From Milk to Solids: A Guide to Nurturing Healthy Eaters

From Milk to Solids: A Guide to Nurturing Healthy Eaters

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Livin'Sky podcast! I'm your host, Lena Livinsky, a speech language pathologist specializing in feeding. 

Today, we're diving into how to nurture your child into becoming an adventurous eater, a topic that's both a professional passion and a personal journey for me as a mother.

Key Takeaways:

1. Connection During Feeding

• Establishing a bond during breastfeeding or bottle-feeding is crucial. It sets the stage for a positive relationship with food.

2. Readiness for Solids

• Look for signs like sitting with minimal support, keeping the head steady, reaching for and bringing food to the mouth, and showing interest in food.

3. Starting Solids

• Introduce a mix of baby-led weaning and purees to expose your child to different textures. Remember, gagging is normal and part of learning.

4. Exposure to Flavors

• Utilize the flavor window between starting solids and 18 months to introduce a variety of tastes, reducing the likelihood of pickiness later on.

5. Healthy Foods

• Prioritize high-quality, nutrient-rich foods. Be cautious of store-bought options that may contain high sugar or heavy metals.

6. Family Connection

• Share meals as a family without distractions. This fosters a social and enjoyable eating environment.

Important Notes:

• Feeding Disorder Statistics: 1 in 4 children has a feeding disorder, and up to 80% of children with developmental delays may develop one.
• Advocacy: Trust your instincts as a parent and seek evaluations if you suspect feeding issues.

Conclusion:

Feeding is a journey, and it's about more than just nutrition—it's about happiness, social connection, and developing a healthy relationship with food. If you have any questions or need guidance, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram at lina.Livinsky.

Thank you for joining me on this episode, and I look forward to continuing this conversation and supporting you in your parenting journey.

[00:00:33] Foundations of feeding for kids.

[00:05:08] Signs of readiness for solids.

[00:11:00] Baby's first solid foods.

[00:13:39] Babies' gag reflexes.

[00:18:21] Exposure to different flavors.

[00:19:55] Adventurous eating

[00:25:39] Picky eater behaviors and statistics.

