Satter - Feeding with love and good sense: 18 months through 6 years

Feeding with Love and Good Sense: 18 Months through 6 Years

Copyright 2014 by Ellyn Satter

Kelcy Press

4226 Mandan Crescent, Suite 57

Madison, WI 53711-3062

877 844 0857

www.KelcyPress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval, without permission in writing from Ellyn Satter.

ISBN 978-0-9671189-8-7

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication Data Feeding with Love and Good Sense: 18 Months through 6 Years

1. Parenting. Infants and toddlers. 2. Feeding. 3. The family and family meals. 4. Children. Child development.

Developmental editor, Nancy Pekar

Kelcy Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases. For more information, contact Kelcy Press.

Distributed by

Ellyn Satter Institute

www.EllynSatterInstitute.org

608-318-1600

Table of Contents

You can have enjoyable, harmonious meals. Your child can be healthy, feel good about eating, and behave well around food.

To raise a healthy child who eats and grows well, do your jobs with feeding and parenting, then trust your child to do her jobs with eating, moving, and growing.

Consider the toddler, the preschooler, and the school-age child. Being able to recognize stages in development and understand temperament lets you trust and enjoy your child and parent in the best way.

. Look forward to greater mealtime tranquility as your child gets older.

You are now feeding a family and including your child in family meals. You are no longer just feeding your child.

Consider the picky eater, the child who doesnt eat meals and then begs for food, the large child, the small child, the child who doesnt eat much, the child who doesnt eat vegetables or drink milk, or the child with special needs.

Feeding is parenting in all ways. You have to do your jobs, but then you have to let go. Throughout the growing-up years, maintain a division of responsibility in feeding.

Focus on how you feed and how your child behaves at mealtime, not on what your child eats. When you maintain the quality of your feeding relationship rather than worrying about what or how much your child eats, your child will eat and grow well and, sooner or later, he will learn to eat almost everything you eat. In the meantime, understand and expect normal child eating behavior. It is normal for your child to be a picky eater, to eat only one or two foods from any meal, to eat a food one time and ignore it another, to eat a lot one time and not much another, and to not eat vegetables.

Your child is a competent eater when...

He feels good about eating. He enjoys food and joins in happily with family meals and snacks.

He enjoys meals and behaves nicely at mealtime. He feels good about being included in family meals and does his part to make mealtime pleasant. He does not make a fuss.

He picks and chooses from food you eat with only minor chewing/swallowing/seasoning changes. He is okay with being offered food he has never seen before. He ignores food he does not want and also sneaks up on new food and learns to like it. Eventually he will learn to eat almost everything you do.