This is another one of those posts that I hesitate to write. We are so, so happy with the eater Henry has become (he eats things like vegetarian sushi and seaweed salad with us!). I want to share our general approach and strategies, but I have no way of knowing if there's a causal relationship between our strategies and the current outcome or if it's merely a correlation.
That's what happens when your science experiment (er, parenting) only has a sample size of one.
Regardless, I want to record our approach in this space because I want to adhere to it if we're lucky enough to have a second child. So here it goes:
- We watched closely for indications that Henry was interested in food. Around three months, he started watching our mouths when we ate.
- We waited until the four-month mark to introduce any foods to him because we were worried about allergies and what not (especially because he had a dairy allergy early on).
- At the four-month mark, we started feeding him homemade baby food. We fed him lots of different fruits and vegetables, not just bland rice cereal. We fed him homemade baby food rather than food in jars because the homemade stuff was chunkier and had more texture. I think it helped him make the transition to real food faster.
- Somewhere around the eighth month, we started making dinners that all of us could eat. We started by using this cookbook and then we quickly made the switch to feeding Henry our regular foods. We established the idea that we all eat the same thing early on.
- Because Henry started eating real food very early on, we never got into the habit of making him a separate meal. He never eats mac-and-cheese, while we eat something more grown-up. We always serve him exactly the same thing we're having (which is in line with the philosophy in Bringing Up Bebe).
- We adhere to the philosophy that we control the what, where and when of eating, but he gets to decide whether to eat and how much. When we first took Henry to sushi restaurants, he would only eat the edamame. We were fine with that. Honestly, he probably left a little hungry, but he quickly learned that whatever we served for dinner was his only option. Now he eats the sushi, seaweed salad, and the edamame.
- We don't let Henry snack all day. Henry has a morning snack and an afternoon snack, but other than that, we don't let him graze. For example, we don't give him food to keep him occupied in the car or stroller.
- We don't let him drink juice. To me, it's much healthier to eat fruit instead of drinking juice (the whole fruit has more fiber). I worry that juice is bad for the teeth and creates a sweet tooth. Henry primarily drinks water and milk (we occasionally let him drink orange juice because we don't want him to feel deprived and then go crazy later).
- We let Henry eat sweets in moderation for the same reason touched on above. If we never let him eat sugar, then he's going to be a fiend whenever he goes over to a friend's house. Instead, we try to teach him (through modeling!) that sweets should be eaten in moderation.
