Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

To a mother with a fourteen month old who drank milk from a bottle well, but would eat so little, that her mother was afraid for her health:

I started motherhood thinking I could make every child eat what I put on their plate. It took me about a decade, and I was letting even tiny ones serve themselves. I wish I had known a child would not become unhealthy from eating so little. Two of my children, (both small for their age, and skinny) ate very little; so little that I was certain they were not getting enough.

Now that they are both women who still eat very little, I see that the battle I fought, (and lost) was really useless and needless. It frustrated me undoubtedly more than it did the child, to enforce this. I wish I had known from the start that I didn't need to. Some things I learned the hard way.

I would let her keep the bottle until her eating skills are more mature. She won't be a baby very long.

You can begin to encourage your little one to say "done", or something like that, to let you know she is finished. In another few months, she will say the word you teach her, instead of shaking her head. She just doesn't have any other way to tell you just yet.



2004 Rosemary Gwaltney

Back to Ideas Index