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Transcript of “Stop Making Mealtime a Challenge”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be answering a question about challenges around mealtime with our children. And what I hope to do is offer a perspective that helps take this challenge off of our plates, so to speak. We have enough challenges as parents as it is, and mealtimes don’t need to be a challenge.

Okay, so this question came to me on Facebook:

I’m hoping for some instructive insight. Mealtimes continue to be a challenge. Here’s a new one with our 27-month-old: he now refuses to come to the table and sit down in his chair during mealtimes. We’ve tried to let it be and pack up his food if he doesn’t come back again later, but he ends up hangry. So now we are feeding him basically through distraction at the windowsill and following him around the park or in his yes space while he’s playing, etc. When we do that, he finishes his entire meal, so clearly he is hungry. But I absolutely hate the fact that that’s what we have to do. Perhaps we can be more consistent with limit-setting, but when he gets hangry, it’s so difficult to get anything done.

Thanks so much.

So yes, this sounds like a kind of a cycle that’s happening between them. And it’s hard to say how it started exactly, but I’ll get into some specific advice for this parent and some thoughts about what they’re doing now.

But first, I want to try to give some advice that’s as simple as possible. Because I know that that helps me as a parent when I have a challenge and it helps other parents, I think, that I work with when we really bring it down to the basics. Mealtimes ideally never have to be a challenge. There need be no challenge involved. And the key is knowing what is our job in regard to eating and mealtimes and where our child needs to be trusted to do their job. And then from there, the only challenge is to keep staying in our lane and trusting.

And I know that trust around eating, it can be a big challenge for some of us. So that’s basically the job, is to really trust our child’s instincts around eating. Trusting them to listen to that message that only they can hear about their appetite, about satiation and what types of food they want to eat. That’s a message that we don’t control and only our child hears and that we want to encourage. And it can be kind of a delicate message that we, without meaning to, can get in the way of. We can muffle the message.

And that’s basically it when it comes to encouraging healthy eating and being able to avoid doing what, as this parent says, is hating the fact that she has to follow him around with food. We don’t want that job, right? Well, the good news is that’s not our job and we don’t have to take it on. And I’m going to be explaining why and what to do instead.

Our job is to set up the situation with expectations and rituals about the way we want mealtimes to go. That’s how we set ourselves, the whole family, and our kids up for success. And then letting go of the rest and employing trust in our child, because children need to be able to navigate the message that only they can receive about their hunger and satiation. First we’re going to talk about the “cure” for this issue and what trust and staying in our lane looks like. And then I’ll explain how what this parent is currently doing is perpetuating and maybe even adding to their problem, obviously unintentionally.

So how do we set ourselves up for success? We create rituals. Like the number one that I firmly believe in is sitting down. Because that encourages focus, mindfulness around eating, helping our child to be able to focus on that message that their body is sending them, which can get muffled when we’re multitasking. We’ve all probably heard the studies that we do everything less well when we’re multitasking. Well, that’s especially true for young children. They are much more easily overstimulated and distracted. And so if we want them to be able to eat in a healthy manner and get all the nutrients they need at that time, then we want to eliminate distractions, if we can help it. There will be some that we can’t help, like their siblings, what they’re doing, and what other children are doing in the park or whatever. But we can start the habit of sitting. Sitting is also a safety measure. When our child is running around or playing while they eat, they can choke. We don’t want that to happen. On top of that, we’re teaching basic manners when we ask children to sit down while they’re eating or drinking, and we start this ritual as early as possible.

So our child is sitting down and staying sitting down until they’re done. And no throwing food, no playing with food, other things that show that our child is too distracted and they’re not paying attention to what’s happening in that moment. And it might be just for two minutes that they’re eating or one minute, but at least for that amount of time, we’re helping them to form the habit of paying attention and being present while they do that. So if we find our child is playing with food or throwing it down, we can start early with receiving that as a message—which it almost always is, at least at first—that our child is showing that they’re done, that those moments of wanting to eat have passed.

And yes, our child might explore this with us in the beginning. Oh, what am I allowed to do while I’m eating? That’s really healthy learning for them. And ideally we want to be responsive with a clear message, not an angry message or an annoyed message, but just a clear response. “Oh, I don’t want you to throw when you’re eating. That shows me that you’re done. Are you done?” And then just asking that question will give our child the chance to answer, even when this is an 11-month-old child.

