I remembered yesterday of the machacona phrase of "you are going to fall" and today I bring you another one, which I keep listening to continuously and that I had trouble getting my son's grandmothers to abandon, at least in my presence. He is the happy one "a little more".
I do not deny that there are children who eat little, but when that really happens, or there is a physical or psychological problem that manifests itself in food.
I usually get the impression that, taken by general manuals of child nutrition or the leaves distributed in the consultations, we believe that children, if they don't eat the marked amount They will get sick or they will not grow.
Feeding Guidelines
Memory the guidelines they gave me about the huge amounts of porridge that my son was supposed to eat. Something completely exaggerated for him. He never ate more than 100 cubic centimeters of porridge, and of course, he never finished those bumps we prepared at the beginning.
Actually the porridge didn't like anything at all. The industrial cereals gave arcades, prepare them with the milk that was. Purees could have a pass, as long as they were really hungry and tasty.
But what he really liked were the crushed pieces of unmixed food, the crushed fruit, the cookies, the croutons and the semolina soup. But even in this way the amount he ate was small compared to the tables they gave for his age in each case.
A little more
When I didn't want to, I knew it to make it very clear. He pushed the spoon away with his hand, got angry and, when he insisted, I confess that I once did, he could have an arch. So I learned to respect his stomach and appetite and not bother him with eating a little more.
In addition, my son drank breast milk on demand, and this covered a good part of his nutritional needs, being the complementary feeding that precisely, the complement that his body needed to add what the milk could not give him.
In fact, since three months, he has always been in the same percentiles, 25 in weight and 50 in height, growing gradually and being a thin child, although over time the relative amount of food he eats has increased and today he eats almost the same amount as me, who is big (and eaters).
For example, this past year I have noticed that he needs to eat a lot, six times a day and also burns anything, even very caloric foods, although physically he is not a particularly active child.
I have never forced him to eat, but I admit that, knowing my son, I sometimes need to remind him, when he is playing or studying, that he may be hungry or thirsty, because when he is absorbed in something he forgets that he has a body and if you don't put a few calories on it then it breaks down. But if he doesn't want to, I don't force him.
Nor have I ever forced him to eat everything on the plate, although, over time, I observe that when we eat at someone else's home he tries to eat everything. But one look is enough to let me know that he does not want more and simply stops if he is satiated.
He eats everything, or almost everything, a lot of vegetables and fruit too, although the pear and spinach still arch, although lentils are now one of his favorite dishes. And he continues to get angry if he is urged to eat or becomes fatal if he sees that a baby is forced to eat.
I think he taught me that the "a little more"It does not serve to better feed a child or to educate their appetite. It is much more effective to let them feel their body and the messages they send them, respecting them, understanding them and letting the regulation of a healthy organism guide their nutrition, always, by Of course, from the responsibility that parents have on the health and complete feeding of our children.
