Food is on my mind...

Food. I have been talking to so many people about food lately, that really I just have to write about it. I don't know where to start, so I'm thinking back to the table I left at home going to work the other day. A little table with a finished breakfast. Well, finished in our definition of what it means - there was still some food on the plate when Antek took his bib off, handed it to me, looked me in the eye, smiled and walked away. A few mouthfulls of scrambled eggs. A couple of bites of bread. Some tea on the bottom of the glass. Breakfast is finished. We don't go for 'One more spoon? For Mummy?'

My husband and I have been struggling with this ourselves for months now. We love eating, we love food, and we love spending time in the kitchen. And there is nothing wrong with that. Except that, quite a while ago we realised that our eating habits are not what we want them to be, and that Pawel's portion of pasta would really shock you (and the fact that you can't see him from behind all this food). How can we know that enough is enough? How can we know if we're eating because we're still hungry, or because we simply don't know when to stop. Neither of us has a problem with obesity, but healthy eating habits are about more than that, you'll agree. So we mindfully worked through our eating habits, we slowed down and started listening to our bodies more. And we let our son do the same. Just so he maybe doesn't have to go through the same thinking we are doing right now, in the future. Fingers crossed.

Respect.  When the subject is mentioned, pediatrician Emmi Pikler sticks out her tongue.  It is not a sign of displeasure from the distinguished 79-year-old infant specialist, but an imitation of a baby’s first rejecting movement, an early signal from the child of having had enough to eat. (from an interview with Emmi Pikler, reproduced on Little River School blog)

As always, we have found that it's all about trust and respect. Trusting your child to know how much he needs, and respecting his decision to stop. Trusting your child that he knows his body better than anyone else, and respecting this body enough not to want to impose your will. All of this, if practices early, can lead to life-long benefits.  But recently I have been talking to so many people about food so many times, that it has led me to believe it's not only these kinds of benefits we are talking about here...

Know when to stop

The first years of life are all about learning. It's all one big experience (not that it changes much after that) and also learning how to learn. Learning what we like and what we don't like. Learning what we are comfortable with. Learning what is and what is not acceptable to us. But, as ever, this kind of learning needs to be done by the child himself.

In letting Antek eat  as much or as little as he wants, we hope to let him learn how his body feels about certain things. When he has enough, he gets up, takes his bib of and sometimes says thank you ( 'degyeeee') and hands me the plate. Or just smiles and walks away. Letting him stop when he wants to stop we are letting him walk away when he's had enough. And this does not only apply to food.

We want our children to know when to stop. To know when to say 'no' and walk away. I can imagine that when our son is a teenager, we will want him to know all of this even more. But for them to be able to do that comfortably, we also need to respect when they say 'no' to us. Especially, when it is about things they know better than we do - when it is about themselves.

Emotional experience

Just like anything else that goes on between our children and us, eating and feeding is an emotional time. For all those involved. I remember how hard it was for Pawel when he prepared a meal and Antek would not eat it. And of course 'I've made all this for you and you are walking away' is definitely something that was on his mind. But he never once let Antek know that he thought that, and learnt to trust Antek, and let go of the expectations. And that always pays off :)

We have this thing in Poland, where parents will sit down with babies and feed them spoonfulls that are always for someone (now, I have no idea if this is a universal thing or not?). 'One for Mummy. One for Daddy. One for Granny....' The list goes on, the child gets fed, nobody knows how much or how little he really needed to eat. But this, again, is not just about food. It's a pretty heavy load, now that I think about it, for a child to stop even when he is full. After all, if he's had one spoon for Mummy, will he not have one for Daddy?

Pawel has recently told me an adult version of this, which really is just the same. When you go out and don't want to have a drink with someone (and by drink in this situation we usually mean a shot of vodka) the 'normal' response is: 'Come on. You won't drink with ME?' well.... (beautiful recent post by Nadine about being able to comfortably say 'no' is here).

Trust me, you'll like it

Antek had a couple of months when he would not touch a carrot. That was just it. We didn't worry about it, but unforunately we mentioned it to someone, who seemed to find it a bit problematic. The advice which followed included things as varied as giving him only carrots so he had no choice, through to giving him other things mashed with carrots, so he would not notice. Now, needles to say, we did neither.

