Avena - What to Feed Your Baby and Toddler: a Month-By-Month Guide to Support Your Childs Health and Development

All grown-ups were once childrenbut only few of them remember it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupry

Disclaimer: The information contained in this book is based on the experience and research of the author. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician or other health-care provider. Any attempt to diagnose and treat an illness should be done under the direction of a health-care professional. The publisher and author are not responsible for any adverse effects or consequences resulting from the use of any of the suggestions, preparations, or procedures discussed in this book.

Copyright 2018 by Nicole M. Avena.

Front cover photograph copyright 2018 by Ed Anderson.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Avena, Nicole M., 1978- author.

Title: What to feed your baby and toddler : a month-by-month guide to support your childs health and development / Nicole M. Avena, PhD with recipes by Charity Ferreira.

Description: Berkeley : Ten Speed Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018010055

Subjects: LCSH: InfantsNutrition. | ToddlersNutrition. | Baby foods. | Child development. | BISAC: FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Life Stages / Infants & Toddlers. | COOKING / Baby Food.

Classification: LCC RJ216 .A95 2018 | DDC 613.2083/2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018010055

Trade Paperback ISBN9780399580239

Ebook ISBN9780399580246

v5.2

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PART II What to Feed Your Baby & Toddler:
A Month-by-Month Guide

For my Prince, Star, and Sun

Nicole

There are so many important people to acknowledge and thank for their role in making this book happen. Thanks to Sarah Veit; Katie Bishop, RD; Susan Murray; Alastair Tulloch; and Alyssa Emery for their editorial eyes and research assistance. I also would especially like to thank Kristen Criscitelli, RD, for her help with compiling the nutrient lists and advising me on foods to recommend, and Kristina Kunz Kharazmi for the information about Denmark. Thanks to my amazingly smart friends Suzanne DArcangelo, Julie Mennella, Alycia Halladay, and Alexis Conason for their expert contributions. I would also like to thank my wonderful editors at Ten Speed Press, Julie Bennett and Lisa Westmoreland, who have been a joy to work with now three times in a row! I would also like to thank the entire team at Ten Speed Press as well as Crown Publishing Group and Penguin Random House for their assistance and support in the development and production of this book, including my publicist, Natalie Mulford; designer, Lizzie Allen; production editor, Doug Ogan; and production associate, Dan Myers. Gratitude is extended to Charity Ferreira, who developed the delicious and easy-to-prepare recipes for this book. Thanks to my literary agent, Linda Konnor, for her wisdom, guidance, and honest feedback on this project and many others. This book would not have been possible without each of you!

I also thank my friends and family for their help and support along the way. Id like to especially acknowledge all of my mommy and daddy friends, who have listened to me talk about this book, let me bounce ideas off of them, and allowed me to draw on their experiences feeding their own children. In particular, thanks to my lifelong friend Nicole Sette, who gave me such great feedback on early drafts, and special thanks to Clara and Faye Sette and Viv Blanchard for testing out some of these great recipes and food ideas. Thanks to my dear cousin Linda Hussey, for feeding my babies (literally) and helping keep things running smoothly at home while I was working on this book. I could not have done this (or much else) without you! I also am grateful for the support of my wonderful husband, Eamon, who unfailingly encourages me to do what I love. Thank you for keeping me going, knowing what I really want, and pushing me toward it. I also must acknowledge my dog, Bert. Thanks for keeping me company all those late nights and early mornings when I worked on writing this book. And finally, thanks to my two smart, beautiful, and loving daughters, Stella and Viv. You two little girls are the lights of my life and my best friends.

Welcome to motherhood or fatherhood! If youre reading this book, youve most likely just started on the magical roller coaster of being a new parent. In between those nighttime feedings, endless diaper changes, and crying (with any luck, not too much!), I hope you have had time to take a step back and see how special you are. Being a parent is a blessing, and although at times it can be physically and mentally draining, it is the most important and rewarding job you will ever have.

Let me start off by giving you a little background on how this book came to be. As a neuroscientist with a focus on appetite and nutrition, I spend most of my days thinking about and testing how what we eat affects our brains and behaviors. I know that the foods we eat as adults can dramatically affect our health, and the same goes for a growing baby. I also have firsthand experience with the trials and tribulations of trying to eat well, both during pregnancy and when it comes to feeding a baby. When I first became pregnant with my older daughter, I was shocked to see how little nutritional information there was out there for pregnant women, aside from some guidelines about how much weight one should gain. That inspired me to write What to Eat When Youre Pregnant: A Week-by-Week Guide to Support Your Health and Your Babys Development.

When it came time to start feeding my daughter solids, again I noticed there wasnt a lot of helpful information out there in terms of which foods she should be eating. I knew from my research that there were extremely important developmental changes occurring in the brain during these precious months, and so I knew that this was a key time to support that development with proper nutrition.

I wanted to write this book to help new parents navigate the feeding of their infant and toddler. We already all know we are supposed to limit the candy and sweets and other unhealthful processed foods, so in this book I wanted to focus instead on how we can capitalize on all the good that foods can do to promote health at critical points during development. Also, I can tell you firsthand that feeding a baby well can be a challenge because babies dont always like to cooperate and things dont always go as planned when you are juggling lots of responsibilities (work, other kids, and so on). Since our modern food environment is rife with junk food and countless not-so-healthy, yet easy, choices, it can be tempting to turn to them (sometimes a little too often). So the goals of this book are to (1) offer guidance on what to feed your baby and toddler and (2) provide a plan for how you can actually do it!

As both a scientist and a mother of two little girls, I know one of the most important ways we can care for our babies is by feeding them the proper foods at each developmental stage. By giving proper nutrition, you can help your baby to not only stay well (we all know that there is nothing fun about a baby with a cold or virus!) but also develop taste preferences and food intake habits that they will carry with them throughout their life. You can make the most of when your baby eats by ensuring that each meal is packed with nutrients that are appropriate for each developmental stage and that you are choosing to offer them foods in a way that will encourage them to develop a preference for healthful eating. Yes, there is a way you can do this, and I will tell you!