Read This if You're Freaking Out About Your Kids' Eating

The other day my husband said to me 'you sound like one of *those mums*'.

Divorce-worthy delivery aside, he had a point.

I was fretting about A's eating. BIG TIME. Trying to think of different foods he might accept. Coming up with tactics and strategies to adopt. Stressing that his lunch was basically Party Rings and 2 olives. We even got into a 40 minute stand-off over his snack the other day.

Dave's comment, however rude, gave me a boot up the ass. It reminded me that, no matter how atrocious A's eating is, me trying to micromanage a snack isn't going to help.

Despite seeming to exist on wisps of air, Avery is growing. He has enough energy to out-party us ten times over. And when someone asked our friends' kid who their favourite Paw Patrol character is, A delivered the sickest burn that a nearly 4 year old is capable of – 'I bet it's Ryder 🙄'.

When I zoom out and think about how A's doing in the grand scheme of things, I realise I'm freaking out about nothing. I also try and put this recent, uh, episode into context. We've been here before. It usually course corrects before too long. His birthday is coming up this week (yes the Birthday Tree is up!!). Excitement, like anxiety, kills appetite. I also think there's a ton of pressure to eat coming from school (and the menu is really challenging for a preschooler), so it makes sense that he tries to exert more autonomy at home. We are right in the depths of the food neophobic stage. And, it's not set to end for another 2 to 3 years (fuck me).

I suspect once birthdays are over, when half-term or the summer holidays hit, and/ or we reach another growth spurt we'll see his eating regress to the mean.

If, like me, you are spiralling about your kids' eating, then here are five of my most-read articles on feeding kids. These are typically all in the archive - meaning they can only be accessed by paying subscribers. But for this week, I'm pulling them out for everyone to read (you may just need to sign into CanIHaveAnotherSnack.com using the email you subscribe to the newsletter with).

I reread them and felt better about things. I hope you do too.