Over on Sometimes It’s Peaceful, there has been much discussion on the subject of housework in a non-coercive household. The topic of ‘unfooding’ came up once or twice…a made up phrase which I’m guessing describes more or less what we do.
I have (unsurprisingly to those readers who have been reading for some time or who know me in real life) breastfed all my babies. Flopsy and I decided that weaning time for her came at about 2.75yrs - Mopsy is still breastfeeding as, of course, is Cotton-tail. When it came to introducing solids to Flopsy, at the recommended 6 months of age, she refused all runny/mushy food except for yoghurts. We worried but had heard vague things about baby-led weaning so tried to be a bit less twitchy about it. When she was 7 months old, I went to a little Christmas party at our Bumps and Babies group. I handed her a piece of cucumber to play with as she was teething and I thought it would help her gums - she guzzled it down no trouble. After that we gave her grown-up food all the time, occassionally pre-chewing it for her. At her 9 month check, the Health Visitor didn’t really actually look at Flopsy, but only at her weight chart and told me she was too small and ‘needed to be getting her calories from solids now, rather than breastmilk’ (which is very stupid as everyone knows that a calorie is still a calorie wherever it comes from!). I was very worried despite my knowledge of breastfeeding, because I knew that I couldn’t force her to eat anything more than she was. So I went away and did more reading about baby-led weaning and long-term breastfeeding and decided that I had nothing to worry about so long as she was still breastfed on demand. By age 1 year, she was eating adult-sized portions at mealtimes and loving her food. Now, she is a very healthy little girl, very slightly smaller than the average, but then I’m short and DH is thin so she’s probably the size she’s meant to be. She’s gone through several phases of eating very little - occassionally next to nothing! - and several stages of having a massive appetite. I trust her body to get her to eat and drink what she needs when she needs it and it seems to be working. But we feel the only way to trust her completely is to let her eat and drink whenever and not just restrict her eating to mealtimes. Just as she was perfectly capable of self-regulating her own nutrition when she was exclusively breastfeeding, so she is perfectly capable of doing the same with solid food.
But what about table-manners? What about the social convention of mealtimes? How will she learn them? (By the way, Mopsy is now doing the same thing). We trust that both girls will just learn these things as they grow up if they are free from any pressure to do so. In fact, while we adults sit at the table to eat meals together, both girls nearly always join us, although we never pressure them to…just offer a plate of what we’re eating. If they’re wathing tv, they even turn it off in order to join us sometimes! If they don’t want to be with us, then I can’t exactly blame them…we usually talk about adult things which are boring to them…but it rarely happens. They nearly always choose to eat with us as they enjoy the social occassion of eating meals together. Sometimes they eat very little at the table, but I don’t mind that if we’ve cooked for the adults and just left a child-sized portion for them - it’s not exactly a waste and I know they eat a balanced diet over a period of time and that’s surely the most important thing.
Oh yes…balanced diets…how do they do it? Who knows? I certainly don’t stop them eating chocolate or biscuits if they’re around. I don’t tend to buy them very often as they’re expensive, but if I do, they also choose to eat fruit and sandwiches even if they also have the choice of ‘treats’ as well. I think that this is because they don’t feel the need to eat as much chocolate as they can when it’s available becuase it’s not rationed when it is available. They know they can have it if they want, so they can take it or leave it and often will choose something else. If I’m cutting up carrots, they’ll have some raw carrot. One of their favourite snacks is frozen peas. They love making their own sandwiches but prefer to eat ham just as it comes out of the packet.
So, a possible food day for the girls might be (I wrote ‘typical’ first, but then changed it to ‘possible’ as every day is completely different:
Get up and watch tv. Come downstairs when hungry and have a few slices of ham and a home-made ice-lolly. Drink squash from a sports bottle I leave out for them. Have a play. Eat a biscuit. Join us for lunch, making their own random sandwiches - ham and jam is a current favourite! Help themselves to a bowl of grapes I’ve left out for them. Ask me to help them get a yoghurt to eat. Be discovered sitting on the kitchen floor eating bread straight out of the bag together. Have a bowl of frozen peas. Be offered a square of chocolate from a friend’s chocolate bar. Join us for supper - mince and rice, for example. Mopsy will have a few breastfeeds during the day, and a mammoth one in the evening when she goes to sleep. Flopsy usually stays up and has some random late night snack like jam on bread or ice-cream.
I’m looking forward to having a blackberry bush in the garden, and tomato plants, and carrots for them to help themselves to.
So is that ‘unfooding’? Whatever it is, it works, and it works with very young children so I guess it works with older children too. It’s also pretty hassle-free and, once you’ve got used to it and seen it working, it’s worry-free as well. I have to admit that when they go through phases of not really eating very much fruit or veg, I give them vitamin supplements, or put pureed veg in with their mince, but they usually end up having a fruit-and-veg fest at some point to even it out, so it’s probably unneccessary. It means we have no meal-time rows about getting them to finish their food, or trying to get them to please eat one piece of brocolli. And they’re becoming very independent very young, which is easier for me 
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3:29 pm
That is an interesting insight into another family’s way with food. I thought our kids were the only ones who ate frozen peas as a snack!