Children when they’re even 10, 11 months, almost as soon as they’re able to sit independently (meaning get into the sitting position all by themselves), they are capable of sitting down, staying in one spot while they’re ingesting food. Not for 10 minutes before and then 10 minutes after or hanging out and dining with the family. No, we can’t expect them to be able to do that because they can be, especially some children, they want to be on the go, so they’re not going to just stop everything and sit there. They want to get up and do the next thing. But it is perfectly reasonable to expect that while they’re putting that food in their mouth, they’re sitting. Maybe it’s on our lap, maybe it’s in the park on the grass, maybe it’s outside on a step, in a child-sized chair with a small table, in a high chair. All we ask is that they stay sitting and that they’re showing that they’re actually in eating mode, not playing mode. And that’s it.

And then we offer food that we’ve deemed healthy for our child, in small portions of each so they don’t get overwhelmed. And maybe we have an extra container on the table or containers for children to be able to get more of the foods that we’re comfortable with them having more of. That can go a lot of different ways depending on how we feel about it. But sitting, if we make it consistent, that is a habit that I highly recommend.

However, like all rituals and rules, we have to believe in them. So if you don’t believe that kids should have to sit while they’re eating or it feels too strict for you, don’t do it. Do what you believe. I will tell you that from many years of experience with children ranging from the most active and distractible temperaments to the calmer and more centered types, they can all do this. They can sit for the entire time they’re eating, if we have that calm conviction in this ritual and belief in them and we’re consistent with it. Especially in the first few years while it’s becoming a habit, that’s when children kind of need it to be as consistent as possible, whatever we decide our rituals are. And then after that, we’ll find that our children actually want to sit while they’re eating or they want to recreate whatever rituals that we’ve given them.

And I’ve found that it’s easier to be so consistent that even when our child is drinking water, they’re sitting for a moment with that glass or that bottle of water. But of course, that’s up to you. Some people don’t take it to that extent and that’s fine. My goal is to make it as easy as possible for children to learn something, for it to just be what we do. So it’s not this rule every time that feels like a big deal to ask of our child. It’s just what they consider the norm. And then all we’re doing is we’re having that drink, we’re having that food, and being together, socializing maybe, but we’re not playing while we’re eating or running while we’re eating, etc.

And then when we offer the food—like in this parent’s case, she said her child won’t come to the table—I would take care to present the food as a, I mean, we could say it’s a privilege. Not try to push it, because children tend to read our agendas a mile away and some are more sensitive than others to them. It won’t do us any favors, it won’t help us get what we want, and it creates more challenge when we try to assert an agenda around even our child eating dinner. Instead, making it a program of attraction where we offer it and we have the ritual, we have the habit of this being for a limited time, so our child expects that. It’s dinnertime. We have your food for you right here. We hope you’ll join us or I hope you’ll join me.

Helping our child into a high chair if we’re using that. I like the small tables because the child will literally come over and sit in the seat or they’ll sit on the floor. In the beginning, with very young children, like 10-, 11-, 12-month olds or even 14-month olds, I like to use these breakfast-in-bed tables—I have these on my website if you want to find them—that have little legs that fold out. And that can make the perfect-sized table when we’re just giving our child a one-on-one meal or maybe there’s another person sitting there, but we’re not eating a big dinner all together.

Just offering them their food and helping them get into that habit of, You get to decide if you’re hungry and you get to decide when you’re done. We trust you. You know yourself best. That’s a message that will take us very far in the right direction. But it’s a hard one, I know, because we worry as parents, right? So, presenting the food in a positive way for a limited time. Join us or not. If you’re not hungry, you don’t have to. And then from there, the mealtime has really nothing to do with us. It’s between our child and their tummy. We’re letting our child decide how much they want to eat and we’re leaving it at that, trusting our child to handle the eating part of mealtime. Because anything else we try to do can create challenges. There needn’t be any struggles at mealtime. And usually, if we think about it, the struggles come from our worries or our agendas. Understandable, right? But they’re going to get in our way.

We’re going to notice that our children’s appetites and tastes shift naturally. They’ll go through phases where they don’t seem to be eating very much or they’re just eating one food group, it seems. Trust these phases. And we can still offer other options on their plate, but at least one “safe food,” as Ellyn Satter calls it. I really like that term, she was a guest on this podcast. And the safe food is one that we know that they like. So if they only eat that safe food, we trust that. And it’s that trust that allows children to pass through all their personal eating stages and tastes.

So, that’s the model I recommend: setting ourselves up for success with some basic rituals and rules. And just to tell you, I have an extremely active youngest son. I always felt like if he could sit while he’s eating, any child can. And I have children in my classes, active children, and they’re literally sitting there. I don’t ask them to, but they know I’m going to be serving snack in the classroom, we’re going to be having these rituals together. And they love them. They will actually sit on their stools around the snack table where we all have snack together, and all we have is banana in our classes, and they will sit there and wait for me to bring everything over. They’re not asked to come sit until they want to eat something, and then I ask that they please sit. What they get to do is they get to choose a bib, they get to wash their hands with a wet washcloth, they each wipe their hands. And then they sit waiting while I offer each child a piece. And sometimes they’re sitting there waiting for a bit. They do it, they show this incredible patience, because that’s how much children love familiar rituals. And an adult who cares enough to believe that they can rise up to these rules and rituals. Sometimes they’ll check it out and they’ll try to get up, and I’ll stop them gently, I’ll put my hand on their shoulder and say, “Ooh, it looks like you want to get up. Are you done?” And then right there, they’ll make a choice, very clear, that they’re done or they’re not done.

And I always recommend with parents when they haven’t been consistent with these kinds of rules, that they try it with snacks first, where they’re not invested and worried about their child eating enough. Because if your child won’t sit and starts to leave when they’re just having a snack, we can let go of that more easily, right? And that helps us practice trust at mealtimes.

But yes, this surprised me a lot, how much children seem to crave these familiar steps and somebody caring enough to not just sort of let them get away with silly stuff that they know isn’t what they’re supposed to do. This may have been one of the biggest surprises to me about this approach when I was first learning it, how beautifully it works. How we can trust children to be able to do this from a very young age, and the younger that we start, the easier it is for the child. But we can start later, it just takes more commitment on our part, more conviction. Calm conviction, happy conviction, none of it is heavy or stern or challenging to the child. We’re not trying to put them on the defensive. We’re just gently, kindly offering rules that will help them to stay safe, stay focused on their message from their tummies, have wonderful eating habits and manners that will take them far with other children and other families later on. Helping us to take this job off our plate of having to get food inside our child. This is a job we do not need to take on.

Now I want to talk about this family, where they’ve gone and how to shift this cycle that they’re in with their child. It sounds like, I don’t know if it’s both the parents, but they seem invested in their child eating a certain amount and feeling like it’s their job to get the food into him. They said, “he refuses to come to the table and sit down in his chair during mealtimes. We’ve tried to let it be and pack up his food if he doesn’t come back again later, but he ends up hangry.” So if they offered the mealtime very openly, just were offering it, “You don’t have to come if you’re not hungry.” I’m not sure if they did that, but that’s where I would start this.

And then if this certain amount of time has passed, maybe it’s 10 minutes if the parents are not eating themselves or maybe everybody’s eating, so you wait until you’re all done eating, and he still hasn’t come. And we haven’t repeated it to him, we haven’t nagged him in any way or pushed our agenda. Then let’s say he doesn’t come and now he’s hangry. That’s a tough one, right? That can happen when we are shifting a pattern, that our child has to keep finding out if this is really going to be true, are we really going to hold to this or are we going to be worried about him not eating enough? And then that may be the result, that he’s hungry.

And what I would do then is really try to allow him to share those feelings and know that while hunger may be a part of it, there’s something there that he probably does need to express about, I don’t know what, because I don’t know much about what’s going on in this family. But it could just be this dynamic that’s uncomfortable where he feels this pressure coming from us, or there are other things that he wants to take control of, that he needs to control, like the eating stuff. Maybe he’s felt too much of our agenda and he needs to resist that. There’s a reason that he has the feelings that go beyond hunger, so I would encourage him to share the feelings however he does. “Oh, now you didn’t get your food and now you seem really hungry or you seem mad.” And whatever those specifics are where he’s showing this feeling, you could talk about that a little. Not a lot of talking, really just accepting those feelings. And trying to trust that, just as with everything that I share here, when we accept the feelings, that’s how our child moves through to the other side. If we feel like we have to fix the feelings, Ooh, now we’ve got to make sure he’s going to eat enough that he doesn’t feel like this, and this is our job, we’re taking on this role that really doesn’t belong to us, that’s when we start the cycle where now we have to help him avoid a certain feeling. We’re taking that as our job, instead of allowing all feelings to be shared. It’s hard for me to explain because I don’t know how this is playing out with this family, how he’s showing his feelings, but I would accept that.

