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mushpea
16-12-2008, 02:06 PM
hi i have had this little fella whos 2yrs old since september, first of all he refused to eat his meal but at there and cried (apparently he eats when he wants at home and not at a table) then he would sit but refuse to eat, now he eats a small amount then after a few mouthfuls of eating nicley and me praising him he suddnely crams a whole load in his mouth then makes himself sick, today he was eating his sausage roll really nicely then i had to answer the phone, when i did so he crammed loads in his mouth and tried to make himself sick, burst out crying then spat it all on the floor:angry:
is this an attention thing and if so how should i deal with it. somone said i should make him clear the sick up, others say i should just ignore him but how do you ignore a choking child whos puking everywhere and how can i clean it up without making it a big thing.
my other problem is my son is very funny about his food and is fussy too, he is a school at the moment so this dosent effect him but it will in the hols so need to get it sorted

Annie_T
16-12-2008, 02:29 PM
thats a hard one, i would ignore it and carry on as normal as possible.
If that doesnot wory tell him thats not what we do with food, it dangerous to put lots food in mouth (or soemthing like this) see if that stops him

or try the other way round., to me its an attention thing, he got to get in routine with you and prob dont like it

sarah707
16-12-2008, 02:54 PM
It would be absolutely wrong of anyone to suggest that you make a child clean up their sick!

He's 2 years old for goodness sake, but even if he was older, he needs loving and caring, not punishing :(

Yes he is manipulating the situation but there is always a reason behind this kind of behaviour and it needs to be treated carefully or he will end up with an eating disorder, possibly for life.

His parents need to make an urgent appointment with their health visitor I think and they need to talk about his grazing habits and get suggestions for sitting and eating together.

Also if you are called away, you need to get him down and remove food until you come back - or you might find one day he chokes. Perhaps you could make meal times no phone times, so he is watched around food to make sure he is safe.

Poor little man I hope the health visitor suggests something that will help him.

This is hard for you too - sending hugs xx

a.lmb
16-12-2008, 02:56 PM
i would cut his food into little pieces about hand size see if that works

CCJD
16-12-2008, 06:20 PM
Eating problems have to be the worst thing to deal with. They can so quickly become deep rooted and irrational and unlike many other problems (eg: sleeping, behaviour etc) these can be dangerous like with your child.
I would be inclined in the case to cut the child's food up into bite size pieces and only give him three on his plate at any one time. This way he cant overstuff his mouth. After some time I would gradually increase this once he has forgotten about this antic.

There are some eating problems that you can ignore - I used to have a child who from 6 months to 2 years was a brilliant eater - all of sudden he started to decided that he disliked a food on site and if you told him to take a bit he would gag. I never forced him to eat all his food but (with his mother's agreement - who was at her wits end about it) we did agree that he did have to have one bite of everything and we ignored the gagging. By the time he left me his palate was much wider again but it took alot of work.

Good luck with this one.

Winnie
16-12-2008, 06:51 PM
The misuse of food is a big issue with me- and this little boy by the looks of things- probably 'learnt' behaviour ie it gets a nice reaction from his parents and to him thats what he wants- a reaction. Parents who encourage grazing often see it as a declaration of their love for their child, 'i love my child so much i must give him everything', and will often follow their child around with a piece of food or beaker. Of course the child is getting loads of attention & wants this to continue....how does a child who is getting non stop attention fom his parent get more attention?...he will vomit or cry. Grazing is a bad habit to start for the emotional well-being of a child and has been refered to as v bad for a healthy diet & developing healthy habits.
So, you ignore the vomiting. Give him v small pieces of food on his plate, attractively arranged and make no comment to the amount he eats. When he has finished whats on his plate offer him more- he's not giong to starve if he refuses to eat a meal. You can find something on line about healthy eating to give the parents & gently suggest they get advice from thier HV.
Maybe give a leaflet to the person who sugested making him clear the vomit up :eek: no way should he be cleaing up the vomit- its a behaviour habit that can be changed but needs understanding and care. hth

mushpea
16-12-2008, 08:52 PM
well spoke to the nan tonite (she has him half the week) and apparently he does this in the night too, she says he crys in the middle of the night for attention but she is worried about ignoring him cry because he makes himself sick, apparently this has been going on for quite a while and they really don't know how to deal with it either.
i have tried cutting his food up small but he just stuffs several bits in so tommoro i will just try putting a few bits on his plate at a time as suggested ,thanks for that, although it may prove difficult tommro as we are at toddler group party and it may look funny if i take two plates for one child!
it seems also that he can make himself sick on demand even if he isn't eating anthing as he does it in the night. of course its very difficult to ignore/not give attention, to a child who is being sick cause you have to clean them/it up.
oh and for those that worried about me leaving him with food whilst i answerd the phone , i didn't and wouldn't ever do that with any child, i have a mobile phone only so its always with me and i had to take the call for reasons i can't really say on here.
anyway will try the suggestion and see how that goes tommoro
thanks

CCJD
17-12-2008, 07:54 AM
Good that parents are on board with this one - whilst you cannot physically ignore a child being sick you can act as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened. If he is doing it for attention, you have to not give him any for being sick. So when he is sick I wouldnt make reference to it at all, just quickly and queitly clean it up without reference to the sick or to him. On the contary, I would make a point of chatting very animatedly to the other children whilst absently cleaning him up. If you dont even look him in the eye you would hope that he would get the message and think "hang on I've just been sick but she busy chatting and smiling at them!" Do this enough times and maybe (depending on how strong willed he is - and it sounds like he is off the scale!) he might get the message that this one doesnt get him the attention he wants. I would just try to not react in any way at all - not negatively, not positively - just a nothing reaction whilst you clean him up.

chaotic_space
17-12-2008, 10:19 AM
Ive had a similar problem with a child making themselves sick at meal times.

My approach was to cut up his food into bite sized pieces as a.lmb suggested and then basically ignore the behaviour as CCJD said. I removed his sweatshirt/jumper, covered him in a tea towel at meal times and let the eldest mindee eat in the other room (because it made her heave and wasn't fair on her). I kept his portions small but always had some more ready if he wanted it and cut out all junk food so that what he did eat was nutritious.

The good news is that it did eventually stop. Hang in there mushpea :)

Chatterbox Childcare
17-12-2008, 10:58 AM
Firstly I think you need to give your undivided attention to meal times - let the answer phone kick in if need me.

I would then provide a small amount of the plate and keep adding to it as he eats and it would be cut up into mouth size pieces.

I know this is time consuming, especially with the holidays coming up but it will be worth it and hopefully no more sick, which means more time with your son.

Persevere and like Sarah says - get the Health Visitor involved if you are stuck for a solution.

mushpea
17-12-2008, 02:22 PM
thanks folks for your support
well toddler group party today, i sat on the floor with him and picked out small peices of finger food for him to munch, i told him before he started eating to take little bites so he didn't choke, and i kept praising him regular when he did eat nicley, because i only had him today he got my undivided attention and ate nicley and didn't throw up :clapping:
tommoro its just me and him again so the real test will be next monday when i have two other children aswell as obviously i can't just ignore them, but so far so good and i like the teatowel suggestion, might be a good idea anyway cause he's not the cleanest of eaters!:D

sarah707
17-12-2008, 02:25 PM
That sounds positive!

I used to have a little girl who pushed food into her mouth, so i would cut up her food small.

Then I'd put one piece of sandwich and 1 grape (or whatever we were eating) on her plate.

When that was gone, praise and the same again.

It took a few months of consistency but eventually she was much better.

Keep going! :clapping: