Behavior Modification Part 2

So, Ella would live on carbs, sugar, and milk (which has both!) if she could. I've been feeling frustrated lately with her lack of interest in vegetables and fruit and the battle it is to get her to eat them. And, I've decided 4 is too young to get away with eating what you want because you wear Mommy out. So, we're going hard core. Chris and I decided that we are going to assume our rightful roles as the ones who determine if our child is healthy or not. So, Operation Fruit and Vegetables is in full swing. Here's the plan.

Ella needs to eat a serving of fruit (at breakfast) and vegetables (at lunch and dinner) first. That's all she will be served when she sits down to a meal. If she eats ALL of it (no more bargaining with "3 more green beans!!) she can have the rest of the meal. If she doesn't eat it, she gets nothing else to eat. We feel confident she will not starve if she misses a meal (although this does pull on my heart strings) so we're going to hold our ground.

Drinks are another issue because since birth Ella has been a milk lover and would gladly consumer all her calories in liquid form. So, we already limit her milk and (diluted) juice intake but these will also be saved for after veggies/fruits are consumed so she can't fill up on them. Plus, if she eats more healthy stuff she may not need her regular prune juice to keep her "regular" (she's also been constipated since birth-sorry if that's TMI but come on, this is a mom blog).

So, we started yesterday and she's doing GREAT! I'm sure rough spots are around the corner (and this is much harder to enforce if we're not home) but so far she's been a hero! I must confess she did cry the first morning and said through tears "Mommy, it will hurt my feelings if I have to eat vegetables every day." I validated her feelings of sadness (I am a therapist after all) and then we talked about how Mommy and Daddy are in charge of helping her grow up healthy so we're doing this to make her healthy not sad. She got over it and ate her oranges :-)

Today she ate a bowl of peas at lunch and didn't even bat an eyelash. Last week she probably would have eaten 3 peas after whining about it and then fed them to the dog while I wasn't looking or just eaten all her sandwich and said she was too full for peas. Well girl, I'm on to you. The dog is in her crate for meal times and you can't be full because you can't eat anything else first!!

So, we're excited and perhaps naively hopeful, that she'll develop a like for more fruits and vegetables through this experiment. I really do love most vegetables so I'm hoping I can model that. We've told her that when she starts to eat all her veggies without complaining, we'll know she's ready to have them served with her other food. So, wish us luck! We're psyched!