Our daughter was a very particular eater - and never wanted to make time for food. She still prefers to graze than to eat a lot at a meal time. We did much of what you do. She would often eat in the bath, or the buggy. Now she does share family meals, usually adapted to suit her tastes. She’ll eat pasta - plain, with peas and green beans mixed in. Quite often, though, the family meal isn’t really to her taste and she’ll have a pitta bread with peanut butter and some fruit. She’s always preferred separate foods - not sauces, stews or soups. And she likes most veg raw.
Our son was a completely different kettle of fish - and still is. He likes a big plate of dinner - risotto, pasta with veg sauce, soup, mashed potato and vege sausage - and so on. He has always been that way - from babyhood.
We have spent time worrying about food issues but now try very hard not to let it bother us. Our daughter eats tons of fruit and veg, houmous, peanut butter, breads of all kinds - and yoghurt. So what if she eats most of it ‘between meals’? She is, of course, fully aware of the social conventions around eating and is happy to pick at a bit of food and chat with us at meal times if she doesn’t really fancy the meal. And not long ago I realised we were all eating the same meal one day - roast spuds, veg pies and peas. Everything changes as they grow up.
4:15 pm
I’d just like to add some other comments about Flopsy and Mopsy’s eating (from a grandmother’s perspective). Both of them are very generous with whatever they’re eating: even if it is chocolate or something else that they really enjoy, they will offer to share it with whoever is around. Also, when they come to our house (where mealtimes are slighty more formal, in that we usually sit at the table and have meals at set times), they both happily join in with everyone else and have exceptionally mature “table manners”. They are happy to try new tastes, and I think this is partly due to their knowledge that they will never be forced to finish something they don’t like.
I’m sure that such a healthy attitude to food will stand them in good stead as they grow up.
4:44 pm
This is a really interesting post, thankyou. I’ve been thinking about the ‘unfooding’ stuff lately and wondering how it works with younger ones. Our girls are 5 and (just) 4. Both girls get a bit mood swingy, so I think they’d be best left to regulate their own grazing.
At the moment we all eat two meals a day together and I’m really reluctant to lose that, so to hear your experience was reassuring. We’re soon moving to a new house and I was thinking it’d be the perfect time to rearrange where we store stuff so that things are easy for them to get to.
So do you just get a wide variety of stuff in and leave it somewhere handy for them? Do you prepare things like carrot sticks and such and leave them in a handy accessible container? Or do they ask you to prep stuff for them. We have a greedy dog so we’d have to be a bit careful about what was left out ‘in the open’ so to speak.
Thanks again for this timely post!
Lucy
6:19 pm
Hi Lucy
We prepare stuff as and when they ask for it, and in small amounts. If we make too much it gets wasted, and often if we prepare it without being asked, unless it’s a surefire favourite, it sometimes gets rejected. Of course there are often things that they happen to be able to get themselves like yoghurts from the fridge, or bread from the counter and snacks that don’t degenerate I’m happy to have on a table somewhere for them to help themselves to like bowls of grapes.
BWs
7:06 pm
Oh you did an unfooding post too!
This is great, it’s good to hear about unfooding in relation to a slightly different age group.
9:58 pm
Your blog always reminds me how different every family is! Our two kids are just the opposite! Meal time is family time around here. Our two have always eaten ‘regular’ food, and have always enjoyed it, and we generally eat together (I hope they never find sitting with me boring!). Unlike yours–my 2 have massive appetities and eat big portions and they eat often- breakfast, snack(all snacks are generally fruit/veg/nuts), lunch/snack, snack, dinner and possible snack if bedtime is delayed. It is not on a strict timetable-as it depends when they get up, what we’re doing, who is having a sugar-low, etc..
We didn’t give them ‘junk(I prefer my sisters term–food with empty calories)’ food until they were almost two, and it is still not a daily thing. I wanted the norm to be good healthy, chemical & additive free things-I figured if they liked them early on it would get them on the right foot. Though a calorie may be a calorie–not all of them come with all the healthy vitamins and minerals. Though I was worried how they would react at parties when they could have whatever–but both have always prefered veg and fruit over anything. So I haven’t been embaraased by two heads stuck in a crisp bowl! Yet!! They have choices everyday for breakfast and lunch-but it’s not needed as the only thing we’ve come across that one won’t eat–is Hazel doesn’t like cole-slaw. So we are lucky that they like most things, will try anything and have good appetities, as it suits our style.
How old fashioned do I sound?? Though like you–we would/have never made them eat anything they didn’t want–I’m much pickier than my two and still remember my mom making me sit for hours because I wouldn’t eat my Lima beans!
I like the tissue paper painting–did you use regular paper?
Their Granny seems very proud of them!
8:51 am
Hi Elizabeth
Thanks for commenting! Life would be very boring if everyone did things the same way
And I personally think the only good way to parent is to be true to what is right for *your* family at any particular time.
Re. tissue paper painting - we just used what we happened to have lying around (I tend to keep heaps of art/craft stuff around the house for impromptu ‘art attacks’!) so yes, regular tissue paper. I’d recommend using card to do it on, though, as children get rather heavy-handed with the water and normal paper would just get destroyed!