Its such a common thing for parents to nag over the eating speed of the toddler, isn’t it?

I hate to do that. But whenever I have meals with the kids AND WITH SOMEONE ELSE, whoever that is, obviously we are going somewhere after food, I would tend to say stuff like…“Bite and swallow…Bite and swallow”; “Say Ahhh…Good, your mouth is empty (shove another spoonful of whatever right into that little mouth)”; “Eat Faster Pleassssse”. I repeat – I hate to do this.

Personally I feel that its just a passing stage. All my nieces were once like this. Even my 4year old Keatkeat used to be like this too.

My trick is – the simple 3 pointers

  1. the kid must be hungry, in the first place, not about whether is it meal time or not…
  2. it has to be EITHER finger food OR easy to bite or the meat must be easy to be torn into pieces with their still-developing-not-so-sharp teeth..
  3. it has to be a comfortable place, be it air-conditioned or not, it has to be a ‘non-perspiring’ place, when the kid is uncomfortable, how can he eat well?…

Whenever I stick to these 3pointers which I self-created, I don’t have problems with the kid’s eating speed.

To me, a child who is willing to eat and finish his share is so much more important than eating at super fast speed.

But this is NOT Allan’s piority. He dislikes bringing the kids out to eat. It stresses him even more when he sees the next table has changed different diners more than twice. Then he would start pressurizing the kids to eat faster and complain how slow they eat and all of that.

It stresses me more when I eat with HIM+Kids, then with the kids alone. So I usually feed Binbin in order to increase his speed of eating, so far Keatkeat is more or less out of this category of ‘slow eaters’, so no issues on my 4year old.

But on Monday 15th (told you many ‘things’ happened on Sunday and Monday right?), Allan snapped! He just couldn’t stand it anymore and he punished Binbin severely! This was what happened.

We ate at the new coffeeshop again, I was attending to Keatkeat because he was having his usual tantrums. Allan fed Binbin. The very first mouthful of rice was already wrong!

Binbin couldn’t close his mouth, “Haaa…Haaa..Hot!! Very hot!”

Allan: “Don’t be ridiculous! Its not hot already.”

Me: “Kids have tender lips and tongue, what’s warm to you maybe be too hot for them.”

Allan gave me that you-know-what look.

Allan: “Eat faster. You are not even biting. Bite now …faster…and swallow”

After 5mins, the 2nd spoonful of rice was stuffed inside Binbin’s mouth.

Allan: “I want to see you bite! This is ridiculous. 5mins for one mouthful of rice!”

Me: “Come, I feed him.”

Allan: “Aiya, you take care of Keatkeat lah, can’t stand him making all those noises.”

Keatkeat was still difficult, so I ended up feeding him.

After another 4-5mins, another mouth was shoved into Binbin’s mouth.

Allan: “I’m going to start counting…1…”

Binbin: “NOOOOOO…..don’t count…don’t count..”

Allan: “Then, eat faster!!!”

After a few minutes later…Allan shouted at Binbin: “Nevermind! You are going to go hungry today!” Turning his face towards me: “YOU are NOT going to give him EAT or DRINK anything until dinner”

Me: “Oh please…You…” without even finishing my sentence Allan interrupted.

Allan: “Don’t give me all these crap! You say when I give them what they feel like eating, they would eat well. Everything on this plate of rice was chosen by Binbin himself. But look at how ‘well‘ he is eating? 15mins for 3 mouths! No wonder he takes an hour to finish his food all the time!”

Me: “But we came down early for lunch today…he is probably not hungry yet…”

Allan: “I don’t care! He must be punished! Remember don’t give him anything to eat or drink.”

Allan finished that plate of rice and went off to meet his client.

WOULD YOU OBEY YOUR HUBBY?

2 hours later, Binbin started to help himself with the snacks on the snack-table. I was trying to play ‘blind’. The ‘busybody’ Keatkeat snatched the container away and warned: “You cannot eat! Papa say you cannot eat and drink anything!”

Binbin: “Mommy, I want to eat. I’m hungry.”

WOULD YOU OBEY YOUR HUBBY?

I obeyed. I think it IS IMPORTANT to let the child know that parents are ONE. When one parent does this and another do that, the child will have the ‘devil’ and ‘angel’ image formed naturally in their head, and I don’t like that.

Boy was it a wrong day! Binbin was going crazy. Very cranky and yet I was busy liasing with 2 different potential customers who were interested in my retail racks and paperbags.

I was ransacking my storeroom, pulling out the racks, the whole house was almost in a mess, as I took one photo after another just to email them the pictures….

….and yet my 3 year old was making a hell of noise and picking a fight with his brother…I had to run over to appease them and then back to the camera to take photos…then back to pacify Binbin….and then back to my PC to upload the pictures and …..Ahhhhh…..It was completely chaotic.

This chaos lasted for about 45mins. I was starting to regret my decision. I was heading for the biscuits when the main door opened and the ‘creator’ of this disaster stepped into the house!

Me (almost yelling): “He is really very hungry! Can you just let him eat and drink?” and off I went to continue my photo-taking and uploading and emailing, leaving the entire ‘mess’ to Allan.

Allan: “Binbin, so are you going to eat faster next time?”

Binbin nodded vigorously.

Allan: “Are you going to dilly-dally and take so long to bite and swallow your food?”

Binbin: “Noooo…”

Allan: “Ok, let’s go down to the coffeeshop and eat…What do you want to eat?”

Binbin: “Cha-Siew (BBQ Pork) Noodle”

Allan: “Ok, go wear your slippers…Keatkeat are you coming or staying at home with Mommy?”

Keatkeat: “I’m coming…”

And that’s how everything ended. *Phew*

SURPRISINGLY for the next few meals, Binbin DID increase his speed of eating!!!! After Allan decides to give him food ONLY when he said he is hungry….*laugh* Oh Well!