Milk or the lack of it!!!!!

[auditt]

Hi,

My son who is 2 1/2 up until a week ago, was having a beaker of milk during his quiet hour before bedtime at 7pm.

This last week he no longer wants his bedtime milk, he refuses it point blank, I have put flavours into it etc, but no joy, he has even stopped having his cheerios with milk in the morning too, so I went out and bought him, some chocolatey cereal, but he turned his nose up at them too!!!

All he seems to want his his orange juice....That is all he wants to drink......In his ideal world, he would have grapes and orange juice all the time, morning, noon and night!!!

He has also turned into a fussey eater, he would rather play than waste time at the table eating, and tries to bring his play with him to the table, I am very strict that we eat at the table at each meal time.He cannot wait until to get back down from the table to continue playing.

Any suggestions re the milk....Should I just go with the flow, and he will, when ready want the milk back..I am wondering whether he can manage with so little milk in his diet?

Thanks in advance.........Kind regards,auditt.xx.

[lou 26]

Hi auditt

As long as he is eating plenty of full fat yoghurts/fromage frais and cheese etc (at least two portions per day) he should be fine without the milk for a while. Maybe try introducing it later on and whatever you do dont make a big deal of it with him! Have you tried milk based dished to give him?

My daughter did the same at about that age for a week! so when i went shopping i took her to choose "a new cup for her milk!" It did the trick!

As for eating I would try and make his meals as interesting as possible i.e. make faces on the plate with the food etc. anythings worth a try

Good Luck x

[sense4all]

I think you have to draw on your reserves and fake indifference. Kids are fabulously astute at picking up what agitates adults and 'running with it' just to see how far they can go.It is really easy for mealtimes to become a battle zone, don't go there! Make meal times shorter if that will reduce tension, but you are right ( I think) no playing at the table, no top ups between meals (a toughie when you feel bad that 'they must be hungry") Create an extra opportunity before bed for them to ask for something.

The only thing that my health visitors agreed on over a ten year period was that children will not starve themselves willingly.

Is he really interested in playing with one toy or is it any toy? If it is one thing you could try to get him to put it in a box that he can't see through for the duration of the meal,so it's very presence is not diverting his attention, but ALWAYS give it back to him straight afterwards.Let him put it in and out of the box if he prefers.

My 'fussy' eater is all grown up and to be fair , will now try more exotic things than me.If the basics are in place try not to worry too much.

[Hermia]

I absolutely hated milk as a child and it went on for years and my mum freaked out. Then when I was in my teens I got sent to hosptial for digestive problems and tested for Lactose Intolerance. I tested postive and the dairy-free diet I went on cleared up my health problems 100%. I obviously knew that milk didn't suit me as a child more than my mum did! I very much doubt that your kid has LI (he's probably just going through a difficult stage), but I do know babies and children who have had it.

[noxlumos]

As the father of eight children (oldest 20 youngest 3) I'm delighted to tell you that they can live on what they choose to eat themselves generally. We've had milk lovers and milk haters and never once forced a food issue with any of our kids and they have all grown up to be hale and happy, fit and healthy.

I think as long as, as a family, you eat a fairly sensible diet ( which we do, no ready meals and plenty of fruit and veg, yogurt, wholefoods etc) your little one will come to no harm whatsoever.

We also had an eating at the table thing going and occasionally they do have fits where they wish to play non stop. Again we just ignored it largely and didn't make too big a deal out of it and it went away.

Hope this helps.

[Scarlett]

He does not need milk. Nobody does! Except for breast milk when feeding. Many many people are dairy intolerant and this is thought to cause allergies such as asthma and eczema, as well as other diseases which can manifest themselves later on. So long as he is eating other foods which contain calcium, he will be fine.

[Altosruleok]

My son was amazingly fussy and sometimes just refused to eat at all - everything else in life was far more interesting and eating was just a waste of time to him. I found that the best way to get food into him was not to nag or wheedle, but to ignore feeding him and take him to the park to feed the ducks. I prepared the most wonderful sandwiches for them - cheese, egg, tomato, etc. My son, in his lovely negative way, flatly refused to give it to the ducks and ate it instead! I "fed" him like this for several weeks, until he decided to become human again. Regarding milk - my friend's child wouldn't drink it and she used to "hide" it in mashed potato, macaroni cheese, etc.
And don't worry too much - despite being a horror to feed, my son is now 23 and very very fit!

[snook]

As Scarlett pointed out, neither your little boy nor anyone else actually needs milk. It's just become a norm in our society. Cows' milk is designed for making strong and healthy baby cows, end of story - we don't come into it at all.

I was thinking about this the other day (since I have a health problem that it may be contributing to and I was wondering if I could manage to cut it out completely, at least for a while) and I tried to imagine how humans had come to be milk drinkers in the first place. I imagined they kept cattle in pens or corralls (eventually, after generations of hunting them) and after a while realised they had a source of ongoing nutrition right there that they could use for the babies (without actually killing a cow) whenever times were particularly hard and women, for whatever reason, weren't managing to breast-feed their babies successfully. Over time (and again, in particularly hard times) they probably overcame any reluctance they may have felt and joined in 'eating' the baby food.

Sounds a bit contrived, I know, but you have to try to imagine how it might seem to them when no-one had ever drank cows' milk and it would have therefore been seen as strange, to say the least. And milk drinking would quite possibly diminish or die out in our modern society (specially considering the way everything comes under scrutiny these days with all the new health fads) if not for the powerful voice of the milk marketing industry.