Holding food in mouth then spitting out

Anyone else have a kid who does this? Elle is a fuss pot with eating and is down to very little food. She is losing weight. She is about to turn 3 and has been in size 2 pants (just kept them up) but now they fall straight off. It's just tights and skirts for us now.

At meal time, she will often eat food, hold it in the side of her mouth, refuse to swallow and then ages later will spit it out.

Anyone elses kids do this? Any tried and true solutions?

Meal? Elle only ever eats a couple of teaspoons of food (small ones). She has almost never eaten a meal!

I know this is a totally different situation, but did you see that story on 60 minutes last week about those girls who would not eat..as in, not a single bite. They had to be fed through tubes. The doctors had determined there was no physical reason why they couldn't eat. One of the set of parents took their child to a clinic in europe that specialised in the issue and after a couple of months one of the girls was "cured". The treatment was partly about witholding food which is why it is controversial. The other couple couldn't afford to do it.

Like I said, it is a different situation to yours of course, but in some ways it reminds me of that story. Nothing physically wrong, there is just something that makes those girls not like food.

Oh, and please don't take it that I am implying witholding food or anything either!!

Does she look at you for your reaction when she does it?
Jackson did this last week, he would look at me and grin while he did it, so I knew he was just playing me. I would just walk away when he did it, and havent had any problems since.

No she doesn't seem to look for our reaction and didn't get one for ages - I just ignored it at first.   She'd just play with it in her mouth then spit it out at tooth brushing time without comment. We have been very casual about food, as we made a conscious decision it wasn't going to be an area of battle. We just offer and if it is refused we move on without making an issue. Obviously over the past 3 years we'd tried other approaches but casual was our final choice.

Tonight I DID give her a reaction...I calmly made her sit on her own at the bench until she swallowed it. 30mins later she did.

She always has so much more energy when she eats so I hope she gets the hang of it soon.

Ashleigh went through a stage of doing this and we did exactly what you did tonight - she wasn't allowed to leave the table until she had swallowed her mouthful. She sat there for an hour one time but we won in the end

Ellen I could have just written what you said above ...

As I was saying to Fiona earlier, my boy doesn't eat all that much (always been a fussy eater right from day dot) and his diet only really consists of Cereals, breads, and dairy (cheese, milk, butter, the odd yoghurt etc)

Won't touch vegies or fruit no matter how hard (or how many cunning tricks I pull) I try. I too bulk him up on the odd Complan drink (and for a day there I managed to blend banana in there, and he still drank it hehe) and he has up & go breakfast drinks (when I can afford them) on top of my attempts to get 3 meals + snacks into him.

Now I just set his meals out along with mine, i sit down to eat and some days he will join me without hassle and will have a few mouthfuls and go off to play and keep coming back and picking at his food, other days he just downright refuses.

I too have noticed that he is scouting for a reaction from me when he puts up a fight, so I *try* my hardest to not let it get to me (and just resort to pulling my hair out and stressing over it all night long lol).

But seriously, I have seen Plunket & our GP numerous amounts of times in the past for this exact reason and they don't seem to care, despite him losing weight sometimes (atm he seems to be stable ...he's tall and lean). I just get the same advice given to me everytime which is to keep on offering a wide variety of foods and that it takes 15-20 tastes of the same food before some/most kids will take to it. But what they don't tell me is HOW to get him to eat the stuff, he's too intelligent and can always sense when I have tried grating vegies into his fave foods, or attempted to hide fruit etc.

We can only hope that with age, they will start to broaden their tastebuds ...and be more open to the idea of trying new foods. Some days my boy surprises me and will give something new a go, others he is a complete horror.

You are certainly not alone darl, I'm sure there are lots of mums to fussy eaters out there, just have to grin and bear it - and try to offer them a healthy balanced diet etc.

*hugs*

ETA: My boy is 2 years,4 months for anyone reading this & wondering...

Edited by BuzzyBee

My newly turned 3 year old has been doing this for months, on and off....she will eat all of her meal, well most of it, but she leaves the last mouthful tucked under her toungue and will sit there for up to 45 minutes. It is extremely frustrating and no amount of negotiation, ignoring her, getting angry or bribery! None of it has stopped her doing it.   

Now this week, both her and her sister (also 3) have refused to eat their dinner this week....just started this behaviour as they were such great eaters.....so last night we all had dinner at table together, they refused, so put them into bath and straight to bed, no toys in the bath, no bed time toys, and they can only choose one toy today.   Also going to do the reward chart and see if that makes any impact....................is extremely frustrating...they are both extremely stubborn and willful so am sure that is a measure as well.

I guess if they are getting enough during the day then not giving them any food at night could be a way forward? Until they come to their senses!

any ideas gratefully received!!