And then as soon as he’s done, even if he has a tantrum or this period where he does seem dysregulated, I wouldn’t rush to get him food then. I would wait until it passes, especially if it’s a tantrum. And then gently offer him something. Maybe not a formal, we’re all sitting down together for food again, but just, “Come, I have some food for you,” some kind of snack or something that you’re comfortable with him eating. “Would you like to sit on my lap?” Not urgently trying to change his feeling, but still helping him get something to eat, with that gentle requirement that he sits on your lap. “Okay, you want to sit next to me? I do ask that you sit. I know. You don’t want to sit. You really don’t want to sit. You seem so mad,” or whatever. Again, reacting to those specifics is always the safest thing. “You’re yelling at us, you don’t like that we said that,” or “You’re having such a hard time. When you’re ready, please come sit next to me,” or “Please come sit on my lap.”

But not letting go of the sitting. Because if we let go of the sitting and start doing what these parents have gotten caught up in, now we are changing the role and we’re changing his expectation. So the expectation is becoming, My parents will chase me around or make sure that they put food into me. And if we think about that, it really doesn’t make sense on any human or mammal level that our job is to make sure somebody gets enough food in them. That’s not going to be a working relationship and a workable approach to food. It’s not going to be a successful approach. Because whatever we do, of course, teaches our child something about what to expect. And in this case, expecting that I don’t really pay attention to food. It just comes to me, whatever I’m doing. And that becomes what he’s used to. So, that isn’t sustainable.

And they say they hate it. They can stop this any time by dialing back to calmly setting these rules, making eating something that’s available for a certain amount of time, that you welcome him to partake in, but you’re not pushing it. You’re not trying to get him to eat. And if you’re not trying to get him to eat, he can’t refuse, right? So the way this parent frames it is, “he now refuses to come to the table.” So if we’re not asking him to, he can’t refuse. If we’re offering it, he can choose not to, but that will help him go in a healthy direction.

Alternatively, if we let him know loud and clear, Here’s our agenda!, now you, as a child who’s developmentally inclined at 27 months to resist parent agendas, you’re going to switch into that resistant mode. Even if you don’t want to, even if you’re really, really hungry. This need to resist can be very strong in a child this age. That’s why people call it the terrible twos. But it can also be this incredible time of life, the development of will, the development of personality, of holding onto their autonomy. And they don’t have that much, but they do have it around what they put into their mouths. And they need to. So it’s not going to serve us or him to get in the way of that. We want to encourage his autonomy. “Do you want to come to eat? We’ve got some great food for you here.” Not trying to sell it, but, “It’s here for a little bit. Hope you’ll join us.” It’s okay if you don’t, that might be our subtext. Fine if you do, fine if you don’t. We trust you. If you’re hungry, you’ll come. And then he will reconnect with owning his choice and he will come.

But we have to clear out all this agenda stuff and also, at the same time, welcome his feelings in the transition. Because there will be feelings that come up for him as he’s now letting go of holding onto this kind of control with us that we’re doing anything to get him to eat. It’s not a comfortable feeling for him, but he’s gotten stuck there and we’ve gotten stuck there. So as he’s letting go of that, there will be feelings. I would be ready for them, I would welcome them. I would see them as part of the solution, not part of the problem. And help yourself not have to do these jobs that are really impossible for us and that get harder and harder the more we try to do them.

