Boost Kid Essentials

Worried about your non-eating toddler not getting enough nutrition in his diet? I know I certainly am. Its a constant battle to get my 3 year old son to eat anything. I worry that he is not eating enough to get all those vitamins and nutrients.

I was recently given the opportunity to try Boost Kid Essentials Nutritionally Complete Drink, and I was quite impressed.

"New BOOST^® Kid Essentials Nutritionally Complete Drink provides complete, balanced nutrition for kids ages 1 to 13. And so much more.

Only BOOST Kid Essentials Drink advances your kid’s nutrition with 25 essential vitamins and minerals, 7 grams of muscle-building protein, a good source of antioxidants (Vitamin C, E & Selenium), plus immunity-supporting probiotics." ---Boost Kid Essentials website.

All three of my children sampled the drink (ages 11, 3 and 17mos). And amazingly all three of my children loved it. Worried about my son's non-eating habits, I had actually tried on several occasions to get him to drink Pediasure and other nutritious drinks to no avail. But he drank down a Boost Kid Essentials and wanted more.

If you visit their website, they have a really great section on Health issues, where they discuss 4 different case studies of children with nutrition issues. They have some great information and advice on eating and health issues.

I am really quite impressed with the product, as well as their website. And I am very grateful for the opportunity to have my children sample this product.

Nibbling...

Years and years ago (I won't give any specifics) ;) when I was newly married to my first husband, we were having dinner at his parents' house. He had a 5 year old sister and she had some strange eating habits. Her parents would put her plate on the table and she would sit down, take a few bites, go off to play or something, come back and take another nibble... and this would go on for an hour or two. "That's just the way she eats" they would say. Crazy I thought. My kids would certainly never do such a thing.

Isn't it funny the things we say our kids will/won't do before we have any? I used to be so full of criticism on other peoples parenting skills. Then I had my own children. And guess what? At least half of those criticisms I'm completely guilty of! :)

Oh yes, you will let your kids smash goldfish into the living room carpet if it will buy you enough time to go to the bathroom undisturbed.

And yes, last week, I let my son do the same nibbling thing I criticized. And he ate so much more than he usually does. It was quite the victory in my ongoing battle to get him to eat. I wondered why I didn't think of such a thing earlier ;)

Lesson: whatever criticisms you have on others' parenting (especially before you have kids), chances are you will end up doing those things yourself...

Fortune Cookies :)

Gotta love 'em! We had Chinese tonight for the first time in probably about a year. Our favorite Chinese restaurant is 500 miles away and we noticed last time we were in town that they had been bought by someone else... :( It can be difficult to find good Chinese food. There is only one restaurant anywhere near here. Luckily its pretty good. And they actually have the cream cheese wantons! ;) Those are my favorite. When I lived in Tucson, I was so disappointed to find that none of the Chinese restaurants had anything close to crab rangoon (or cream cheese wanton as its called here).

But the funny thing was that the fortunes were quite appropriate tonight. Well, not exactly the fortunes themselves, but these fortunes also had Chinese words on them. My husband's was "teacher," mine was "mother," and our 11-year old daughter's was "pork chop." The first two are pretty self-explanatory. My husband is a teacher and I am a mother. While my daughter is certainly not a pork chop, the word was just as fitting for her as ours were to us. The girl is completely obsessed with food. We all had a good laugh.

I'm certain that someday she will be starting her own "foodie" blog :)

Week in Review...

It was a challenging week. Aren't they all? (well my week wasn't as bad as Suzie's!) For starters D was really on an eating strike this week. Wouldn't take more than a bite or two of anything - if even...

Every day for lunch and dinner I made things he usually eats... wouldn't touch them. He usually eats mashed potatoes the best, but last night he took about two bites. He was asking for chicken nuggets, so I made a special trip to the store... made them for lunch today and he managed to eat almost two whole nuggets... It's been so frustrating.

I tried negotiating with him. He was yelling for cookies at dinner last night and I told him he could have some cookies if he ate some more mashed potatoes... after about a half an hour of his yelling for cookies (1, 2, 3 cookies! 1, 2, 3 cookies!) I finally broke down and gave him some. He took one bite of each cookie and that was it. I shouldn't have caved. And of course I felt less guilty after he didn't even eat the cookies. But then again, I felt more guilty because he hardly ate anything! I was surprised that he didn't eat them.

Kids and dogs know when something is up. Things have been extra stressful this week. Mostly with trying to get everything ready to move...

Needless to say we've been busy packing.

Which has probably caused a little disruption to the little ones. Naps this week were really hard to come by! 2 or 3 days D wouldn't go to sleep until late in the afternoon, thus woke up late and didn't want to go to bed at a decent hour... and the other days he refused sleep altogether, but then went to sleep quite early in the evening (which I almost prefer). B's 2 naps a day have been getting shorter and shorter, and of course not coinciding with D's at all. It's been really difficult to get anything done.

I may not have too many posts for the next couple of weeks with moving and all... so bear with me and stick around. I'm sure things will get pretty fun! ;)

What do toddler boys like to eat??