[00:27:15] Feeding disorders in children

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Livin'Sky podcast. This is Lena Livinsky, your host, and I am recording my first episode for the show. I am so excited that you're here tuning in today so we can talk about foundations of feeding and how to prepare your child to be an adventurous eater. The reason why I chose this topic to be the topic of my first episode is because it's so near and dear to my heart. I'm a speech language pathologist who specializes in feeding, and this is like my bread and butter. I love working with kids who have feeding difficulties. It just brings me so much joy being able to reconnect them with the joy of eating or helping them to learn the tools they need to be adventurous eaters. Because the whole point of feeding therapy and in general of eating is to be happy and enjoy your food and enjoy this time, this very social time of eating with your family and your friends. So eating is such a big part of our life. It is also the second most important body function of ours to survive, right? We need to breathe, which is the first one to survive. If we're not breathing, we can't live. And the second one is eating. If we can't eat, we also can't survive. Of course, there's ways around it with G-tubes and so on, but we're not going to talk about that today just for the purpose of this podcast, but this is so important. So it's not only near and dear to my heart as a therapist, it's also near and dear to my heart as a mother of a two-year-old who is turning out to be quite picky. So I wanted to talk about some really important foundations of feed that you can implement with your baby when they're little and when they're starting out to eat. And hopefully they grow up to be an adventurous eater. So the first thing I wrote down on my list for today is connection. Because no matter what you're doing to feed your baby when they're born and throughout the first year, whether it's breastfeeding, if you're able to, which is such an incredible journey for so many mothers, but also difficult for others. Or if you're bottle feeding, you're able to connect with your newborn and your infant on a different level because they're the most interested in you. I miss, I just weaned my baby. My son is two years and three months and I just weaned him from breastfeeding. uh two weeks ago so i already miss those moments of deep connection where he would just look at me and just completely melt and completely relax once he started nursing and he got to be this close to me and it was a skin-to-skin contact and we were able to just be together So disconnection during breastfeeding and bottle feeding I think is so important. If you can't breastfeed your baby and you're bottle feeding, you can also establish this disconnection by making sure there are no external distractions to your baby, by making sure it's the one-on-one time with you. And even if it's brief because your home life doesn't let that happen, it's still so important to even do it for a few minutes. Whatever you can do so it's just the two of you where that baby feels safe and that baby feels nurtured and that baby associates feeding with pure joy. Because negative associations around feeding can be very detrimental to becoming an adventurous eater because they can create aversions, they can create some psychological trauma around food. There are many things that can go the wrong way. This is why this connection is so important initially. Since food is such a big part of life for all of us, starting with that connection at birth and in infancy, can really help your child to become an adventurous eater. The second thing I wanted to talk about is making sure your baby is actually ready to start solids. Back in the day, we used to hear things like, oh, around four months, the baby is ready because they've hit the four month mark and yeah, you should just start and you should just give them some baby cereal. So that actually is definitely not a sign of readiness for solid introduction. Not at all. So we're going to debunk those two things right here, right now, because I'm so passionate about it. So the actual signs of readiness to start solids is making sure that your baby can sit up with minimal support, right? So if they can sit in a high chair and they're not like tipping over left or right or to the back. And you don't have to constantly hold them up so that they can actually hold their head up or their body up because positioning is so important. You really want ideally for your baby to be at a 90 degree angle or as close to it when they're eating. just because if things are not aligned properly in our body, if things are not aligned, things can go down the wrong way. So for example, if it's not going down to the esophagus, which is the tube that connects to our stomach essentially, and this is where our food goes down, it might go down to the trachea, which is connected with our lungs, and we definitely don't want food in our lungs, right? We wanna make sure everything is aligned so things are going down the right way, and also we're not exposing our babies to the lower esophageal sphincter, which is a valve that closes our stomach for it to spill, right? Or to open up in any way, because that often causes reflux. And when babies create these negative associations around reflux, because it's painful, right? Because when you sometimes feel like Do you ever feel like your food comes back after eating something acidic? Maybe something didn't sit right with you and you feel that heartburn, you feel that reflux. It's so uncomfortable. So that happens to your baby constantly because they're positioned wrong or it could be happening for different reasons. But for example, with positioning, they're going to create these negative associations in their head where they're going to associate eating with pain. So we definitely want to prevent that. These are some of the reasons why sitting at as close to the 90 degrees angle and making sure baby can sit up with minimal support when starting solids and when eating in general. It is so important. It is so crucial. So we don't start creating any problems for them. The second sign of readiness for solid introduction is actually the baby can keep their head upright and steady throughout the meal. So approximately 20 minutes. That's how long a meal typically takes. We don't want the meal to be longer than that, as much as we can prevent it, because then meal becomes really tiring, right? Some fatigue comes into eating. The aspect of fatigue plays a role here. So we don't want it to be tiring. If it's taking more than 20 minutes for a child to eat, they've probably had enough or they need some help because they're not eating enough in that time. But