Dd is starting to think about a regulated eating plan for dgs because she wants him to have a good relationship with food. Given her OCD, a formal plan is the best I can hope for.
We did discuss today that my strategy was to put out food and the kids could graze. My feeling (probably LLL led) was that if the food was healthy it didn't matter when the child ate it, at lunch, dinner or snack time.
The plan dd's leaning towards is more three meals a day and two snacks. The parents are in control of when and what the child has available (but chooses at least one thing the child likes) but the child always controls how much.
The plan is from the
http://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/ and I'm proceeding carefully with this. I pointed out I need to know vocabulary as well as eating preferences. It is the regimented snack time that I push against. I feel it is better for children to eat when they are hungry, within reason, rather than when they are told they are hungry. There are to many of those signals in our society today (i.e. church coffee hour equals a time to eat.)
My expectations are that the table itself is a joyful place to be for a child, not because of the food but because of the fellowship and so I'd like to encourage the child to stay at the table as long as possible, even when they are done, but because the table isn't just for feeding the body, it is for feeding the soul.
Anyway, we talked more about it today and will as time goes along. Right now she is worried because he's such a slow eater so feeding him is taking hours and hours out of her day. And snack time hasn't been introduced yet!