I stopped forcing my toddler to eat dinner — and guess what? Nothing happened.

The only thing that changed was me

Milk and Cookies
(Image credit: iStock)

My toddler doesn't really "do" food, and I'm done worrying about it.

I've spent most of the last 18 months panicking that my daughter is nutritionally on a par with a Victorian street urchin. Some days, you can measure her consumption in teaspoons. Occasionally, she will dislocate her jaw like a python to cram in ever-larger mouthfuls of one of the seven foodstuffs she lets pass her lips. But these moments are rare, and heaven forbid we invite her to try something new. You'd have had better luck asking Genghis Khan to go easy on the pillaging.

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Ruth Margolis
Ruth ​Margolis is a British ​journalist living in the U.S. Her work has appeared in ​The Guardian, ​The ​Daily Telegraph and BBCAmerica.com.