As we’re doing this transition, I would express it to your child, setting up beforehand the rules and rituals that we’re going to follow at mealtime. Maybe say, “We’re going to be having dinner in a few minutes,” and admitting, “We know that we’ve let you move around and we’ve tried these different things with you. We’re not going to do that anymore. That’s not healthy for you. So we expect you to sit for however long you want to be eating, and as soon as you’re done, please feel free to get up and go.” If he’s in a high chair, “We’ll help you down right away. If you get up during mealtime, though, we’re going to know that that means you’re done eating.” Be very clear ahead of time. This is for him, but it’s also for you to sink into feeling very comfortable in following through so you can get to that place where you really can let go and stick with your plan. You’ve been clear with him. You’ve done all the things that you need to do to be fair and clear. It’s not unkind, it’s very kind to help children with these kinds of dynamics. Allowing him to have whatever feelings he has, not trying to control those or fix those.

And then I would be paying attention to him during mealtime. Children at this age, they really do need our presence at mealtime to help them to stay focused. Sometimes a family meal doesn’t work as well at this age as it does for a four- or five-year-old. But paying attention regardless, even if there’s other people there, I would try to be paying attention to him, at least in this transitional period. And you can see when he starts to get up, remind him, “Oh, it looks like you’re trying to get up. Remember, we don’t want you to get up until you’re done. Oh, are you saying you’re done?” Then right there, we’ve got our hand gently on him, hopefully we’re close enough. And then he’ll clearly show us that he’s done or he’s going to sit down and eat some more. And even if he gets up all the way, we weren’t able to sort of hold him back in time and he gets up, I would definitely give him that one opportunity, especially in the beginning, to come sit down and eat some more. But not popping up and down like a jack-in-the-box. That’s going to get him stuck there, in testing that. So trust him, believe him, believe what he tells you.

Of course, he may get up before he is done again, because it’s been so different these other times and he needs to check this out again. So, if he does: “Okay, I’m going to help you get down. Thanks for letting us know you’re done.” There’s no reason to be mad at him. No reason to be disappointed in him or worried about him. He knows what he’s doing in terms of eating, we’ve got to believe that. All children do, it’s natural. And if he does get hangry, acknowledge: “Now you’re saying you want to eat. Wow, you’re really hungry now.” Even though it’s just a couple minutes after you left the table. But we don’t have to say that part, that’s just for us to know how many minutes since he left the table and that we accept that. He’s in learning mode and he’s relearning. “Oh, now you’re saying you’re really, really hungry. We’re not going to give you food again right now. In a few minutes you can come sit with me and get some food.”

And know that he really does know what he’s doing. Our honesty, being upfront, and following through, he can’t learn another way. And I know a lot of us get afraid and we worry, Oh, what if he was really hungry and he just forgot what he’s supposed to do?, but we had already given him that chance, we had reminded him. We have to believe that he is a bright guy who knows what’s going on and that this is what he needs to be able to learn. He’s not a bad guy, he’s impulsive.

If we can be 100%, or at least 60%, comfortable with how we’ve laid it out, then children get this gift of being able to learn a wonderful ritual that’s going to be a lifelong ritual around eating, and to be able to express feelings that are about more than not getting what they want in that moment. They’re about this power dynamic or this over-control that he feels in this area or something that we can trust. And we don’t want to keep teaching him to be distracted, to eat when he doesn’t even really know he’s eating, that he shouldn’t pay attention to life right now or be present with what’s happening to his body. And we can easily teach those things through our fear, I totally understand that and can relate to that. But then we end up actually creating the issues that we wish to avoid.

So let the feelings be, let him be hangry. When we’ve done our best to present food to him, we’ve been very clear, we’ve been very honest. “I know we used to do that. We’re not doing it anymore. We love you too much. This is our job, to do what’s best for you.” Let him do his job, you do your job. And know that a big part of his job at this age is not only to eat what he needs, but to express feelings. And young children are very, very good at this. And that you’re helping him by eliminating all these distractions of figuring out his dynamic with you, his dynamic with food, your dynamic with rules. Clarify it, simplify it, so he can feel free to eat and to sleep and to play and to be a little kid and not try to be the leader in these areas that aren’t going to work for him or for you.

