Two and a half year old stopped eating

[VanessaPMR]

Wise forumites,

my two and a half year old has always been a very fussy eater but seemed to have got over it about 6 months ago.

She ate a limited range of all food groups until 5 days ago.

She seems to be on a food strike now, eating only a tiny lunch each day, no breakfast or dinner.

She also seems to be really enjoing the distress this is causing, despite my best poker face being deployed (it's ok you don't need to eat if you are not hungry).

What to do? I fear (torture myself) that this is due to me returning to work (been back for 3 weeks now).

She has also started regressing pretending to be a baby again and night wakings...

Actually, now I've written it down it's become much clearer...

Need to spend more time with her..somehow.

[mima08]

Sorry to hear and cannot give any real advice as my experience is (so far) not as extreme. But I can appreciate how distressing it is when your LO doesn't want to eat: mine has been an intermittent eater all his life (some days loads, some days next to none).... which means I sometimes resort to less-than-ideal eating scenarios, i.e. pretending to have a picnic or going out for food. Would maybe shifting the scene (as in location) help to divert her?

Good luck

mx

[etta166]

All children/toddlers go through phases of eating loads and then seeming not to eat at all. From your post, it looks like you already know that the best thing you can do it go with the flow and ignore it. My son used to go on hunger strikes at this age too, usually over a power struggle with me and as a way to try to gain control. He never went more than 48 hours without eating, and the phase just passed.

As long as your daughter isn't underweight or ill, just keep reassuring yourself that it's a phase and she's not going to starve herself.

Good luck and don't balme yourself for it!