“Help! My two year old won’t sit at the table”
There is so much to love about toddlers; they can be funny and affectionate and it’s magical watching them learn about the world around them, gaining new skills. However, from a parenting perspective, I don’t know about you, but it’s a time I found really challenging. Toddlers require such huge levels of patience and understanding – sometimes this is easy to give, sometimes (when we’re tired or stressed) it is not so easy.
I had a question about parenting a toddler this week, from a mum in the facebook group for parents of picky eaters which I co-run with Simone and Natalia (my co-founders of our online support hub for parents, Your Feeding Team) This question was about a two year old who wouldn’t sit still at the table and kept wanting to get down. This is such a common phenomenon, I thought I’d put some of the things I talked about in the Q & A video, down in a blog post. So if you are the parent of a small person who is not a fan of sitting at the table, this one is for you!
The WHY
As with all problematic mealtime behaviours, the first thing to do is ask yourself
“What is this all about”??
Because to change a behaviour, you need to understand it first.
A two year old may be trying to avoid sitting through a meal for several reasons. Perhaps it is part of the developmentally normal boundary testing that children of this age like to challenge us with… perhaps it’s a bid for autonomy; two years olds like to do things their way on their terms. They are experimenting with their personal power as they learn that they can make their own decisions. Perhaps they are getting a buzz from the impact their behaviour has on the grown ups. Getting adults to react is experienced as a big win by two year olds.
Two year olds are busy people – they have things to do and places to be. Maybe their project of the moment does not involve sitting at the table at eating a meal and they really would much rather be elsewhere, thank you very much. This wall isn’t going to draw on itself you know…
All of these things fit in with the age and stage that a child is at and need to be tackled with this in mind.
When it’s not so simple
Sometimes, though, a toddler’s unwillingness to join in with a family meal is not about any of these ‘normal’ toddler things. It may be that a child is very uncomfortable with eating. If a child is a ‘picky eater’ and has a genuinely anxious reaction to food, they will do whatever it takes to avoid that situation. You can read more about food anxiety here.
It may be that your child finds mealtimes overwhelming from a sensory perspective and they have a strong urge to get away from the smell, feel and sight of food on the table. Some children with sensory processing issues find sitting still very difficult in itself, before food is even in the picture. Equally, they could possibly have some issues with core stability which may need further investigation.
The question to ask yourself is whether the behaviour fits with how your toddler is in other situations. If your child isn’t great at sitting still for long periods of time and hasn’t got the longest attention span, it makes sense that sitting down to a meal could be tricky. If they are going through a phase of boundary testing and every request is met with a “NO!”, it could be that meals are just another arena for these behaviours. However, if this resistance is something you only ever see at mealtimes, maybe food or the mealtime environment is the problem, and you need to look deeper.
Get the basics right
Before we get into a couple of strategies you could implement, it’s vital to have the basics right. First, is your child’s seat physically working for them? And secondly, have you done all you can to get them in the right mental space for eating?
Chairs
There is actually a bit of an art to getting a child’s seat at the table right. These factors are SO important because if your child’s seating isn’t optimal, the odds of a successful meal are stacked against you from the moment they sit down. You need to assess whether your child’s seating arrangements are facilitating eating or are perhaps making things more difficult. Sometimes, a small tweak can make a huge difference. Look for solid foot support and ensure that your child’s feet are at 90 degrees to their shins, which are at 90 degrees to their thighs, which are at ninety degrees to their torso. Also make sure that they have good back support and are not slipping about everywhere OR tucked in too tight. Check that they are a comfortable distance and height from the table, too.
To harness or not to harness?
As I say ALL the time, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. If your child is used to a harness and is happy with one, great. You can carry on using it as long as it is appropriate for them both in terms of their size and stage.
However, if you have a toddler who doesn’t like to sit at the table, I think that a harness is a really bad idea (assuming of course that they are developmentally capable of sitting safely without one). This is because using a harness to keep a toddler in place against their will brings in all sorts of emotional dynamics.
By physically restraining a child, you are using your superior strength and size to overpower them. This makes them feel completely out of control (which they effectively are). This will dramatically add to anxiety, negative feelings about mealtimes and levels of conflict, all of which research shows make a child’s relationship with food worse and increase picky eating.
Set the scene
To get the best outcome, help your child get meal-ready by using my R.E.A.D.Y approach to transitions. Devise your own pre-meal routine: perhaps have some special music that you play in the run up to a meal, or a bell to ring. Giving your child prompts and a ‘count-down’ makes it much easier for them to wrench themselves away from whatever activity they are engaged with. Avoid TV in the half hour before meals – screen time is very stimulating and gets children in the wrong mental state for a meal. It can also make the transition to the table harder. Some children may really benefit from some physical activity, others may do better with some quiet time with you, if you can figure out the logistics of one-to-one time in the run up to the meal.
Focus on the mealtime environment, making sure that you have made everything as calm and upbeat as possible. Try some relaxing music in the background; for some children this makes all the difference. Trial and error is key here, as some children find background noise a bit overwhelming. Try not to get too stressed and shouty – I’m not judging; I have been that stressed and shouty parent in the rush before a meal when the phone is ringing, the meal is burning and the kids are climbing over the furniture.
Review your expectations
Are you asking too much? If your child is a slow eater and needs half an hour to eat their meal, maybe that’s okay. If they want to get down after 15 minutes although you haven’t finished, perhaps that’s okay too. I suggest 15 minutes as a minimum to aspire to and 40 minutes as a maximum, but you need to think about what feels right for you and your child as every family is different. There is an enormous variation in the speed adults eat and children are the same. This needs to be respected. But first you need to explore whether their inability to sit for meals may be giving you clues about what is making eating hard for your child.