During one of the last cardiologist appointments we talked to Dr. Greene and he said something very important, especially for me. He basically said that if children are offered food and have some choice they won't starve themselves and if Abi was not interested in eating at times, not to stress about it and let her be.
It helped a lot at the time, but couple months later I'm back to stressing about it again, so I started reading a little bit on the subject and thought I would share some of what I read here, with others who may be like me ;-).
Melanie Shay, a registered dietitian, in her article on BabyCenter.com, says that it's common for 2 year olds to seem like they don't eat, but as long as they grow normally, they most probably are fine and we should not force them to eat or eat more.
Here is the best part. Per Melanie Shay, a recent study of children and their eating habits, from the American Dietetic Association showed that when children are presented with variety of foods, almost all of them will eat enough to meet their nutritional needs. How awesome is that?!
Since I am the one usually making deals with Abi just to make her eat a bit more, after reading the entire article and couple others, and looking at the Food Pyramid for Young Children I decided I will give Abi a break. If she doesn't want to eat enough, and by enough I mean according to my standards and expectations, I won't bother her and will let her be. We'll see how this works out for all of us. Her weight gain and my nervous system ;-)
Below I put the screenshots (with the links) of the Food Pyramid for Young Children and couple other links you may find interesting interesting:
Nutrition Guidance for Healthy Children Aged 2 to 11 Years
Kids Eat Right
Art
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