First of all, we don't think it's abnormal not to like something. We usually don't see it as something unusual when it comes to adults (think about having all your friends over for dinner at once... I would probably have to serve water). The problem with children is that we tend to worry that they will not get what they need, or that they are becoming 'picky'. Since we tend to trust Antek that he will know what he needs, we didn't worry about the first one. And we kept offering him carrots once in a while, and then patiently ate them ourselves. Until, of  course, one day he grabbed one, ate it, and has loved carrots since.

There are several important things we wanted to remember with the carrot 'situation'. It's ok not to like something, so if he ended up just not liking carrots in the end, we would also not have a problem with that. But more than that, we disagree with cheating anyone into doing anything - and in our ears 'mashing everything so he doesn't know carrot is there' is cheating. We don't want our son to  lie to us. We will not lie to him. And that goes far beyond carrots.

Patience on a Spoon

This post is about Antek's eating, my patience and our expectations. And it all starts with a spoon...

Until recently Antek was not really interested in trying out what a spoon can do. He sat down to eat, one of us would show him the food, tell him what's for breakfast, lunch, dinner, then he would keep waving his spoon around when we were feeding him with another spoon. But recently the same spoon became an object of oh so many possibilities.

It all started with one lunch, when Antek suddenly grabbed his spoon, put it in his small bowl with soup, scooped some out and carefully put it in his mouth. WOW I thought to myself and had to bite my tongue so very hard not to call out for Pawel to come see this, and for Antek to 'do it again, do it again!' So this was fun, he was trying to get some soup straight into his mouth with a spoon - yay, so cool.

Next meal we did what we always do and I sat down all ready for Antek to 'do it again, do it again!'. And, of course, he didn't. He sat down, grabbed the spoon, banged it around happily and waited to be fed. This, I have to say, was a moment of test for me - how easy would it have been to just put the spoon into his hand and lead it into his mouth. My patience was tested and my expectations were taking over, while Antek was happily drumming the spoon on the table, closing his eyes with joy. I slowly fed him with one hand and sat on the other.
Some time ago I was reading about schemas, and how children develop different abilities by endless practising and mastering of the same thing in different contexts, situations and using different tools. That week, it turned out, was a week of banging. The spoon on the table; wooden spoon on the floor; teddy on the floor - oh, teddy doesn't quite make a sound; back to the wooden spoon then - on the rubbish bin; on the fridge door; Next week, as it happens, was a week of putting things into other things - so spoon happily landed in the bowl over and over and over and over... and never went anywhere near the mouth. And bread went into the cup of cammomile tea, followed by a piece of broccoli. In the evening ducks in the bath were put into a little box for endless minutes. And finally I realized that it's a good, long path that will end in Antek grabbing a spoon and eating his soup, but so many things are happening on the way I should probably start paying attention to them rather than waiting for the 'right' moment. (because, that's right - every moment is right:)

A friend of mine recenly introduced me to Jon Kabat-Zin and his work on mindfulness. He says: '... there is no need to be impatient with ourselves because we find the mind judging all the time, or because we are tense or agitated or frightened, or because we have been practicing for some time and nothing positive seems to have happened. We give ourselves room to have these experiences. Why? Because we are having them anyway! When they come up they are our reality, they are the part of our life in this moment ... Why rush through some moments to get the other, “better” ones? After all, each one is your life in that moment'. And I guess the same goes for our kids - why rush them into a moment they will get to anyway, a "better" moment, rather than letting so many different experiences be part of their reality? And again - just like with so many other things - I'm sure if he gets there all by himself, the success will be so much sweeter. I am trying my very best to let him discover as many things as possible all by himself...even if it means broccoli in the tea for a while.


So, I continue feeding Antek with one hand and sitting on the other, or hand over to my husband who is a much more patient man than I sometimes am. And Antek is happily picking out raisins from his oatmeal and putting courgettes into his tea. Well, if he likes it that way, why not? :)