What's the time now, Mr Wolf?
Monday, May 21, 2012 at 9:38PM We recently did a little switcheroo with my son's dinner time. Instead of him having dinner at 6.30pm, we moved it up to 5.30pm.
He's still in the terrible twos phase, which means we get tantrums pretty much all the time, and when he's just eaten a full dinner and then goes on a crying fit, he ends up throwing up. So we figured if we switched dinner to an earlier time, he'll have more time to digest his food, and perhaps it'll sit better in his system.
He comes home from nursery around 4.45pm, and he would usually want something to eat. So he has a slice of bread, some fruit and half a glass of milk. Dinner's then at 6.30pm, which is usually carbs heavy - pasta or rice-based with meat and vegetables.
After dinner's over, he gets to watch TV. I followed the general recommendation of no TV before age 2, and after that, TV only on a limited basis. We've been through the stage where he won't eat dinner unless the TV is on, but I've been very firm on no TV during dinner, only after. We've fought our battles and he's finally gotten the hang of it now. When dinner's over, it's just in time to catch the tail end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and then Jake and the Neverland Pirates on cable.
Now that we've switched dinner to 5.30pm though, he's done by a little past 6pm, we play around and then he gets to watch TV around 6.30pm, which is a whole new program - Special Agent Oso. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse comes on after that, and this is when his little brain gets confused. He'll say, 'Oh I want to have dinner. I haven't had my dinner yet.' Or, 'I've not had my soup.' (the Chinese boy in him, who likes drinking Chinese soup every day). And we'll go, 'No, you've already had your dinner, and you've already had your soup.' And he'll give us a strange look and then ask for his dinner again.
It's funny how little minds work at this little age. You don't know how to tell the time, so you can't quite have a sense of time - which I guess can be really weird and even disconcerting, come to think of it - not knowing what time it is all day. So he makes sense of his day by the routines that go on. And we've messed it up a bit by changing his dinner time, so he's kind of like 'Huh? What just happened?'
This has been going on for a few days, but I think it's finally sunk in. He's stopped asking for his dinner during Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but now asks for the slice of bread and milk. And sometimes his fruit too.
Kids
Reader Comments (3)
Do kids not feel that their stomach is not empty? Even if he doesn't remember he has just eaten, doesn't he feel kinda full? Or, more importantly why doesn't he remember he has just eaten? I'm confused.
Parenthood is just that - confusing!
Enough said. :-)