Mealtime Fears

E has been on and off resisting sitting in her highchair lately at mealtimes. We try to keep mealtimes pretty low pressure in our house , offering the food for the meal but not pressuring her to eat a certain amount or take bites of everything on the plate. That said, it takes a lot of intentional effort to be chill about this. My default is to worry about how much she is eating, to demand she follow certain “rules” at the table, to make some foods conditional on others.

But this is a cycle I am intent on breaking.

Because I don’t want meals to become a time for power struggles, E’s resistance to the highchair sometimes means that she skips out on meals with us. We gently remind her that “this is what’s on the menu,” and that we won’t be having snacks until snack time. And then we try to leave it at that.

But after awhile, this was not necessarily sitting well with me either and I wanted to see if I could find a way to get her back to the table for mealtimes. So when she is resistant to the highchair, I have been inviting her onto my lap for mealtime. Sometimes it works, others it doesn’t. And with this, I am battling internal and societal noise that this decision will come back to haunt me or that I’m creating more problems by “coddling her”.

But when I feel myself in fear, I try to ask myself what I can do to “lead with love, not with fear.” Because I know I don’t do any of my best parenting when it’s coming from a place of fear. So, I leaned back into what my goals really are: low pressure mealtimes, connection, enjoyable family mealtime

I decided that I am okay with her sitting on my lap during mealtimes if it meets these goals. I think what I will do moving forward is provide MORE connection than she’s asking for at mealtimes. Instead of waiting for the times she is resisting, I’ll scoop her onto my lap and answer her need for connection BEFORE she asks for it. (I also want to note that I am not going to make her sitting on my lap contingent upon her eating (even thought his is what my default programing is screaming at me to do.)

What it comes down to is that my fears are not in line with the problems for us right now. They are fears for the future. It’s hard to not fall into what these fears are pushing us to do. But I’m choosing to trust connection. To trust that she won’t always need to sit on my lap. To stust that she will eventually eat at meals more regularly.

Mainly, it’s learning to trust myself, that if any of these things do present at real problems for us in the future, that I will be able to lead with love when they arise.