gauge it always around to be always around 20 minutes. And if your baby can keep their head upright and steady throughout that meal for about 20 minutes, they might be ready for solid introduction. The third sign of solid readiness for solid introduction is when baby is seated, they can easily grab objects and bring them to their mouth, right? So what we're looking for here really is the food. So we want to make sure the baby can grab a spoon or they can grab a piece of avocado. or a piece of steak or whatever you're serving them and they can actually bring it to their mouth so it's not us feeding them because we want them to become adventurous eater and we want to give them as much independence as they possibly can have so they learn how to explore their food. It's so important to get messy with their food when they're little. Because being obsessively clean around food can also lead to some food aversions. So being able to get messy, being able to grab it, being able to explore it and bring it to their nose, to their mouth. It's all part of healthy eating. So this is why this is so important, because if they're not doing that yet and we're just force feeding them, our body might not know, especially a baby's body might not know when it's full right away. We know this. We have this idea of how much we can eat. We can gauge it by even looking at our plate, but a baby does not. So we don't want to force feed them. We don't want to take control of the meal because that's counterintuitive if we want our child to be an adventurous eater. The fourth sign of readiness for solid introduction is actual interest in food, right? So when you're eating, the baby might be watching you or it might lean towards your food or might reach for your food because they want to try it. So it's really important that they actually have interest in food before you even start introducing solids. And what do I mean by solids, by the way? Solids could be purees. It could be any type of food in an appropriate size for them. So we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But essentially, it's any type of non-milk food that you can puree or you can eat via chewing, right? So it's our solid foods like our meats, our grains, our vegetables, our fruits. These are all types of solid foods. So again, let's go over the four signs of readiness for solid introduction. The baby can stay seated with minimal support. The baby can keep their head upright and steady throughout the meal for about 20 minutes. When they're seated, they can easily grab objects and bring them to their mouth. And the baby shows interest in food when you're eating. If your baby's meeting all these important developmental milestones, it means they've got the basic skills to start trying out solid foods safely, which is so exciting. Now, I wanted to go back to my point about, unfortunately, some pediatricians still recommend that babies start eating around four months of age, and usually they recommend rice cereal. So this advice is now considered old fashioned. Actually, the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2021 and the US National Institute for Health and World Health Organization, they all agree that it's better to wait until baby is about six months of age. and when they show signs of readiness, that they're ready for solids. And research has found that starting solids before four months may lead to unhealthy weight gain in both infancy and early childhood. And also, I don't understand the obsession with rice cereal. It's not a staple in a healthy diet. Rice is full of arsenic and a lot of the cereals out there have really poor quality ingredients. So I do not understand why rice cereal is usually considered like the first food staple to give to the baby because it really doesn't have to be. Having real proteins or vegetables and fruits as The first foods the baby eats is actually much healthier and better for their microbiome and their gut health in general. Okay, so once they're ready to start solids, they have the four signs of readiness and you feel like they're interested, they want to go. and you're ready. And just so you know, six months doesn't mean that's the time that you start. You really want to have those four signs of readiness before they start. And if that happens at seven months, that's okay. And usually it happens between six and seven months. You probably don't want to wait past like eight months and you want to start introducing something. And if your baby is not meeting those signs, that means maybe there's something wrong developmentally and you might want to get an occupational therapy evaluation or a feeding evaluation just to see what's really going on. So the third thing I wanted to talk about, third foundation of feeding is starting solids, right? So the baby's ready. And now the most common ways of introducing solids is through baby led weaning. and purees. There is different points as to one is better versus another. There's a lot of different opinions out there. But what I truly believe is that a mixture of both is really important because we eat both all the time, even as adults, right? We eat solids and in a solid form. So that could mean like a chicken or it can mean chicken or it can mean Um, potatoes and any vegetables, anything that's not, that doesn't change its shape when you're cooking it, um, versus purees. We also eat them all the time. Things like soup and things like yogurt, um, and things like smoothies. These are all types of purees. So I believe personally that exposing kids to both, it's really important. Um, so you can make the decision for yourself. But something to really highlight here is that, you know, there's a lot of fear in parents around kids choking or gagging. And it could be very uncomfortable when they're first starting foods. But just so you know, gagging is a defense mechanism and it's very normal in babies. They have a very heightened gag reflex when they're first around this age, when they're starting solids to protect them, to protect their airway. and to protect them in general. So don't be put off if you give your baby a banana and all of a sudden they're just having a big gag reaction, right? Or if you're giving them a piece of avocado or whatever it is, or a piece of steak to suck on. Whatever it is you decide to do, they're going to gag, right? And maybe some babies have minimal gagging reflex, but most babies have it heightened. like I said, for protection. So it's very normal for them to do that. And it doesn't mean that they're choking. So of course, when you're first starting solid foods, you want to make sure you're there with your baby. You want to make sure that they're safe. You want to make sure that you are monitoring them eating and they're not taking