I mean really?? I cannot get D to eat anything!
OK, he will still only eat a handful of foods. The only things he will eat every time are: yogurt (but it has to be the kids kind with all the sugar and bright colors that do wonderful things to his poo), the marshmallows from Lucky Charms (do they make a cereal that has only marshmallows? 'Cause 90% of the box goes to the dogs.), and mashed potatoes (as long as they aren't real ones).

It's so frustrating! I don't know how he is even gaining any weight. Seriously, for about two days all he ate was breakfast. He may have taken a few bites of mac & cheese or a chicken nugget... but really he was just playing with his food: organizing it, throwing it, spitting it out...

I tried mixing B's baby food into his mashed potatoes. It worked the first time. But the second time he turned his nose up at it... but did eat all my mashed potatoes...

The night before last I made him 3 different things for dinner. I always give him whatever we're having and then have a back up plan for when he won't eat that. He wouldn't eat what we were having, so I made him some of those ramen noodles (which he will usually eat). Wouldn't touch them. After everyone else was done eating I started feeling awful guilty - thinking that he had to eat something... I had a kids spaghetti frozen dinner in the freezer, so I made that for him. Well, he transferred all the noodles from one compartment to the next and maybe took two bites...

I feel like I've tried to get him to eat just about everything. I'm all out of ideas. The foods he will eat sometimes are chicken nuggets, mac & cheese, stuffing, hot dogs (rarely), spaghetti-o's (rarely), rice, lasagna, cheese and refried beans.

I actually went and hunted down liquid vitamins. He wouldn't eat the few kinds of chewables I tried.

Does anyone have any ideas? What are your toddlers favorite foods?

Doggy Days

I never should have laughed at my son when he started eating like a dog. But is was so darn cute and funny. And it was getting him to eat something.

I don't know how many times, out of frustration with D's not eating anything, that I thought of Judy Blume's Fudge books - how the mother said "Eat it or wear it" (if I'm remembering that correctly) and Fudge ended up wearing his food... of course I would never do such a thing, but boy have I thought about it ;) maybe even muttered it to myself while trying to get him to eat something.

I have been reminded again of the Fudge books by my son's behavior. For the past couple of months he has been mimicking the behaviors of the dogs. Sally, the weiner dog, shakes her ears, D shakes his head. Sally eats a piece of cereal off the floor, D throws a piece of cereal on the floor and eats it. He shares his chips (on the floor) with Sally. Sally wags her tail, D wags his little booty. Sally runs into the kitchen, D gets on all fours and runs to the kitchen. Sally gets under foot, two minutes later I step on D who is now under foot.

I have tried not to promote this kind of behavior. It can be quite frustrating and embarassing. A couple of weeks ago, in a room full of family - they said hi to him, and what did he do? Got down from his chair, got on all fours and started wagging his booty. Last week I was running late to pick up M from school, and I could not get D to stand up and walk to the car. He refuses to walk up the stairs for naps and bedtime. He crawls through the hall to the bedroom.

Last night I couldn't get him to pick up his toys. Out of frustration I told him that good little puppies pick up their toys. It did the trick, he immediately started picking up his toys---with his mouth!! It was awful and funny at the same time - it was so hard not to laugh, but I didn't want to laugh because I really want him to quit behaving as such. But it seems that he's taken it to a new level.

That was when I was reminded again of the Fudge books. In the first one, "Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing," Fudge went around acting like a dog for a while. For some reason I was thinking that Fudge was older than my D (yes, I do know it's a work of fiction) - so I was thinking that D was just too young to be going through this as a phase - but in reading through some reviews of the book Fudge was also a 2 year old. I guess he's right on track ;)

I'm wondering if I should be worried about his behavior. I keep telling him he's a big boy, and big boys walk - but it hasn't seemed to make a difference. I suppose, as in Fudge's case he will eventually outgrow this behavior?

At least he's eating...or the fun things that come from socializing with dogs

The other day my husband and I were discussing the benefits of having dogs for the children. We'd had this talk many times before. There are many benefits. The best one for me came when D started feeding himself. Several times a day I thank God we have dogs. Otherwise I would be sweeping and mopping at least 3 times a day... The dogs are always right there beneath the high chair waiting to be the clean-up crew. They will even lick his face and fingers... or the seat of his pants - wherever the food has landed when he's done. And wonderfully, our little wiener dog has a taste for spit up. Gross I know, but very handy. (OK, I do try to wipe it up before she can get to it).
Over the weekend my husband said that it was good we had dogs because of the social aspect. D may be well socialized because of the dogs. We spent most of his life living in the Northwoods of Wisconsin - a very remote and isolated area - so he got very little social interaction. And amazingly he is well socialized - the times he's played with other children his age he's done very well. So I absolutely agree with my husband on that point - the dogs have helped him in that area.
But the hazards of having dogs to socialize with?? ;) The very day after we had that discussion we were at a family cook out and D started crawling around like a dog underneath the tables... And the past week or so he has been sharing food with the dogs. He will throw down chips or whatever and then get on his hands and knees and eat them off the floor along with the dogs!
Then Sunday morning we decided to see how he would do eating at the table with the rest of us instead of in his high chair... and this is how he ate:



