Feeding Children

Feeding your child is one of the most basic responsibilities of a parent. And as a parent, we dream of being about to feed our child healthy, nutritious food. We want our child to enjoy meals, and be a good eater, to support healthy growth and development. We envision laughter, sharing, and connection at the dinner table, along with healthy meals. When feeding your child becomes difficult, it is distressing, and emotionally draining. It can also be discouraging to have spent the time and energy to cook a meal for your family, only to have it rejected. Then we worry about whether your child is getting enough nutrition. So, we try to manipulate them to eat a bit more, bribe them, force feed, settle for distracted feeding with screens, or even dream feeding when they’re fast asleep. We may try many ways to get our child to eat, which may work for a short time, but tricks we use may backfire, or make issues worse.

Ellyn Satter is the American dietitian feeding guru that I love and follow. From Satter’s research, we learn that children intrinsically know the right amount to eat. Our job is providing healthy food, and determine when to feed (what and when). A baby or a child’s job is to decide on how much to eat. Taking on our child’s own responsibility leads to stress, anxiety, and heartache. And also cause the opposite effect of what you wanted to achieve. If this has been happening in your household, forgive yourself and let me help you reset your family’s mealtime dynamics.