A reader emailed me the other day asking for an update on BabyC and her relationship with food. In the early days of the blog, I wrote quite a bit about feeding and nutrition, but lately I’ve been distracted by other topics. My next couple posts will revisit food in our family, including some lessons I’ve learned on feeding a toddler. Let’s start with a recap of the story of BabyC and Food.
Chapter 1: Milk Monogamy
These were the days when BabyC was a one-food girl. Feeding was simple and sweet. While we technically breastfed on demand, in practice BabyC and I fell into fairly predictable routines, and after the first couple of months, it didn’t feel demanding at all. She ate when she was hungry and stopped when she was full. She knew that she could count on her next meal being there when needed, so there was no need to worry beyond that. BabyC was exclusively breastfed until she was around 5 months old, but breast milk provided at least 90% of her calories until she was around 8 months old.
{I know what you’re thinking: “Alice! Don’t you know you’re supposed to wait until 6 months to start solid foods?!” At the time, I wasn’t convinced that there was strong evidence for waiting. BabyC had been falling off the WHO growth charts, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get a jump-start on solid foods. Plus, she was grabbing at the food on my plate, and I was excited to introduce her to the tastes of the world. These days, I think that there is sufficient evidence to recommend waiting until 6 months to introduce exclusively breastfed babies to solids. However, as with most recommendations of this sort, I also think there is some wiggle room depending on the baby’s development and desires.}
Chapter 2: A Skeptical Introduction
Anyway, we started dabbling in solid foods around 5 months. Rice cereal was a non-starter, and we quickly moved on to more interesting foods: banana, carrots, sweet potato, and avocado. I offered little flirtatious bites to BabyC. They were colorful and often accompanied by a song. She would usually entertain them with a small taste and then turn up her nose at the rest.
Chapter 3: Head Over Heels
BabyC’s skepticism about food continued until we took her on vacation to Hawaii when she was about 7 months old. I think this was a turning point because I relaxed about the whole thing. We were on Island Time. I stopped trying so hard and just started giving BabyC pieces of good food when we were enjoying it: A bit of French bread as we waited for our dinner at a restaurant, a chunk of super-ripe mango, a spoonful of soft papaya, a bite of my banana.
Suddenly BabyC was enthusiastic about foods. She wanted to try them all! She just wanted finger foods, please. She wanted to control how much and how fast she ate. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask? That spoon just seemed to get in the way, to distract from the goal of getting food into mouth. We ditched the spoon, and mealtimes were suddenly food adventures with limitless possibilities. I focused on offering her a balanced array of healthy whole foods that she could eat herself, and she took care of the rest. Lentils, chickpeas, cauliflower, and mushrooms – she loved them all. She would happily spend an hour in her high chair at breakfast, wondering what bit of goodness Mama would serve up next.
Chapter 4: Better Things to Do
One day, around her first birthday, BabyC started becoming more selective about what she ate. She was particularly skeptical of anything green. This was my girl who used to eat steamed broccoli by the handful! She also started eating less in general, which as a nutritionist, made me worry that I needed to make sure that everything she did eat was of the highest quality. It was disappointing to watch her refuse the healthy food I had prepared and to ask for more bread, please! More cheese, please! And a few raisins, please. I tried not to show my disappointment and refused to call her a picky eater*, certainly not in front of her. I kept offering her the foods that we were eating and assumed that she would eat when she was hungry. But inside, I was worried.
{I realize that there are different degrees of picky eating, and I don’t think BabyC has ever been extremely picky. Selective, yes. If BabyC has become less selective and I share with you some of the things that I think have helped with that, please do not think that I believe all picky eating can be solved with these strategies. I know it is tough.}
Chapter 5: A Long-Term Relationship
These last few months, I have seen a slow shift in BabyC. She’s more curious about strange food on her plate and more willing to try it. She still doesn’t eat a lot of vegetables, but she usually takes a few bites of whatever we’re having. She’s eating more in general – probably going through a growth spurt – and this seems to be making her less selective. Every once in a while, she will surprise me with her enthusiasm for green things, like the other night, when she kept asking for more more more kale chips!
The very next morning, she skillfully removed every single little slice of fresh green onion from her scrambled eggs. I think that it helps that delicious foods are in season now. We’re getting lots of fresh veggies from our CSA and berries and cherries at the farmer’s market and you-pick farms. Fresh produce tastes better, so this is a good time of year to try some new fruits and veggies.
I think we’re seeing BabyC develop a healthy, long-term relationship with good food. I remind myself that it takes time – that she may really have to try swiss chard 8 to 10 times before it becomes acceptable to her. And I think it has helped that we’ve kept a no pressure attitude about food and focused instead on consistent and enjoyable mealtimes. I feel like I have learned a lot about feeding a toddler these last few months. What has surprised me is how little I have drawn on my nutrition knowledge or expert advice. In fact, my most important teacher has been BabyC herself. For my next post, I’ll ask BabyC to share with us her lessons for toddler feeding. I can’t wait to see what wisdom she reveals!
Has your child’s relationship with food changed over time?
Filed under: Nutrition, Parenting, Toddlers Tagged: feeding a toddler, healthy foods, healthy relationship with food, picky eating, starting solid foods
