Picky eaters battles: day 3 on the GAPS diet

Favorite quotes of the day:

Ezra: No soup. I want PIE for dinner. Make me some pie! 

Micah: Mom, my tummy is saying it wants rice crackers, bread, cookies, butter and jam for dinner. 

Mom: Uhu!

Micah: But my tummy said it.

Mom: Darling, your tummy is talking rubbish. Don't listen to it.  
Oh boy! I think at the end of the day I won the most battles. My little picky eaters are no less picky, but in absence of all they love, they are learning to push through some comfort zones. The kids were really like dead flies today, all the way up until it came to actually eating something they don't want to eat. They didn't want to drink anymore chicken broth in the morning, so I promised them a Lightning McQueen toy cell phone if they would drink their soup all up. It worked.  They did use some gag reflex on the chicken broth, but we got there in the end, and they were delighted with their new toy. I usually forbid toys with batteries. They are bad for the brain. If you want me to cite an article you're out of luck, because I have no time, but if you do some research you will come to the same conclusion which you then are free to ignore or follow.

You know, once you're trained in the Son-Rise program, it feels like plain old bribery when I do something like let them watch TV or get a toy to get them to eat the foods they don't want to eat. Typically Son-Rise is on the exact opposite of ABA (applied behavior analysis). To me Son-Rise makes a lot of sense. If you can get your kids excited about doing something, so they want to do it, then you have only fun and no battles. If you use ABA to do it, then they will do it, but they won't love it. As soon as you remove the incentive they discontinue the behavior. At least...that's what I think. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that the healthy foods I'm "bribing" them to eat will seal their stomachs, so that when they have moved through detox, they can learn to appreciate other tastes again. Today required a lot of comforting, holding, and explaining why we are doing this. At some level they understand that this diet will help them eat more foods, but as kids often do they thought there was no work involved, and they would get it now. I tried to explain to them the process, until I finally realized I was getting no where, I told them this was the "you eat whatever mommy makes for you"-diet, because I will make food for you that will help you.

For dinner we had meat ball soup with veggies. I gave the kids each a bowl. None of them would touch it. Ezra started screaming and having a panic attack. He kept asking for juice and TV, and I said he could have both if he ate his whole bowl of soup. He continued to cry and scream for 45 minutes without eating anything. Finally, seeing that this wasn't going anywhere, I told him he could have TV for one minute if he took a bite. He did. Micah had been refusing the soup too. Once the TV was on all I had to do was pause the video every minute. I told them that for every bite they took, I would let it play one minute. They tried to get away with taking tiny bites. I made a game out of it saying they would have take lion bites not birdy bites, or chipmunk bites. I would do funny little animal impressions corresponding to their bites. So I guess I did get a little bit of Son-rise technique in there. In the end they both ate all of their food, and got their juice.

It is remarkable to me how different Ezra is already, and even Micah. Ezra is typically so incredibly hyperactive and loud. Today he took a nap, and he slept in. He was only loud when he had his 45 minute tantrum before he finally ate his soup. Other than that, I saw more eye contact, and more presence in his eyes.

I did end up buying a juicer today and introducing juiced vegetable and fruit a bit earlier than the introduction diet suggests. I figured...it's organic, fresh juice, and they are little kids who need some energy. Ezra gulped it down. He didn't even care that I put some celery in it. My little picky eater number 2 remained unconvinced, but did have at least one glass.

Personally I'm surprised at how well I'm doing. I didn't eat much today (lack of planning), but I am not craving the carbs as much anymore. I had more energy, and tonight I even made my very first Sauerkraut, and Kimchi. This dog is learning new tricks!