Paula did not realize that what she was doing may impact her
son for a long time. Mark was then three months old, he weighed eight pounds
and six ounces at birth and she was somewhat anxious should would be able to
produce enough milk for him so she could nurse without any supplements.
Probably because of her anxiety, she was in the habit of
picking him up as soon as he cried and nursing him. This was her action even
when he had been fed once and a half hour earlier (sometimes even less). Since
she had no way of knowing how many ounces he was really taking each time, this
schedule was almost constant throughout a twenty four hour period. Sometimes
there was a slightly longer break during the night, but it was not always one
should could count on.
The situation did not change measurably as he got older,
except he was crying louder each time, which she was still interpreting as
hunger.
He joined our daycare at eighteen months. We realized
instantly that he was definitely a crier and that he expected food every time
he cried. We did succeed in keeping him on our schedule of 2 snacks and lunch
and determined he was actually not a big eater, but was probably crying because
he had created of habit of being a snacker.
We have had this experience with many children over the
years. We have concluded that two things happen as a result of this behavior.
The child becomes a snacker, needing food throughout the day at short intervals
and is constantly hungry because their food intake was never sufficient to fill
them up.
There was the additional impact of an unbalanced diet, detrimental to
their health and growth. In every case, both the challenge to reduce the crying
and teach each child to be a better eater, took a significant amount of time.
We did need the cooperation of the parents to implement this
corrective plan at home in order to be successful. One of their
responsibilities was to provide and nourishing and adequate breakfast so the
child would arrive at our daycare ready to last until snack.
Breaking a crying eating related habit is not easy. It is so
much easier not to let it happen.
Your child needs to be stimulated, played with, taught, and
connected with. Food is not the solution for every sign of distress. Help them
to extend their time between food intake to at least three hours and make sure
they are full when fed a meal.
Like all other challenges in life and parenting, to be
successful you need to be 100% committed.
This approach will help your child grow to be a healthy
eater with long term positive results and a lot less crying.
Good luck!
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