience again last week and this week when he started doing this during mealtimes:
This is after I sing him songs, being nice to him, and he still does not behave well. Just staring at me and doing these.
1) Taking the first/two mouthfuls of porridge, then keeping the third mouthful in his mouth like forever.
2) Open his mouth to take another mouthful of porridge even though he hasn’t swallowed. He will open his mouth the moment you put a spoon to his mouth automatically.(sometimes, I couldn’t tell and stuff another mouthful)
3) Had his mouth so full of food that he still keep it there forever without moving, without swallowing so that his cheeks puffed up and made it even worse, couldn’t swallow such a big mouthful or move it.
4) Try to play with the spoon (it’s slightly in front, not near him) while still having mouthful, not moving his mouth or swallowing but stabbing at the food creating a mess.
5) Look dazed at a faraway object instead of concentrating on chewing and moving his mouth to swallow.

After eating for sometime, he starts holding mouth in his food and plays with spoon, or looking dazed

So every mealtime became a scolding session by me: after my being nice to him at the start developed to getting frustrated. In my mind, there’s NO use being nice to him. He only gets it when he faces discipline.
1) Your mouth is for eating! Move it!
2) You MUST BITE! BITE!
3) Are you going to sit there forever with food in your mouth?!
4) Ahhh!! (he opened his mouth full of food) I put down the mouthful I was going to put in his mouth) Swallow it! Mouth must Move! Bite it!
5) You never swallow! Why MUST you keep the food in your mouth?!!
6) Eat FASTER!

Oh dear, it does sounds terrible when I write it down. He ends up crying sometimes and choking on his mouthfuls. When he does this, I move away from him in anger while he sits on the chair wailing away, only coming back when he has swallowed his food.

Hubby can’t stand me doing this to Darius, his BaoBei. He would be the most patient Daddy,
1) He would take over from me after he finished eating. Then he would sing to him while feeding him.
(I don’t like it cos I want him to self-feed but I’m at my wits ends too, frustrated after hubby had already finished his meal, I hadn’t finished mine and Darius still only ate four mouthfuls of his half-bowl porridge.)
(I don’t want to sing to him at every mealtime, especially when we eat together as a family because we are not going to do this forever or even outside! He has to learn to eat his meal without ‘entertainment’)
2) He would be helpful with suggestions such as, “maybe he’s not hungry..maybe he ate too much in the day”
(Nope, Darius is still eating the same amount of things from when he’s 9 months old. The same amount of porridge, no afternoon snack, only milk at 4plus)
3) He would suggest making his porridge more appetising.
-Well, so I did, I specially seasoned the fish, cooked it separate from his porridge. Add soup base to his porridge when I cooked dinner. Add a little pepper. But no use at all. I even tried making macoroni in tomato because porridge must be too plain, but it was worse because he didn’t want to chew or swallow much.
4) He says, that Darius is not undergoing growth spurt now so he’s not hungry.
(But if he doesn’t eat fully,I would see him munching his fingers or objects, and so eager to drink his milk, or being crankier crying over little things)
5) He suggest to give water to Darius because it might be too hard for him to swallow.
(The water will only make him full because the porridge is ALREADY runny, watery, soft. It’s totally disgustingly gooey. I even minched the meat til it’s like floss, so it’s not possible that he couldn’t chew or swallow. If you think he dislike gooey, it’s even worse if he eats them when each piece of rice can be felt. And he dislikes pasta. So I really do not know what he wants!)

Lately, he started chewing his spoon too while putting the mouthful in and I had to pull it out to get him to concentrate.

My stand is, he can’t survive on milk alone for the whole day. He needs solids for nutrition. It is NOT okay not to finish most of it, not okay to eat just a few mouthful. He drinks milk three times a day, eats half-bowl porridge for two times a day, with a fruit in between and nothing else! If he doesn’t finish his porridges, he will be hungry when he sleeps or wakes up too early in the morning (like 5am).

He doesn’t eat snacks, so why can’t he finish his porridge? There isn’t time to slot in any snack because his meal times are near to each other and ALSO,
He can’t eat snacks because he doesn’t have premolars or molars so he can’t chew much.

I keep telling hubby this, If he could eat a variety of food, I would gladly give him without it always being porridge. BUT the fact is, he can’t because of the Teeth Problem.

Give him a bread, and he would probably take half-a-day to finish and also, how nutritious is bread? Give him biscuits, he doesn’t know how to bite off and I will have to do it for him, tear into small chunks to put into his mouth. I don’t have all the time in the world to sit there and do this extra feeding for him when he doesn’t finish his porridge which I had specially cooked for 2 hours in slow cooker til it’s all soft and mashed, more time spent if I do the separate cooking of fish or chicken & vegetables (instead of in the slow cooker plain) to make it more appetising for him.So I tried this separate cooking method yesterday but I ended up doing this for the whole day, Cooking, feeding him, cooking and feeding him.

His stand is, it’s totally okay not to eat finish. When he takes over the feeding, only half of the half bowl of porridge will be eaten, because we really can’t wait for him to eat an hour or more. (We eat dinner at 6:30 or 7pm.  He will need to drink his milk at 8:45pm as he sleeps at 9pm and we need to space the time.)

I think my main frustrations come from, it’s ME spending time to do the cooking & feeding and boyboy not being co-operative. I’m the one taking care of him the whole day, from Day 1, with no rest. Hubby only comes home after 6:30pm and Darius sleeps at 9pm so it’s only 2.5 hours with him during the week so he could be more patient and lenient with him.

I see Darius every second& everyday and hence, I don’t feel the need to pamper him or be nice to him when he misbehaves. To me, Darius is deliberately doing things to irk me. E.g. During walks, he will deliberately walk away in the opposite direction to where we are heading, and head even further when I call him to come. This will warrant a smack from me to his buttocks for not following orders while hubby will just carry him if he does that to hubby.

My in-laws are also not helping, saying remarks like ‘He’s too young…” (to do self-feed which I don’t agree) or “Wait for him to swallow first” making me seemed the Devil when I wanted Darius to take the spoon to feed himself and scolded him when he whined and refused. When he self-fed with my help and porridge goes over his mouth or table, they want me to wipe up the ‘mess’ on his mouth when it was only going to get messy again until he finished. They can’t stand mess (which child doesn’t make a mess when self-feeding?), they can’t stand crying so til now, Darius’ cousin is still being fed at 3 year plus and no sign of practising because he doesn’t eat at the table like Darius. He just runs around. (We started getting Darius to eat at the table with us at our in-law’s place too three weeks ago instead of me feeding him first because of the above reasons and also to practise eating as a family.)

I can’t help being me, frustrated when things don’t turn out my way but I will try to change. I will try to be less ‘over’ and lower my expectations for Darius.For the problem above, I had since reduced the amount of rice he’s eating, pushed back the mealtimes a bit so he gets hungrier. And maybe going to prevent him from taking long naps in the morning by waking him up after an hour so he can eat lunch earlier. (he eats lunch at 2pm now)

Hopefully it will help me to be less frustrated and less angry when parenting him. I really do not enjoy scolding him a lot. It makes me guilty and moody.

And For Darius? He will laugh and be playful with me the next instant he’s placed down from the high chair after the crying episode at mealtime, after all the scolding and anger. After every discipline I meted out on him. I’m still the one he comes to for hugs and kisses, surprisingly more than his Dad even though I’m so fierce to him. He forgets everytime as if it never happened. It made me as a parent wonder, What was the Fuss about?!

