About a month ago, driven to the brink of insanity by years of preparing dinner for my children and having one or none of them eat it, then proceed to ask me for food mere minutes after having cleaned the kitchen from the non-eaten dinner, I made a decision.
After dinner was served, the kitchen would be closed. No more food. If they were hungry, they would eat at breakfast the next morning.
My rational was that if they were hungry around dinner time (which they clearly were because they were requesting other foods once the non-preferred food from dinner was put away) they should eat their dinner. And if they weren't hungry enough to eat what was being served, they could wait.
I was feeling rather pleased with myself, plus less frustrated by not preparing multiple meals and snacks and endless cleaning of the kitchen.
(MORE: Momtroversy: Should moms take kid-free vacations?)And then I came across this article on Scary Mommy, where writer Wendy Wisner wrote that in her family, there are no cut off times for eating. Suddenly I began to doubt my decision to close the kitchen. I was in the middle of my very own Momtroversy.
After dinner was served, the kitchen would be closed. No more food. If they were hungry, they would eat at breakfast the next morning.
Wisner told me she was happy to have me share her perspective on eating cut offs, as long as it was done in a respectful manner. That of course, was no problem at all.
In her piece, Wisner writes, "To me, having strict rules like these about eating – especially concerning little kids, whose little bellies are the size of their little fists -– is problematic."
(MORE: Momtroversy: Should you retouch your child's school photos?)"In my view," she continued, "it’s important to teach our kids to listen to their bodies and be in touch with their hunger cues. Placing a strict and arbitrary deadline on when they can eat goes against that."
This got me thinking. In fact, in my book The Happiest Mommy You Know, the first chapter talks about eating more like how we would want our children to eat: when they're hungry, not out of boredom, emotion or any other feelings.
But the book is primarily about self-care, and preparing multiple meals each night didn't feel like self-care at all.
So I consulted an expert.
Stephanie Merchant is an author and founder of The Nutrition Mom. She said though routines and times need to be adjusted to meet each family's needs, generally a couple of hours with no food and drink before bed is ideal, save small sips of water.
"We are helping form habits with our children and the goal is to form healthy ones," she told "Good Morning America."
One of the reasons is to get a good night's sleep. "It can disrupt our sleep when we eat too late," she said.
But like most things with parenting, there's no clear right or wrong. If the kids are eating their dinner early in the evening (at least 4-5 hours before bed), "then maybe a light, healthy snack is needed before the bedtime routine."
