Why Is Feeding My 2 Year Old Suddenly So Difficult?
A friend of mine recently asked for advice:
Feeding his son initially went well with Junior enjoying a variety of foods and mealtimes being mostly pleasant … but over the last three months, feeding had deteriorated into a “pit of chaos”.
Junior wasn’t eating much and had been refusing even his favorite foods. Even when the parents left crackers out on the coffee table all day, junior seemed more interested in crushing them than eating them.
How old was Junior? He’d just turned 2.
This, I explained to my friend, is a classic example of what I’ve coined “The 2 Year Feeding Trap”.
Briefly, here’s how it goes…
Around 24 months, two big changes can affect a child’s eating habits:
Appetite changes as the rate of growth slows
Kids become more wary of food especially novel foods
Despite these two changes being totally developmentally normal, the way that parents react to, or try to compensate for, the changes can sometimes reinforce a child’s picky eating behaviors.
Let’s take a closer look:
Changes in Appetite:
The first year of life, babies grow very rapidly, typically tripling their weight by the time they turn one. All this growth requires a lot of calories to fuel it.
By age 2, growth slows down considerably so the amount of calories per pound decreases too. If you are used to your child shoveling heaping piles of food into their tiny body, the change in intake can feel a bit unsettling.
A drop in appetite can be totally normal as long as it’s not associated with other concerns such as constipation, weight loss or decreased energy. (If in doubt, Pediatricians are good at determining if changes in appetite are normal development vs something of concern.)
Secondly Kids Become More Opinionated about Food:
I’ve written about this a fair bit in other posts but basically kids under 18 months tend to be more accepting of a variety of foods and flavors but in that 18-24 month range that often changes. Many kids will stop eating foods they previously liked or refuse to try foods they aren’t familiar with.
How the 2 Year Trap Traps Us:
Parents who are concerned that their kids aren’t eating enough can become worried that they aren’t meeting the foundational parenting goals of helping the child grow, be healthy and thrive. For some parents, that feeling can throw them into panic mode.
A parent might see their kid eating less than “normal” and instead of holding the course with food, they start desperately trying to find ways to get the kid to eat more.
For instance, they might try to put snacks out in front of their kid 24/7 or offer an alternative food every time the kid doesn’t finish dinner. They might try to physically shovel bites into the kid’s mouth or start pleading with them: “why don’t you just try one bite of the potpie and then you can get a cookie”.
They might stop offering foods that aren’t favorites inadvertently making the variety of food their kid gets smaller.
These parenting behaviors can reinforce the picky eating habits and nudge kids towards being less flexible and more restrictive around food (and make mealtimes less enjoyable for parents and kids alike).
And all of this for what? It likely won’t get the kid to eat more because kids at this age are impressively good at eating the amount of food their body needs regardless of cajoling from panicked parents.
If you are caught in the 2 Year Feeding Trap, here are some suggestions:
Trust your kid to eat enough. They may eat third servings at some meals and bites at other meals. They are the best judge of how hungry they are so trust them. (More on that here.)
Follow a set meal and snack schedule instead of offering food around the clock. (Here’s why.)
Practice the Division of Responsibility:
Parents decide when, where and what foods will be served
Kids decide what and how much of the food they will eat
Keep offering a variety of foods even if your child is only eating a select few. Don’t stop introducing new foods and expect your kid to need many exposures to new foods.
Last piece of advice is that classic adage “if you are going through hell, keep going”.
For many kids, ages 2-4 can be difficult around food. Keep holding course and trying to minimize catering and panic so that ideally this phase will be a small bump in the road rather than an arduous mountain to mount.
Theo and mama, 2nd birthday