Why am I Awake?!

Why am I awake you ask? Let me tell you...

For going on three days now every time we sit down to eat something my 3 year old decides she isn't hungry or wants to watch a cartoon or do LITERALLY anything besides sit and eat. Typical pre schooler am I right? John and I did the usual "No you will sit and eat with the rest of us." That would work fine except we also have a 9 1/2 month old and neither one of us wants to wait it out at the table arguing with a tiny human. As the days went on we started "compromising" if you will "Ok eat X  pieces of chicken etc etc and then you can get down." After three days of this I was kinda fed up. She needs to learn that we eat as a family and we don't waste our food. Please note I give her a picky eater 3 year old size portion so it's not like we're expecting her to eat a whole chicken breast.

Last night we all sat down for dinner and she did her usual ask for cartoons and we told her no. We all said the blessing and then slowly as everyone was done S was the only one left at the table. This time we took a different approach we let her say she was done and then we warned her that if she didn't eat a good dinner she couldn't have anything later;because she likes to then use the I'm hungry excuse to try and prevent bed time.

Bed time went well and she fell asleep fairly easily as did the baby. Four thirty this morning came and I was awakened by "Mom I'm getting hunny." We went downstairs and I made her the quietest and quickest thing I could think of PB&J. She scarfed it down and now the whole crew is awake and I'm over hear wishing I could sneak back upstairs and get a few more winks.

Today is our busy day. We go to our home church in the morning where I lead the singing and then we visit my grandma's church at night. I'm not so sure if we're going to be doing all of that this Sunday, we'll just have to see how the day plays out.

Anyway how many of you have mealtime battles with your kids? Let me know in the comments and no joke I would welcome any tried and true methods aside of starvation that help get a child to eat her food.

-Jessica