My boys love milk.  They love juice.  They love water.  Lemonade.  Iced Tea.  Chocolate milk.  Good grief do they love chocolate milk.  If I allowed a liquid diet, I am quite sure they would be totally fine with it.

This is one of the more popular issues I hear when I meet with a family for a feeding consult.  Your child only wants to drink.  They will guzzle down all kinds of deliciousness, but aren’t so into the food.

What do we do about this?  Well…first, let me do the whole disclaimer thing.  I am not your doctor.  I am not even your feeding therapist (unless I really am, then ignore this sentence.)  So if your physician or feeding therapist has your kiddo on a drinking regimine, discuss this with them before taking my advice.

The first thing we need to do is remove that sippy cup your little one is toting around.  No, don’t throw it away.  Just stop letting them carry it around all day.  If I carried around a glass of milk all day long, I wouldn’t need to eat much either.  Keep it in the kitchen or fridge and let them request pulls from it.  This eliminates mindless drinking that keeps them from wanting to take part in meals.

If you are worried about dehydration, go ahead and let them have that cup – but put water in it instead.

Now that we have that taken care of, let’s talk about meals.  If you have a chugger, keep that milk inthe fridge until they have put down a good portion of their meal.  Or if they just sit, whine, and poke at the food on the plate – wait it out with the cup.  Don’t let them fill up their tank with whatever is in that cup until about 10 minutes into the meal.  Ten minutes may not seem like a long time – but it is a lifetime if you are two years old, just ask Gus.

If these tips aren’t helping, check into feeding therapy.  If you aren’t ready that, email me.  I am happy to talk you through the next step of getting your little one to eat!