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Written by Dreamycat

Comments

1. doraemon says...

   i used to be like u too, my son is only 2 month older than ur son. i am always angry with him for not eating and keeping his things while my husband is same as your husband. until one day, i heard from some aunty on the street (not telling me) not need to be so hard on a baby , they are just a small kid… then i send him to childcare when he is 17th month, he cried so badly but i still put him there, 2 week later he did not cried and everyday tell me school and point to the door to go out … now he can dance at home, keep his own stuff and eat on his own together with us on the table , which i find it so shock to me … i think if i were to stay at home to teach him, he will not be able to learn all these … at least now he is not afraid of strangers

   Posted on 20 Nov 2009 at 11:28
2. Dreamycat says...

   Thanks for sharing, Doraemon. Glad the option works for you.
   I agree childcare centre can help the child to be independent but it’s only because they have no choice. Teachers have to attend to so many kids. They don’t have all the time to attend to one child, to feed him or even care whether he finished the food. Also there’s peer pressure to conform.
   I don’t believe sending him to childcare is an option though because nothing beats one to one love with a close family member. Maybe not now when he’s still so young. Yes, I’m frustrated in caring for him but at the same time, I enjoy him too when we play a lot of fun games.

   In our daily walks downstairs (we have a childcare right in our estate for 3-5yrs old), when the childcare children walk in pairs to do their walk with the teachers, they all look very forlornly at us, grandmothers, mothers playing at the playground, laughing with our children. They walk silently, hand in hand in a discipline manner because the teachers wouldn’t allow otherwise. Seemed well-behaved but very unnatural for 3 year olds. I’m sure they feel a tinge of envy that the children can laugh and play freely while they are ‘kept’ in the small building the whole day, waiting for their parents to fetch them.

   Maybe that’s why I hesitated in putting him in childcare. Because I had seen the behaviour of these children during the day. I can’t imagine Darius walking around like that, not allowed to go anywhere he wants. Already, he’s roaming our estate without going the usual paths because he’s so eager to explore every nook and corner, touch the leaves, look at the drains, wondering at the patterns, the pipes…So many things to learn outdoors.

   Also shouldn’t us the parents be the one to teach and nurture instead of letting others do it for us? At least, that is my belief.

   Posted on 20 Nov 2009 at 12:18
3. Nicky says...

   Hi, first time commenting. I feel u Cat, I really do. My son has been on a foodstrike since 1 month ago, rejecting porridge or cereal or any proper meals. He’s basically surviving on only milk and yoghurt now, plus a few bites of bread and biscuits. Sigh, I’m at a loss too. Tried everything, pasta, beehoon, fried rice, ur way of cooking porridge – all to no avail. I got so panicky that I forced Sean to eat many times, which eventually end up in tears everytime. And I’d feel so guilty afterwards.

   And yes, Sean (my boy) is much happier off the high chair. I suppose at this age they really don’t need that much food. I was very anal about him not taking in enough nutrition, but am learning to relax abit now. Sean’s PD didn’t even recommend us giving him Pediasure or multi-vitaimins, as he said milk and yoghurt is enough. Besides, Sean’s height and weight are still within good range (which I believe Darius’s is too)

   So press on Cat! Hope our little ones will pick up their appetite soon. We have to learn to chill abit, let go abit. After all, back when we were in our childhood, we didn’t really take that much DHA bla bla bla and we all turned out well didn’t we?

   Take care.

   Nicky

   Posted on 20 Nov 2009 at 12:52
4. Dreamycat says...

   Hi Nicky! Thanks for dropping by and leaving your encouragements!
   Hmm, reading about your situation, it seemed much worse! At least Darius likes his cereal in the morning.

   Yar, I guess I have to let go and chill because this is a common problem among many. After reading Angeline’s post, I reflected. That’s why I wrote this.
   Food is not the priority, I MUST keep reminding myself that.
   And yes, Darius is in the 90th percentile for his height and weight. (probably due to me forcing him to eat? ha)

   Maybe because I’m a person who hates wasting food (this was imparted in me from young by my mum. We were poor too and good food were rare), and seeing good food being dumped away, my heart aches. It’s true! So it’s MY problem, not his.
   Also I do not want him to be picky abt food when he’s older so I panicked now which isn’t good. (We have an example in my family to see, I do not want Dar to end up like him.)