too big of bites or they're not completely Pushing the food too far or anything like that. And they're not choking, right? Because there is a risk of that as always, because eating is something new for them. But it's very rare. Kids, even though they're so small, they're so connected to us. They're going to be looking for our reaction. So if your baby is gagging and really having like, you know, and exploring their food and just being in a moment and they look at you after their gag, try to have a poker face. You don't want to be like, oh my goodness, what's going on? Let's take it out of your mouth. Like that's not safe because they're going to internalize that response and they're going to internalize those emotions around eating. So it's really important not to do that when kids are eating. Of course, if somebody's choking, which is, again, very rare, then you have to respond appropriately and perform CPR or whatever you need to do. But when it comes to just gagging and kids exploring food in a normal way, try and have a poker face. Try not to have a big reaction to gagging. Even if they're gagging so much that they vomit at some point, don't give it a big reaction because we don't want to start to create negative aversions and negative behaviors around eating. Because for kids who are picky eaters, negative behaviors and aversions are usually one of the big reasons why they become picky eaters. So we don't want to start that way. So when I started with my son Nathaniel, I was starting with the mix of baby led weaning and puree. I do like that approach better. And there are things to consider with both approaches. But the thing you really want to make sure you're giving your child is time to explore by themselves, right? But it's so easy to pick up the spoon and just feed them that yogurt or whatever you're giving them or that applesauce and just go fast, go bite, another bite, another bite if they're swallowing, and just finishing as soon as you can. We don't want to start that from an early life, right? We don't want to start that as a basis of their feeding journey because let's not forget that our digestion starts in our mouth. So it's so important to chew slowly and take our time swallowing because it helps our body digest food better. It helps our body absorb sugar better. There's many things to consider here. So having this basis for your child of starting slow at the beginning is so crucial and so important. And one thing to add here is that remember your kids are always watching you, no matter what age they are, they're learning from you. So be very mindful of how you're eating and how slowly you're chewing so you can start instilling these habits early on in your children. And it's also going to benefit your digestion as well. So I'm relearning how to chew because my family chewed so fast and ate so fast for some reason my whole life. Just like super fast. And I'm learning to chew again. And I'm being so in tune. And sometimes I forget. I remember like halfway through the meal or by the 80% of the meal. And that's okay because we're still learning, right? Eventually it's going to become a habit. And essentially what you're looking for when you're chewing, you want it to be like an applesauce consistency. That's the consistency you want your food to be before you swallow. So something to consider. It's going to benefit you and your babies in the long run. So definitely try to implement that as much as you can. The fourth pillar of healthy eating is exposure to different flavors with consistency. Babies have this amazing flavor window between when they start solids to about 18 months of age where they can essentially accept any flavor, right? So you want to make sure you're not sticking to just sugars and you're not sticking to just fruit purees or just one type of foods because they can be so adventurous at this age. So you want to expose them to all different food profiles. So you want to expose them to sweet, salty, bitter, sour, acidic, anything you can so that they're not picky when they're older. And this window of opportunity closes around 18 months of age. And it also doesn't mean every child is going to accept anything you give them. No, because kids need to learn how to process different foods, how to interact with it, how to eat it, how to chew it. It all comes into play here. And let's remember, babies don't have their molars. when they're born, right? These come in late. These are our chewing teeth. So you also want to make sure you're not giving them things to chew that are too hard to chew. But I did mention steak before, and they can suck on a steak. They can do a lot of things on a steak when they're six months old. So just giving them constant exposure to different textures and flavors is so important. And as always, we're monitoring our babies to make sure they're safe when they're doing it. But definitely do that, and it's going to pay off so much in the long run. And along with that, the fifth pillar of adventurous eating is exposure to healthy foods. This is your window of opportunity to not just introduce fruit purees. I know sometimes it's really hard to have foods that are organic and grass-fed and pasture-raised because they're a little bit more expensive, and I totally get that. But as much of it as you can get your baby, it is so, so important. And don't be afraid to try meats. Babies can start eating meats at six months of age. There is no reason why it shouldn't be their first food. You can introduce them to things like bone broth, liver meat, um, eggs. You can do different vegetables and fruits and just balance their meals so that they really grow up to be a healthy eater. And one thing to be wary is I know it's not always easy to be preparing food for babies. And I know I felt victim to that as well. I thought I would puree and cook all my food for my baby from the beginning. And that wasn't always the case. Sometimes I would have to go to store-bought options. And unfortunately, the store-bought options, they're very far and few in between that I think are good enough for our babies where the They're not full of sugar and they're not filled with artificial ingredients or just poor quality ingredients. And a lot of baby foods test really high and heavy metals. So that's something to be very mindful of. Some brands that I personally have used with my son have been Cerebelli, Serenity Kids. They have awesome meat purees. Once Upon a Farm. Once Upon a Farm I would do just once in a while because they're great quality, but they do have a lot of sugar. So I want to remember that because when we see a puree has nine grams of sugar or 11 grams of sugar, it might not be that much for us as adults. I mean, it's not ideal, but we can handle that kind of amount