My 4 1/2 Year Old Overeating

Hey L.,

The pp is right - the best way to deal with this is to ONLY have healthy, whole food in the house.

This will be hardest for the adults!! Your dd might throw a few tantrums when she wants junk food and can't find any, but she'll adjust within a week if you're consistent. It takes us adults much longer since our habits are based on DECADES of behavior rather than just a few months or years.

Does your father live with you? If not, and if you don't visit him too often, you can let her have a few treats when you go visit.

If he lives with you or you visit him a lot (once a week or more), you'll need to get his support.

Ask him if he'll be willing to NEVER eat the forbidden foods in front of his granddaughter.

If he lives with you and he wants to keep a stash (which I could understand), find a place that will be impossible for your daughter to get into. Get a lock to his room, if need be.

Then get rid of every piece of junk food, cookies, ice cream, crackers, sugar-added jam, maple syrup, white bread, etc.

Put fresh fruit and veggies on the kitchen table or in the fridge at a shelf she can reach. Tell her she can have as much fruit and veggies as she wants.

Make sure everything else in your fridge and pantry is healthy - beans, rice, carrots and broccoli, almond butter, whole wheat pasta and so on.

If she's not hungry at meal time, don't make a big deal of it, tell her it's OK and let her go play. But don't serve her a meal between meals - if she gets hungry 30 minutes after lunch, tell her she can always have fruit or veggies. Ignore her tantrums and protests.

This is easy to do and hard to do - logistically, it's extremely easy to do. The hard part is that we, the adults, have our food addictions and habits and in order for this to work, we need to wean ourselves along with our children!!!

It also means rethinking outings - for example, I used to buy a donut hole for my dd everytime we went to the library. When I decided to cut out sugar from her diet (due to allergies and eczema), I had to tell her no more donut holes. She was NOT happy. I now make healthy, no sugar muffins at home (sweetened with fruit only) and I take these everywhere (along with fresh fruit and cut up veggies). This requires more time and effort on my part, but the pay-off in her health has been huge.

If you do this and get her outside running and playing for at least one hour every day, you won't have to worry about her weight. You can rest assured that whatever weight she is, is the right one for her.

Believe me, I KNOW it's not easy!! I wish you the best of luck! You sound like a great mom.

My 2 yo went through the same thing. It could be a growth spurt, or even that she has found it comforting. We found that nothing helped stopped our toddler from wanting to eat. He would just scream and throw a tantrum. So we instead changed WHAT he was eating and quantity. We started enforcing a one cup of juice limit for every meal. If he wanted more he only got water. That helped to cut out a lot of excess sugar. We also stopped keeping junk food in the house. Snacks which were a big issue were all traded out for veggie and fruit snacks. Grapes, apple slices, carrots and a side of ranch. This way even if he did eat a WHOLE apple... at least it was an apple instead of graham crackers. We also adapted smaller portions in exchange for more eating times. Breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and then dinner. And if he still wanted something a before bed snack. Except all snacks were fruit and veggies, so no worries about to much being bad.

By doing this we kept him not only full for the day and cut down on unnecessary snacking but we also were able to be assured that it was healthy.

You could also talk to your ped about how much she should be eating, and what a balanced diet for her age and stature should be. That way you have a guide and don't need to worry about to much.

I'm so glad that you are wanting to take care of this right now. I see so many kids that are overweight, it just breaks my heart. Young kids do snack a lot, small meals are better than 3 large ones. If she wants so eat often, I would make sure that it's all healthy and low fat. String cheese, fruit,
etc. Protein and fiber will help to keep her full longer.
I would talk to her doctor about this. I would also keep her out of Grandpa's room!
D.

Hi L.! My 4.5 yr. old is always hungry too!! But I simply do not let her overeat. I think it is the age, and maybe when she is bored, she wants to eat. But I have a whiteboard in the kitchen with meal times and one morning snack time and one afternoon snack time on it. And I stick to it. If she asks me, I refer her to the board and let her figure out if it is meal/snack time or not. This has worked pretty well. Also, if she seems like she really is hungry then I always offer vegetables, and if she really is hungry, she eats them. Also, I recently read that feeding carb/sugar snacks in the afternoon causes them not to be hungry for dinner, and then they don't eat the good stuff, only the junk, and it makes them want to snack before bed as well. So I have started offering only vegetables or fruit for the afternoon snack, and that has worked well. And about the junk food in her grandfather's room, I would ask him to move it up and out of her reach. You really want to be careful not to set her little body up for diabetes. Is she active? does she like to play outside? If not, I would encourage more outdoor activity as well. Don't worry to much if she is a little chubby though, I am sure she will grow out of it, as long as she is developing good eating habits! Good luck to you!