   Posted on 20 Nov 2009 at 13:11
5. Jiaying says...

   Hi,

   I also find my son (one month younger than yours) gets bored with porridge sometimes. Did you try giving Darius noodles? My son likes noodles. Everytime we give him noodle soup, he will finish all quickly. I bought those non-fried dry noodle and cooked it till very soft with vegetables and chicken added later. Just break the noodles into small pieces before cooking. Easier than doing it after it’s cooked. Just have a try. Keep up your good work!

   Posted on 20 Nov 2009 at 13:12
6. Dreamycat says...

   Hi Jiaying, I did try giving him some udon once but he only ate one mouthful and fussed. Because he can’t chew well. So it just stays in his mouth forever.
   Good suggestion to break the noodles first instead of after cooking. Okay! I’ll try it soon to see whether he likes.

   Posted on 20 Nov 2009 at 13:23
7. Jayne says...

   Hi there! I totally get your frustrations coz’ I had been there too. I think all kids go through the stage of not wanting food at one point or another. Like Kate, whom I believe is about Darius’ age. Sometimes she would take 1 or 2 mouthfuls, then push the plate away and say “finish”. I have learnt to just let her be. When she’s hungry, she’ll eat. When she’s not, she won’t.

   She also doesn’t get milk at all during the day, only one morning and one night milk before she sleeps. If she doesn’t eat much during snacks, I know she’ll usually be hungry by dinner. Same for my son Jamie, whom I also stopped worrying when he doesn’t feel like eating.

   And they are healthy and growing. So that’s what’s most important.

   One suggestion though – vary the food you are offering. Not just porridge. It takes 15 tries for a baby to decide where s/he likes that particular food. Rejecting it once or twice doesn’t mean he doesn’t like it.

   Try mee sua, which is very soft. Yellow noodles is great coz’ it’s fun to eat, they can take it with their fingers. There’s an organic macoroni that is for babies which Kate loves coz’ she can put her fingers thru’ them and eat it one by one. Or mashed potatoes, ommlettes, etc

   It’s far easier said than done, but give it a shot.

   Posted on 21 Nov 2009 at 23:22
8. Dreamycat says...

   Hi Jayne,
   Thanks for the suggestions. Yup, I’ll try other things out if I can. I had been sticking to porridge because at least he’ll eat some mouthfuls and stop. But for anything else, he’ll only eat one mouthful and start whining because he doesn’t want to chew much or just plain don’t like it. Then, I don’t have anything else to fall back on cos there’s not enough time to re-cook porridge for him.
   So I took the few compared to nothing route. I rather he eat something…

   Posted on 23 Nov 2009 at 11:41
9. kei says...

   hey, wat u’re going thru sounds toooo familiar! i dun mean to dismiss ur frustrations but for mandy, i went thru worse, much worse i’d tink. she was the most stubborn, most difficult eater. n sometimes, mealtimes wld end up w her throwing food all over the place, banging her clenched fists, gritting her teeth n glaring at me as tho i’m e most hateful person in e world. all tt from when she’s only 8mth old.

   most days, i spend more than an hr on EVERY feed, even milk feeds. she rejected latching, bottles, cups… only took spoons. so i had to slowly spoonfeed her milk. took 1.5 hr to drink bt 100ml. n e whole place will b in a mess cos i’d need to entertain her w lotsa stuff, milk will spill, she will swipr at tings etc etc.

   like u, i dun like them to eat only when entertained but i had to get sthg into her tummy. everyday, i’d cry a few times. but i’d hide somewhere to cry so she cldn’t see me. i always feel they (even now at 3yo) cannot be malicious, at most they can learn how to manipulate. but they r not purposely doing tings just to irk you. so i try not to pass my stress n frustrations to mandy. as it is, i tink she was stressed enof. but o cos when they do tings like throwing dishes, playing w e food, i’ll tell them off, only after i’ve gently told them y it’s not nice to do tt. n saying i understand tt they’re only doing it cos they’re curious bt wat will happen (unless they’re obviously not lah). tt’s how i feel lah

   might darius b teething? mandy has A LOT o problems w teething. heng barry is ok.

   in any case, it might just b a passing phase. as far as i noe, all kids go thru tt keep-food-in-mouth phase.

   also, he might be attaining new skills or gaining new awareness of textures etc. when learning a new skill (talking, running, jumping?), they might be more absorbed bt practising it n eating might seem like a total waste o time. i read in books lah. haha

   n at their age, they tend to defy just for e sake o defying, so tt they can assert their budding independence. even if they really wanna follow u, they might run in e opp direction just for e sake o it. sometimes they cannot help it. i see my kids (at this age) struggle w wanting to obey and wanting to defy at e same time. going to n fro. q cham 4 them actually. once mandy had a tantrum bcos she was in such a fix over this (at 1+yo), i hugged her n told her it’s alrite, she must b feeling so frustrated over making these decisions.

   but u might noe all these liao lah. i gathered these mostly fr books n experience w my 2 totally opp kids. hahaha. paiseh hor, i’m q pasisonate bt parenting topics, so tend to babble a lot. who noes, darius might be eating fine now?

   oh, one ting u can try ease ur crazy-24/7-face-darius frustration. tok to him as in chat w him. dun care if he understands. just pretend so. like when he dun eat, just ask him y, isit teeth pain pain? put food in e mouth so nice meh? mama used to do tt but got scolding by popo oso u noe? noe mama eat so well already.. etc etc. (yes, i speak singlish at home sometimes.) it helped me get some sanity back lor.

   Posted on 26 Nov 2009 at 00:47
10. Dreamycat says...

    Wow, thanks for sharing Kei!
    Darius has regained some of his appetite after writing this post. He’s still fussy at dinner though but lunch is okay for now.

    He has became thinner noticeably after not finishing his porridge fully and waking up at 4 or 5.30am for milk! (used to be near 7am). No choice…since cannot force.

    Yes, I did read about this in parenting topics in blogs/online/in books. I’m also passionate about it. ^^ But well, indeed their theory is good but it doesn’t all apply to us. It is easier written or say than done. I had applied reasoning too, being nice too but it all didn’t work. It only works when I show some firmness then he will be ‘afraid’ and stop the activity.

    So reasoning type of parenting does not work for us cos he’s not going to stand around waiting for us to explain the reason why he should not do that. Most likely, he’ll just switch off while I talk. He will also keep doing it since he does not understand. That’s why I learnt to just keep it as an order to stop the activity first, then explain the reason after he stopped. “Don’t play with that!!” Activity stopped, pull him away. “You might hurt your fingers.”

    instead of “You would hurt your fingers if you play with that, boy.” then repeat it again and again and he still did not stop.

    You are really super patient with your kids! Your conversation is so cute. I did try that before but he only like us to sing to him, and not talk to him. Papa tried that last night telling him nicely what he was eating, and what he was doing, he just whine and cries.. haha.

    This little boy dislikes us ‘reasoning’ with him or just talking to him. Everytime I talk to him face to face, holding him to ask him why he does all these things, what he should do, or even to teach him to say words, he just looks away or desperately try to get away, crying pitifully as if I’m scolding him. Very weirdo.

    Posted on 26 Nov 2009 at 13:00
11. kei says...

    hmmmm. not weirdo lah. reasoning works well w mandy but w barry, it’s another ting. guess boys r just not as patient. haha. i get wat u mean oso. 4 barry, most times i just hafta grab him while he struggles n wails, to the hi chair or cot when he doesn’t listen to me, n leave him there to sulk. hahaha

    Posted on 26 Nov 2009 at 13:44