[yonghanwu]

Hi, everyone:

This is my first post here. I want to ask for help as I am a very frustrated mom, and also share some experiences. Apologies in advance for the ranting. But I feel I need to give the background enough for my question to make sense.

My 2-year old has not be a good eater since weaning. During weaning time when she was about 8 months I went back to work and deligated the feeding to grandma--Grandma have had 3 children and always acted knowledgeable and this is my first child. I still haven't forgiven myself for believing her theory that "kids are naughty when eating when they see their moms in sight". She will sit my daughter on her lap, hold her hands with one hand so she doesn't wave the spoon away, and feed her with the other hand. 20% of the time grandma has a successful and happy feed, but a lot of times not. My baby sometimes were so upset and she cries with tears and with mouth stuffed with food when she saw me. ... I'll never forgive grandma (I love grandma but I won't forgive her for this) and myself for having caused such stress and unpleasant experience at her younger age.

That went on for a couple of months and we finally decided grandma's method was totally wrong. Partly also because as my daughter grew older she is stronger and more determined and thus it has become impossible for grandma to cajole any food in her. We got a nanny then who had better meal time experience with my daughter.

She goes to nursery nowadays and eats ok according to nursery staff. But they do mention that it is very difficult to encourage her to eat well like other kids. Usually it takes her over 1 hour to eat half of what other kids eat in 20 minutes. When she gets back home, she won't try anything new at dinner, won't sit at dinner table unless we put the kids' program DVD on. Her natural reaction to an incoming spoon is to use her hand to push it away without looking, even when she is reasonably hungry. I know this because she understands some food names now and I have to call to her attention what is in the spoon, she'll look then open her mouth. Or sometimes she'll push the spoon away, then I follow the standard advice that "you should take food away without being upset when they say no", then she realized and opened her mouth and says "ah, ah" wanting food. When this happens I happily thought I can resume her meal but she'll push my spoon away again without looking just after the 1st spoon.

It is not that she just wants to feed herself instead If I give her the spoon she'll play with the food but not try to feed herself. She hasn't quite mastered the spoon yet. So at times she seems really hungry she'll give the spoon a try for a few seconds and give it up if she can't get stuff in her mouth. If I try to help her in situations like that she'll grab both her spoon and my spoon, or if not still not let me feed her in my spoon even if she can't get food on her own. Then she'll get frustrated and starts to tantrum.

I do give her finger food and put ranges of food on her plate in front of her, following advice saying "kids will eat when they are hungry". When she picks she'll only eat frankferter sausages and fish fingers but not veges. When the plate does not have those then she'll hover her little hand on top of the plate and make a round, touch one or two using the tip of her fingers, ignore the foods, then in 5 or 10 minutes throw a big tantrum asking for a bottle of milk.

You get the picture now. I am very lost as to how I can gradually walk out of this behavior problem and make her really want to eat herself and try new things. Please help!