Your toddler can now eat just about everything you eat. That does not mean that he actually WILL eat everything you eat. That is no reason not to try to continue to feed the healthiest foods. Of course you want to stay away from foods that are too salty, spicy, sugary or those that contain too much butter.

Tips For Feeding a Toddler Successfully: Part 2

To encourage a toddler to willingly try new foods:

• Place SMALL amounts of foods nicely arranged on his plate. A too-full plate is overwhelming to a child.
• Cut your toddler’s food into easy-to-eat pieces. Make healthy foods fun by using decorating ideas.
• Get your toddler involved. Think of easy ways that your toddler can be included in food preparation. Yes, this can be messy. But if healthy eating habits result, it will be worth it. Could your toddler dump beans into a bowl before you place them on the stovetop? Could he rip some lettuce or even place shreds of carrots on his plate?
• Keep offering new foods, but do not be offended by refusals. Meal time should be as stress-free for both of you as possible.
• While your toddler is eating, let her concentrate. Do not let her get distracted by the TV or other diversions. Try to use mealtimes to connect with your toddler and focus on her.

Toddler Tasty Eggplant Slices

Eggplant is such a versatile vegetable and so good for your toddler, as well as the whole family. It features a host of vitamins and minerals as well as phytonutrients (organic components of plants), rich in antioxidants.

• Preheat oven to 450°F
• Slice eggplant into ½-inch thick slices and arrange on a cookie sheet
• Spread with tofu mayonnaise (easily found at a natural food store)
• Sprinkle with wheat germ or whole grain bread crumbs
• Sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese
• Sprinkle with oregano (optional)
• Bake for 15 minutes

Enjoy!

As your baby grows into toddlerhood his taste buds and tolerances will be more in line with an adult’s. However, you want to make sure that the food he (or she) eats is still the best that you can offer because what he learns to like now will probably stay with him for a very long time.

Toddler Food Rejection

Toddlers are constantly testing limits and mealtimes are no exception. Expect plenty of refusals. At mealtimes, you never know when he will reject a food, even a food that he previously relished. Try not to take rejections personally and continue to keep mealtimes pleasant and relaxing. As a new parent you have already learned that flexibility is key. Never will that skill be more tested than when feeding a toddler!

Tips For Feeding a Toddler Successfully: Part 1

To encourage a toddler to willingly try new foods:

• Cut your toddler’s food into easy-to-eat pieces. Toddlers also think it is fun when you make playful, decorative food. Decorating takes only seconds, but makes your toddler feel very special! Below I include a toddler recipe that is a good example of a few easy decorative touches.
• When offering a new or disliked food, shift the focus away from the food by initiating a chat about your toddler’s favorite things, such as that swing at the playground or his favorite book or toy.
• Give your child some control over food choices by asking a multiple-choice question such as, “Would you like peaches or pears today with your lunch?”
• Along with any new food offered to your toddler, offer a familiar food that you know your toddler likes.

Mr. & Mrs. Sweet Potato Heads Toddler Recipe

Sweet potatoes, as well as being easily digested, are a great source of vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin C, potassium, magnesium and others. You have most likely already fed your baby sweet potato purée. Here is a toddler recipe that provides the same terrific nutrients in a new, appetizing, as well visually appealing fun way.

• Wash 2 medium sweet potatoes by scrubbing gently; do not peel
• Steam (30 minutes) or boil (20-30 minutes)
• Cut cooked sweet potatoes in half lengthwise
• Scoop out the flesh, being careful to keep skin intact to be used as a bowl later.
• Mash flesh
• Mix flesh with: 2 tablespoons plain yogurt, preferably organic or homemade | 1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey (remember this is a toddler recipe, over age 1 for the honey) | and 2 tablespoons orange juice
• Place sweet potato mixture back into reserved skin bowls.

Use Decorative Touches to make eyes (olive slices, cooked beans), nose (raisin, carob chip), mouth (a line of raisins, crescent shaped apple section), hair (strings of cheese, carrot shavings) to mention just a few examples.

Millet is a super healthy whole grain cereal and can be used instead of brown rice as a first cereal. With recent concerns about arsenic levels in white and brown rice, even organic, millet is a terrific choice as a Super Porridge base. Millet is not likely to cause an allergy and is easily digested. Millet has many wonderful nutritive properties including Vitamin B, potassium, iron, protein, and other vitamins and minerals. Super Porridge millet alone is a terrific meal.

Below, I describe the preparation of millet Super Porridge and the preparation of steamed, puréed kale. To blow things right out of the nutritional waters, I suggest sprinkling this meal with nutritional yeast! This does not sound tasty to us, and indeed it is not, but a baby’s palate is perfect for this fantastic nutritious combination.