of sugar. But think about a baby. A baby is what? 15 pounds, 20 pounds, 25 pounds. And that amount of sugar is going to have a much higher impact on them. So just be mindful of sugar. You really want to minimize it as much as you possibly can. There are other brands I'm forgetting. There are some other brands that have also been have had the Clarity Awards, they've had different third party testers check for heavy metals. So just look for those brands when you're buying things at the supermarket. So brands I really try to stay away from are things like Gerber, Beach Baby, all these really popular brands that are actually available in most stores, I stay away from them. And another thing to consider is also a lot of them are packed in plastic, and that's not great either. And if they have a really long shelf life, and often they do add in like citric acid and ascorbic acid and all these things, like they make even bananas very acidic. So you want to make sure when you're buying these foods, you're really looking for good quality ingredients with very little additives. Okay, I can go on and on about this forever, but we cannot be here on this podcast forever because you're probably a busy mom. So we're gonna move on. The sixth thing I wanted to talk about as a foundation of feeding, a foundation of becoming an adventurous eater is family connection. So I did touch upon that a little bit in my first pillar, connection with the baby during feeding. This is family connection. What I mean here is sitting together at the dinner table, sitting together and not rushing our meals, giving the baby enough time to explore, giving the baby enough time to chew and to enjoy their meals and doing it together in a family environment. And I know in today's world, it's hard sometimes. Sometimes we're eating our meals on the go. So you don't have to completely change your lifestyle to do this. Even like once a day or multiple times a week is already a good start. I catch myself doing this as well. My toddler loves to eat in his toddler tower, the kitchen tower that he can climb and stand next to my kitchen island on. But it's not ideal. And he does eat his breakfast there a lot, and I'm working on it to improve us sitting down together as much as we can for dinner, at least for dinner, because lunchtime we're often not together, unless it's the weekend. And then sitting together for dinner is just so crucial to having that connection to be coming not only an adventurous eater, but also an intuitive eater. Because let's not forget, eating is a very social thing. And it's so important to be mindful of what we're doing when we're eating. So turning the TV off, putting the phones away, and just eating and focusing on your family and your food. During this time, during whatever meal you can have together, it's going to be so crucial for your child to really enjoy eating and to not have any stress around it. Right? Because essentially what we're trying to avoid is stress because that can lead to aversions if they're associating eating with stress and they can cause them to have picky eater behaviors later on. And we want to definitely avoid that. I did forget to add something right at the beginning because I didn't write it down. But I wanted to talk about feeding disorder statistics, because to me, it's actually mind-blowing how many kids become picky eaters. I never thought the number was so big, right? Because we know 1 in 38 children now has autism. The statistics are becoming more and more severe for different disorders. And for picky eaters, There is actually one in four children has a feeding disorder. And what I mean by a feeding disorder, it could be a gamut of different things, but essentially they have an unhealthy relationship with eating. That could be through. Now wanting to eat through having aversions, through being picky, through not liking certain textures, through having sensory issues with eating. It could be because of GI issues, right? We talked a little bit about digestion and reflux. It could be because of different comorbidities. There's many different reasons why this happens, but essentially one in four children has a feeding deficit, which is, to me, it's mind-blowing. I never knew statistics were this severe for this population. And another statistic I wanted to bring to your attention is that for children with developmental delays or different types of disabilities, which can include ADHD, it can include autism, it can include any gamut of comorbidities, 80% of them will develop a feeding disorder, up to 80% of them. To me, that is absolutely mind blowing. I never realized how big this problem was until I started working with children with feeding issues. Oftentimes it's overlooked. Doctors are not catching it. Pediatricians don't know much about it. They're just not educated in this area. So remember, you're the mom, or maybe you're the dad, and you intuitively know if something is off with your child. And now you even know more after listening to the foundations of feeding, right? So you know what to look for. You know when something's off. You know when your child needs help. So advocate for it. Ask for a feeding evaluation. So this way you can help your child sooner rather than later, because the earlier we address these issues, the earlier, the easier it is to undo them, right? Or to help your child so they don't develop further issues down the road. But no matter what, I'm here with you. If you have any questions, you can find me at lina.Livinsky on Instagram. Send me a DM. I'll be happy to point you in the right direction. And that's it for today. So let's go over those foundational feedings and how to prepare your child to be an adventurous eater one more time. The first thing you want to do is have a connection during breastfeeding, bottle feeding. The second thing is making sure they're ready for solids, right? So they're sitting up straight, holding their head up, being interested in foods and being able to bring the food to their mouth. The third thing is starting solids. So making sure they're exposed to different solid consistencies. The fourth thing is exposing them to different flavors. and textures. The fifth thing is exposing them to healthy foods. And the sixth thing is connection with your family. Let me know what you thought about this. If you have anything to add, if you have anything to question, I'm always happy to chat. Thank you so much for listening for this long. I know you're busy. You might be a busy mom or a busy dad or a busy caretaker. No matter who you are, I'm here. No matter how you find me, I'll be happy to chat with you. If you have any questions or concerns of any kind, But no matter what, I'm so happy we're able to connect because connection is key.