I'm full.

I sometimes hear this phrase 30 seconds after sitting down to dinner. My immediate reaction is, “No you are not. Eat what’s on your plate.” This can be a recipe for disaster (pun intended). One of your goals as a parent should be to let your child self-regulate his/her food intake. As long as you give your kids good healthy food options, this should not be a problem. The problem arises when your child fills up on non-healthy food/snacks and then won’t eat the healthy food you prepare for a meal. If they fill up on healthy food/snacks, you shouldn’t worry. See my post about putting veggies on the table before dinner.


When your child is a baby, pay attention to hunger and satiated signals. Don’t force more food/formula just because you don’t want to waste any. Obviously if you have direction from your pediatrician different from this advice, please listen to them. But absent that, encourage your child’s self-regulation of their food intake. If they say/indicate they are full, listen.

There will be times when your child is going through a growth spurt and will require more food than normal. There will also be times when your child is not going through a growth spurt, they will not need as much food. Don’t expect your child to eat the same amount of food each day of their life.

Word of caution: “I’m full” can also mean that your child would rather play with a toy or just get away from the dinner table. In order to avoid the I’m-full-now- but-later-I-want-my dinner routine, I tell my kids that once they get up from the dinner table there’s no coming back. You may need to enforce this rule in order for your child to know you mean business. There have been a few nights when my son has gone to bed hungry. But it only took a few and now he doesn’t play that game anymore. By the by, he didn’t die of starvation over night. Remember this when you are telling your child they can’t have their dinner. Now my son either eats at dinner time or he doesn’t. No bedtime snack (or reheating the food for later).

By encouraging your child to listen to their hunger cues, they will not be prone to overeating. They are more likely to view food as a way to satisfy their hunger rather than believe they must clear their plate so they don’t waste food.

Mom, I'm hungry!

How many of you hear this phrase about an hour before dinner is ready?  It's too late to give a snack, because then they won't eat their dinner.  And dinner is too far off for them to survive without a snack (in the words of my son...he'll die if he doesn't eat something right now).  Here's the perfect solution:  Put raw vegetables on the table for them to snack on. Many times I wash and cut up whatever vegetable we're having for dinner and let them snack on that.  Then if they eat so much they are full and don't eat dinner, you at least know they got their vegetable serving. 

In the beginning you may get resistance, such as "But I want a cookie, or I want..."  Stand by your guns and let them know if they want something before dinner, this is what is being served.  Also, feel free to use the other techniques in this blog such as making up a story about the vegetable or have your child help prepare.