To Prepare Super Porridge with Millet:

• Place a cup of water on the stove to boil
• While it is heating put 3 tablespoons of millet in the blender and grind to a fine powder, approximately 2 minutes.
• Whisk the millet powder into the water and let it sit over low heat for 10 minutes. Whisk frequently to prevent lumps.

A word on kale. Kale is, in my opinion, the most super of the Super Green Veggies. I fed it to my babies at least every second day when it was in season. Kale has so many wonderful nutrients including fiber, calcium, Vitamin B6, magnesium, Vitamins A, C and K, copper, potassium, iron, manganese, and phosphorus. Now that I have your attention, let me tell you how you can prepare the kale so you can add it to your baby’s diet in the 6- to 8-months-old range.

To Prepare Kale:

• Select kale that is loose and not in plastic bags, if at all possible
• Wash each leaf thoroughly under cold water
• Discard unwanted leaves
• Remove stems
• Steam leaves for 5 minutes, reserving the liquid
• Place pieces in blender with some reserved liquid
• Purée away!
• At this point in preparation, it would be perfect to add the puréed kale to a stainless steel ice cube tray for freezing for later use.

Remember kale has a very strong flavor so it is best to mix ½ to 1 kale cube with one cup of millet Super Porridge. You already have the makings of a wonderful meal for your baby at this point. To take it up one more notch, sprinkle with nutritional yeast.

Nutritional yeast is consistently one of the top suppliers for the major nutrients, especially B12 and trace elements. Sprinkling a bit of nutritional yeast, ½ teaspoon for your 6- to 8-month-old baby, gives his meal a super nutritious boost!

Peaches are safe to feed your baby at 6 months. Peaches are a terrific source of fiber and a good source of Vitamins A and C. Pears are a terrific source of fiber and Vitamin C and are also safe to feed at 6 months. Both are, of course, delicious.

Selection of Peaches and Pears

Select firm or slightly soft peaches with a nice fragrance. Color is important. Peaches should have a yellow or cream-colored skin, and most varieties also have a red blush. Stay away from peaches with any green color. Pears are usually sold green and turn yellow as they ripen. Select pears that are plump and firm, but not hard. Pears are ripe when they become soft and yield to gentle pressure.

Preparation of Peaches and Pears

• Carefully rinse your peaches and pears (3 each)
• Gently place peaches and pears in a pot of boiling water for 45 seconds – the idea here is to blanch the fruit. If the fruit is under-ripe leave in the water for a bit longer, up to a full minute. Save some of the liquid, as you may need it to adjust purée consistency.
• Remove the fruit from the pot with a slotted spoon.
• Place fruit into a ice bath (a large bowl half filled with water and ice cubes)
• Remove fruit peels with fingers or a paring knife
• Remove seeds and cube remaining fruit
• Place fruit cubes in a blender and purée away!
• Add reserved liquid as needed for proper consistency
• If necessary, push purée through a strainer to remove any remaining peels
• At this stage, if you think a portion will go uneaten, you could opt to freeze some in food cube trays (I suggest stainless steel ice cube trays) for future meals.
• For 6-month-olds the consistency should be smooth and lump-free, the consistency of thick cream – slightly thinner for beginners.

Healthy Extra: Wheat Germ can be added to the finished pear and peach purée for an extra healthy touch when your baby is 8 months old. Wheat Germ is so good for your baby, and for you! Wheat germ has Vitamin B, fiber, healthy fatty acids, tons of minerals, Vitamin E. It is also super easy to add to your baby’s meal. Just sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle on to the finished meal. Either toasted or natural wheat germ are ok to use, but store them both in the refrigerator. Recognize that the toasted wheat germ will last longer than the untoasted wheat germ. Kretschmer is a popular brand of toasted wheat germ and you can find it in the cereal aisle of your grocery store. Natural food stores would also be a great place to find wheat germ.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) agrees that the time to begin solid foods for baby is around 6 months. Of course, checking with your pediatrician is always best. Once you decide the time is right, it can be difficult to know where to start.

This series of blogs will offer some suggestions for baby and toddler solid foods, complete with a recipe for each stage, as well as why the food selected is a great choice.

Avocado and Banana Smash with Drizzled Coconut Oil

Avocado is a terrific first food for baby. It is an excellent source of unsaturated fatty acids and has a higher proportion of this “good” fat than any other fruit except the olive. Bananas are nature’s gift to parents. They are known for their high level of potassium and fiber and contain fair amounts of many other nutrients. Both are safe to feed baby at 6 months old. Some parents, with their doctor’s permission, feed banana and avocado as early as four months.

Selection of Avocado and Banana

Select avocados that are free from damage, that is, there are no soft, dark spots on its skin. An avocado is ripe when it yields to gentle pressure and feels soft all over. Select bananas with no bruises, stem attached, and at any stage of ripeness, since bananas ripen better off the tree. Once the banana is ripe it is ready to feed to your baby.

Preparation of Avocado and Banana Smash

• Take a sharp knife and cut avocado in half lengthwise.
• Remove the huge seed
• Use a spoon to scoop out the flesh from peel and place flesh on a flat dish
• Peel a banana (organic, if possible)
• Slice the banana in half and then in smaller pieces
• Use a fork to mash the flesh of both the banana and the avocado, a food processor or blender may be used to purée as well.
• At this stage, if you think a portion will go uneaten, you could opt to freeze some in food cube trays (I suggest stainless steel ice cube trays) for future meals.
• With the remaining avocado and banana mixture you can adjust the consistency for the age of your baby with some breast milk or formula.
• For 6-month-olds the consistency should be smooth and lump-free, the consistency of thick cream – slightly thinner for beginners.

Healthy Extra: At about 7 months old you may add a ½ teaspoon of organic, virgin, coconut oil to this meal for a nutritional boost. Although coconut oil in the past has been considered a fat to avoid, more recently its health benefits have been gloriously touted! Specifically, coconut oil is one of the best sources of lauric acid that boosts the immune system.

You probably already know that our kids are growing up in a pretty tough world, and part of the challenge is being certain what to feed your young ones.

Since the mid-1990s, food allergies have gone from a relative rarity to becoming increasingly commonplace.

What is responsible? Well, it just so happens that in 1996 GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) were introduced into our food supply. In 2000, 1% of the corn planted in the US had been genetically engineered; today it’s 90% – and 93% of all soy. These show up as ingredients in an enormous number of foods and sodas, under one name or another (think high fructose corn syrup or dextrose, for instance).

Does this mean GMOs are to blame? There is research indicates that this may be the case, but it’s not conclusive (details in the video below).

Of course, GMOs aren’t the only thing that has changed in our diets over the last 15-20 years. Many of our food choices these days are pretty questionable.

In fact, lots of our food practices are downright backward!

For instance, one nutrient widely known for its health benefits in adults has been all but eradicated from children’s diets, even though it is tremendously for helping kids to build healthy immune systems.

Watch the video below to learn which foods are best to avoid during your child’s first year of life – and what foods your kids should be getting more of.

What do you think – are GMOs to blame for the increase in food allergies?

Or could these allergies be part of a broad shift in our culture towards less healthy lifestyles?

And perhaps most importantly, what steps can you take to keep yourself and your family eating right? Leave us a comment with your thoughts!

As parents begin to introduce foods to their babies, many of them are giving signals to their baby without even realizing it.  Babies look at the human face for longer periods of time in comparison to other objects. The human face is the primary means for learning at this young age. When we sit down face to face to feed our babies we have extended eye contact and our hands are free from holding baby, so it is a common setting to begin signing with our babies.

Because eating is a novel experience or one that baby looks forward to, it may be an appropriate time to introduce some signs for foods.

Without even realizing it we tend to convey our own thoughts and feelings about the food we’re feeding our babies through facial expressions and other nonverbal cues. Just think about the face you make when something is bitter. How about when something is sweet? And something sour? Have you ever been witness to a baby tasting a lemon slice for the first time? That is something to see! Now, not every food we consume causes us to react with such distinct faces, but those extreme cases surely make an impression.

Have you ever seen the proverbial rubbing of the belly to indicate that something is yummy? Parents might even smack their lips to express food is tasty. I happen to love that the sign for YUMMY is the rubbing of the belly. This is one of those iconic signs, the sign makes sense in relation to the word.

Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli is part of the Sign4Baby Signing Story Time series “All About Food” and I invite you to watch, laugh and giggle with your little one, all while learning a few new food signs!

What food does your child find especially YUMMY?

What does mother goose have to do with getting kids to eat right?

Researcher Konrad Lorentz showed that by replacing a mother goose with something else as the first thing a baby goose encountered, he could alter the behavior of the baby goose to view that thing (even a toy train!!) as ‘mama’.

This phenomenon is referred to as “imprinting,” and it works just as well for “what’s for dinner?” as it does for “who’s mama?”

But there’s a catch – it only works for a short while.

If you want your children to make healthy food choices almost instinctually, you have just a couple of years to give your kids the right message about what to eat to keep them healthy.

Watch this video where I discuss the impact of ‘food imprinting’ and getting kids to fall in love with real food

Make sure that your kids smell the aromas of the foods you want them to learn to like early in life. AND you want them to see you eating healthy food as well.

We’d love to hear from you in the comments below! Tell me what you can do to put this in to practice in your family.

Or do you have some habits that you use in your family that already have them loving nutritious food?

Talk with you soon!

- Dr. Alan Greene

Many parents still hear the advice that it’s better to wait to introduce fish to babies until their first birthdays, or even their second. I disagree! And a growing body of evidence suggests that starting fish between 6 and 12 months results in fewer allergies – both in the short run and by the time they become teens.

Giving babies and toddlers fish a couple of times a week, or even a couple of times a month, may be one of the best tips for preventing allergies.

And perhaps today’s babies and toddlers eating less fish is even one of the reasons allergies have been going up in kids overall, potentially from a decrease of omega-3 fats in the diet. This includes food allergies, pet allergies, and pollen allergies.

Babies’ regularly eating fish before the first birthday could also result in less eczema at age 4. Who doesn’t want better skin?

Another study last year found a window from 6-12 months (earlier or later wasn’t as good), where if babies were introduced to eating fish, they were less likely to have asthma or wheezing symptoms later in preschool. Who doesn’t want to breathe easier?

The longest study I’ve seen yet followed thousands of children from their first birthdays all the way until they were 12 years old. It will appear in the June 2013 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Those kids who were already enjoying fish at least twice a month by the first birthday were less likely to have allergies every year thereafter.

My favorite fish for kids is wild (or sockeye, or Alaska, or Pacific) salmon, fresh or even canned, twice a week. You can prepare the pouched or canned salmon as if it were tuna. But check out the NRDC pocket seafood guide for lots of great suggestions. And here are some some DrGreene.com recipes.

• Scrumptious Coconut-Crusted Salmon Recipe
• Quick and Easy Roasted Salmon with Pesto Recipe
• Quick and Easy Chipotle Lime Salmon Recipe
• Broiled Wild Salmon Recipe
• Orange Glazed Salmon Kabobs with Yogurt Garlic Dip

Bon appetit!

Bonus tip: Reduced tobacco exposure and increased eating of oily fish during pregnancy and early childhood are all linked to fewer allergies.

Jarvinen KM and Sicherer SH. Prediction, Prevention, and the “Hygiene Hypothesis”: Fish Consumption during the First Year of Life and Development of Allergic Diseases during Childhood. Pediatrics. Nov 2007; 120:S109.

Kiefte-de Jong JC, de Vries JH, Franco OH, Jaddoe VW, Hofman A, Raat H, de Jongste JC and Moll HA. Fish Consumption in Infancy and Asthma-like Symptoms at Preschool Age. Pediatrics. Dec 2012; 130(6):1060-8.

Magnusson J, Kull I, Rosenlund H, Hakansson N, Wolk A, Melen E, Wickman M, and Bergstrom A. Fish Cosumption in Infancy and Development of Allergic Disease up to Age 12Y. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Jun 2013. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.112.045377

Oien T, Storro O, and Johnsen R. Do Early Intake of Fish and Fish Oil Protect Against Eczema and Doctor-Diagnosed Asthma at 2 Years of Age? A Doctor Cohort Study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Feb 2010; 64(2):124-9.

I have four children who are close together in age. As each child came along, I realized how different and unique their personalities were.  Even as newborns, each child had their own needs; it was just a matter of figuring out what those needs were on our part!  For example, my eldest thrived on a strict routine and any deviation from the schedule would result in a miserable few days afterward, whereas my third could take any changes in stride.

For my family to function well, we quickly realized that we needed to be very scheduled with our kids. From the time my eldest was 3 months old, we would strictly schedule all naps and bedtimes. We continued this with our subsequent children, even though I nursed each of them on demand for up to 18 months.

With our oldest, I kept a spiral notebook full of her daily schedule – wake up, breastfeed, diaper, nap, play, breastfeed, diaper, nap, etc. We went through the entire notebook! In those hazy, sleep deprived days when my husband would ask “didn’t you just nurse her?” I could hand him the notebook. And chances are, yes I just nursed her because that is what newborns love to do! Not too much else going on for them…

Of course, that was way back in the pre-iPhone days. TheiPhonemom.com has reviewed several apps that help you keep track of your baby’s schedule.  Most recently, we reviewed Baby Feed Tracker Plus. With the press of a button you can record breastfeeding, bottle feed, diaper change, nap and expression (breast milk). Each mode also has an option to include notes.  There are many apps in the iTunes app store to help you keep track of your little one’s daily activities.  Make sure you choose one that has been updated recently (shows more app support from developers), has the features you would like, and receives good feedback.

A note about feeding reminders with any of these apps: babies, particularly newborns, don’t know they are supposed to be on the schedule provided by the app (i.e. nurse/bottle feed every 3 hours).  I spent many days over the years nursing little ones every hour on the hour.  This is totally normal for infants!  Don’t be afraid to listen to your baby and not the clock when it comes to feeding little ones.