I got into a declut­ter mood after car­ry­ing and accu­mu­lat­ing “stuff” over many years, and decid­ed to dig­i­tize the hun­dreds of arti­cles that I’ve writ­ten over the course of my career. We’re hav­ing a bliz­zard and maybe changes in baro­met­ric pres­sure are giv­ing me crazy ideas! Any­way, after being hit with a “who cares” moment, I decid­ed that a bet­ter use of my time would be to dig­i­tize just my arti­cles on feed­ing kids and cre­ate a book to give my boys if/when they start their own fam­i­ly.

There’s noth­ing like writ­ing about what you’re liv­ing, so food and nutri­tion for chil­dren was a nat­ur­al fit for me in the 1990s when my kids were in their ear­ly eat­ing years. I was for­tu­nate to serve as nutri­tion edi­tor for Child mag­a­zine for eight years and also wrote for oth­er mag­a­zines and sev­er­al food com­pa­nies. My writ­ing was a com­bi­na­tion of sci­ence, per­son­al obser­va­tions, advice from our pedi­a­tri­cian, the fab­u­lous Dr. Pete, and guid­ance from my child feed­ing guru, Ellyn Sat­ter, author of How to Get Your Kid to Eat, But Not Too Much.

So here is some advice on feed­ing kids … and grand­kids, since many of my old­er not old friends have them:

• Allow your baby to feed when show­ing signs of hunger and stop feed­ing when show­ing signs of full­ness. (Grow­ing Leaps and Bounds™, with fund­ing from the Dan­non Insti­tute)
• The more famil­iar you are with your child’s indi­vid­ual likes and dis­likes, the eas­i­er it will be for you to com­mu­ni­cate with him or her about a healthy lifestyle. (Get­ting Kids to Eat Well & Be Active, with fund­ing from Weight Watch­ers Inter­na­tion­al and the Amer­i­can Health Foun­da­tion)
• For break­fast, include foods from at least three food groups, for exam­ple, one serv­ing each from the grain, fruit, and dairy groups. (Child mag­a­zine) • The best time to intro­duce fin­ger foods may be when your child grabs for your hand and tries to push the spoon into his/her mouth, or reach­es for food on your plate. (Healthy Kids Birth‑3)
• Don’t turn meal­time into a bat­tle­ground – the most impor­tant point is to pro­vide your child with a bal­anced diet for growth and nor­mal devel­op­ment. (Healthy Kids 4–10)
• Snack­ing has a place in a healthy child’s diet. Most chil­dren burn more calo­ries than they can eat in three meals. And use snack time to fill in what may be miss­ing from your child’s diet. (Child mag­a­zine)
• Children’s tastes change as they get old­er, and chances are that your child will some­day learn to enjoy eat­ing veg­eta­bles. (Child mag­a­zine)
• It’s a mis­take to turn meals into bat­tles. Instead of push­ing, par­ents should decide what to feed a child and then allow the child to decide how much to eat. (Child mag­a­zine) • It’s okay to allow your child to have a small piece of can­dy or oth­er sweet even once a day. That way they’re seen as “no big deal” rather than some­thing to indulge in. (Child mag­a­zine)
• Don’t over­re­act or get over­ly worked up over a picky eater – this is how kids exert their lim­it­ed inde­pen­dence. And if your child refus­es to eat a meal or snack, the next oppor­tu­ni­ty is just a few hours away.