At least he was eating!! It's so rare that he actually eats anything. So if he must eat this way I'm all for it.
Now you must go read this hilarious post about dogs and kids at Mom-101

More on Eating Issues

My 10 year old daughter is not the only member of this household to have eating issues. Many of you with toddlers will know exactly what I'm talking about... ugh!
My toddler, D, will eat maybe a handful of foods. I talk to everyone I know with a toddler and hear similar issues (and it seems to be mainly boys). I vaguely remember my sister, T, talking about her Dr telling her to quit giving my nephew hot dogs all the time. Apparently that was all he wanted to eat. 2 of the ladies at the butcher shop also have similar eating issues with their toddler sons. Can't get them to eat squat.

It is so completely frustrating!! I remember thinking my sister was stupid for giving my nephew hot dogs all the time, but now I can totally understand. Once you find something they will eat, it becomes the back up, always on hand food. I always give him whatever we are having for dinner, but have one of his staples on hand for if (when) he refuses to eat what we're having. I try to plan meals around what I think he will eat. But then he will eat something one time, but not the other! The kid eats so very little it's amazing he's still gaining weight! I talked to the dr about it and she didn't seem to be concerned. And it seems pretty much the norm with others I've talked to. I don't know how many times I have made him 3 or 4 different things for lunch or dinner... only to have him refuse everything.

He spends more time playing with his food and throwing it. All I can say is thank God I have dogs!! Otherwise I would be sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor three times a day! For a while I thought the dogs were part of the problem, so I kenneled them while he was eating. That didn't work either. I just had 2 dogs whining their butts off because of all the food on the floor.

He loves to toss food to the dogs. He loves to see how fast they run to catch his droppings. His new thing is chewing up his food and then spitting it to the dogs. So disgusting, but I can't get him to stop. There's no way I would go eat in a restaurant with this kid! I can just imagine - he would throw his chicken over his head, it would hit somebody and we'd be asked to leave.

A guy I talked to has a toddler boy who has problems with seizures. They have him on a special diet to try to control the seizures - he has to eat what they give him and he has to eat all of it. I can't imagine. You just can't *make* a toddler eat anything. Believe me, I've tried. I don't know how they do it.

I'm all out of ideas on what to offer D to eat. His staples used to be mac & cheese and spaghetti o's. But now he only eats mac & cheese half the time and refuses to eat spaghetti o's. He will only surely eat mashed potatoes, garlic bread and stuffing. Sometimes he will eat chicken nuggets (very rarely any other form of chicken), refried beans (sometimes he will even eat taco meat), rice, lasagna, spaghetti, other pastas (as long as it doesn't have too many veggies in it). I can't get him to eat any veggies or fruit (except bananas). He does pretty good with breakfast though. He will always eat yogurt and most of the time bananas and fruit bars. He will always eat his marshmallow cereal (but only the marshmallows). Of course I can't get him to eat any of the chewable vitamins... I need to get some liquid vitamins.

Well, he'll be eating his mashed potatoes tonight...

Ugh!

Apparently my daughter M has been eating food off of other people's trays at lunch. The day before yesterday she started coughing and saying she had a sore throat. Yesterday baby B, who just had her 4 mos shots on Monday, woke up all congested!!! And toddler D has been sneezing. Last night I had a severe headache and beginning signs of congestion. This morning my husband woke up sick! And he has a job interview on Friday! Complete and total sucky timing!

We had rescheduled B's 4 mos appointment twice - once because we were picking up my step-daughter on that day for X-mas (that was the only day her mother could drive to meet us halfway), and the second time because she was sick - both of the little ones have just gotten over the last cold that M brought home from school. My husband and I are just both livid!

Why in the world is M eating off of other kids' trays at school??? As if we don't feed her! She probably tells kids at school that we don't feed her or something. She has eating issues. She is always hungry. She dreams about food. She asks for special things for breakfast before she goes to bed at night. Since she's gotten email in her room she has started emailing me to see what is for dinner.

When she first started spending time with us she would just eat and eat and eat. She could absolutely eat my husband under the table. She would eat anything and everything. She would have seconds, thirds, and sometimes fourths. She was quite skinny. There must have been food issues where she had been living. Essentially, she was living with a step-father and her younger brother and sister. I know that she was never given money for lunch and would have to eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch everyday.

Fairly soon after she moved in with us we had to start cutting her off after seconds because apparently she was vomiting quite a bit - we found vomit in her trash can in her room... She really hates being cut off after seconds, and will still always ask for more - especially if it's something she likes. She won't leave the table if there's still food on it. She is completely driven by food. When she has money, she spends it on food. She's been with us for over 4 years now, over half her life - she's never gone hungry, there's always been plenty of food - I would think she'd be over it by now. I just really hope that it doesn't follow her for the rest of her life. And I hope to God she stops eating leftovers off other kids' trays at school!!!