24mth underweight picky eater

"toypup" wrote:

"enigma" wrote in message
...
"toypup" wrote in
:

Even if he got a glass of juice, he wasn't drinking
lots of it, and that isn't enough to sustain life.

for 3 days?

No. I mean if it continued, that isn't enough to sustain life.

yes, it certainly would be.
i realize you were concerned about his weight & lack of
eating, but it in no way shows that a child would starve
himself to death, because he wouldn't have. he would have
eaten what you gave him at some point, but you gave in & gave
him what he wanted.

How many days would you let it go on? I am serious. No one has answered
with nothing more than a vague response.

Well how long does it take someone on a hunger strike or something -
usually over a month.

i'm not saying there is anything wrong with that either,
because we all want to see our kids eat. but eating *is*
something they can control & it *is* something (usually the
first something) that they discover parents will give in to
them over.

Yes, they have remarkable control over it. That is the point. I believe
they can control it to the point of anorexia just like any older person can.
If I could do it, I don't see why he couldn't do it.

Most of the time when people are remembering studies done on this - at
least what *I* remember is one that was done with babies of about a
year old. I don't think deliberately starving is going to be a
problem at that age.

But by the time you get to this 2 year old and your 3 year old, there
is more of a self awareness issue, and they CAN refuse to eat food.
The question now comes to - what food are they refusing and why are
they refusing it. It may be that refusing the food is reasonable.

Is it because of sensory issues? If the food is an unknown allergen
and makes the child feel bad, or if the food tastes bad to the child
or the texture of the food makes him/her gag, then of course he or she
will not want to eat it.

Or is it because the parent or provider has made some kind of contest
out of it? In a tug of war over food, the child has the ability to
make his parent wild by refusing to eat.

What I would recommend is not to make a power struggle over it. And
remember that what the child eats today, he may not eat tomorrow and
vice versa. Things change.

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
"toypup" wrote:

How many days would you let it go on? I am serious. No one has answered
with nothing more than a vague response.

Well how long does it take someone on a hunger strike or something -
usually over a month.

If a child refuses to eat, you would seriously let it go on for over a
month?

"toypup" wrote in
:



"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
"toypup" wrote:

How many days would you let it go on? I am serious. No
one has answered with nothing more than a vague response.

Well how long does it take someone on a hunger strike or
something - usually over a month.

If a child refuses to eat, you would seriously let it go on
for over a month?

if he's drinking, especially if it's milk, *and* his doctor
has been told about it, yes. i'd offer a good assortment of
healthy food and wait for him to eat it.
lee
--
Last night while sitting in my chair
I pinged a host that wasn't there
It wasn't there again today
The host resolved to NSA.

"toypup" wrote:
"Rosalie B." wrote in message
.. .
"toypup" wrote:

How many days would you let it go on? I am serious. No one has answered
with nothing more than a vague response.

Well how long does it take someone on a hunger strike or something -
usually over a month.

If a child refuses to eat, you would seriously let it go on for over a
month?

No, I thought I was answering how long it would take for someone to
starve to death if he didn't have food. It would be much longer than
3 days

And my main point was that in order to determine why a child was not
eating it was more important to find out WHY he wasn't eating, and
WHAT he wasn't eating. Sometimes not eating is appropriate even for a
child.

I did have a picky eater who was picky throughout her life (and still
is), and also one that wasn't quite so picky but she did pass out in
her horse's stall at a rally once because she didn't like any of the
food provided and so didn't eat any. She was about 13 at the time and
was quieter picky eater than her sister. We didn't find out until her
sister went off to school that she didn't like peanut butter. She
would never eat lunch in the cafeteria (or anywhere) when she was in
HS.

Her second child was not heavy enough at her 14 month check-up to turn
the safety seat to forward They were concerned about it, but the kid
is fine - just very little and skinny.

"enigma" wrote in message
. ..
"toypup" wrote in
:



"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
"toypup" wrote:

How many days would you let it go on? I am serious. No
one has answered with nothing more than a vague response.

Well how long does it take someone on a hunger strike or
something - usually over a month.

If a child refuses to eat, you would seriously let it go on
for over a month?

if he's drinking, especially if it's milk, *and* his doctor
has been told about it, yes. i'd offer a good assortment of
healthy food and wait for him to eat it.

Most people tend to feel hungry after skipping one meal. It's hard to
imagine that someone skipping a month's worth of meals is not hungry. Maybe
it only happens in some messed up populations, but he has my genes. Going
off the assumption that people get hungrier and hungrier until they no
longer can stand it, yes, starve the kid for a month would work; but the
body doesn't always work that way. DS never asked for food nor acted
hungry. He's like me.

I would venture that by the end of that month, the DS will have no desire to
eat even the food he likes and will need to get tube fed, because if a child
has no desire to eat and has lost the sense of hunger, how else will you
feed him? His body will be so messed up as far as the ability to read
hunger signals. I will have introduced anorexia and the idea for future
reference that if he did it once, he can do it again.

Not only that, I do believe CPS would step in seeing that emaciated child.
They wouldn't believe a kid that young could starve himself willingly.