I really hope some of this helps.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. And my books, No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame, and Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting, you can get them in paperback at Amazon and in ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and apple.com.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Stop Making Mealtime a Challenge appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Concerned About Your Child’s Eating Habits? Ellyn Satter Has Answers”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury welcome to Unruffled. Today I’m thrilled to welcome Ellyn Satter to the podcast. Whenever the topic of mealtimes and eating comes up, someone invariably mentions Ellyn, and what she calls the “Satter Division of Responsibility in Feeding.” Ellyn is an internationally recognized authority on eating and feeding. She’s a nutritionist, a family therapist who’s devoted her long career to uplifting the mealtime experience. Ellen’s teachings free parents and children from mealtime struggles and conflicts by helping us to reimagine and reshape our relationships with food. Simply put Ellyn changes lives. She’s an icon. So I’m honored to have her on the podcast to share a bit of her wisdom. Welcome Ellyn, thank you so much for being here.

Ellyn Satter:  Well, thanks, Janet. It’s a privilege to spend this time with you.

Janet Lansbury:  I’ve been aware of your work for a long time because parents have made me aware of it, which is wonderful. Whenever I post any perspective on feeding or eating or mealtime issues with children, invariably, at least several times in the comments, your name comes up, and people are linking to you. You are, I feel, a legend in my communities, and I know you’re internationally recognized as an authority in feeding and healthy eating.

So one of the things you’re most well known for is your Division of Responsibility in Feeding. I would love for you to share a little about what that is, why it matters and how parents can use this to have more pleasant mealtimes.

Ellyn Satter:  Yeah, well, I discovered the Division of Responsibility, I’d say 10 years into my career as an outpatient dietician at a private group medical practice. I had this mother and little boy, eight years old, kind of chubby, cute as a bug, referred to me and the referral note from the doctor was “weight issues.” Now, I don’t know what he meant by that. I suspect he meant this mother is preoccupied with weight, do something about it.

And at that point, I was coming off of being prescriptive with respect to what and how much children should eat. I definitely was clear that weight reduction dieting for children was bad and terrible and totally awful and I wasn’t going to do that, but I didn’t know what to do instead. And so I was sort of flailing about, talking about, food groups and she’d react. And she said, “Well, I’m doing that.”

And I talk about having meals and she said, “Well, I’m doing that.” And so it went on, and with everything, she said, “I’m doing that.” And she was getting madder and madder at me.

Finally, she said, “Well, what am I supposed to do? I have one at home who doesn’t eat enough. And I have this one in here, this little boy….” I mean, he’s totally cowed. He’s sliding down in his chair. He looks absolutely miserable. “…and I have this one who eats too much. So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to get one to eat more? And the other one to eat less?”

Long silence.

Finally, I said, “Well, I don’t think it’s your job to get this boy to eat less and the other one to eat more. I think your job is the one you’re already doing. And that is doing a good job with choosing food for these kids, putting meals on the table. And after that, it’s up to them how much they eat and how they grow.”

Oh, she looked madder than ever. And I thought, holy smokes, is that really true? But it was the only intelligent thing I’d said that day. So I let it stand. And afterward, I started thinking about it and sort of applying the principle to situations with other children and reading the literature.

There were people out there who were doing research on feeding, and I realized that it was true that feeding children demands a division of responsibility: that the parents do the what, when and where of feeding. And they trust the child to do the how much and whether of eating.

Oh, and by the way, Janet, the little boy, he perked up, he looked interested for the first time all day, he straightened up in his chair. And I always figure that kids know. They are amazingly, instinctively wise and they know when something makes sense. And he was responding to that. He liked the sounds of that very much.

Janet Lansbury:  Empowering him to be trusted. And yeah-

Ellyn Satter:  Well, yeah, in my dreams, I mean, this is an example, I’m afraid, of advice that didn’t take. But if it had, it would certainly have been life-changing for him and his brother who was continually being pressured to eat more than he really wanted to eat.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. It works both ways. Yeah, trust is this powerful, magical thing that’s so simple in a way, but can be so challenging for us as parents. It’s very much centered in everything that I teach: trusting your child to be a competent person, trusting that they’re capable.

Ellyn Satter:  Exactly. And, that’s what I like about your work, Janet, among many things, is the whole idea of child competence. There’s so much that goes on today in the medical and nutrition world that is predicated on child deficit. “We have to get children to eat certain foods and if we don’t, entice or coerce them in some way, then they simply won’t. We have to get children to grow in a particular way because if we don’t, they’re going to be too fat or they’re going to be too thin.” And that’s just not true.

Children come sort of prepackaged with the desire to eat, the drive to eat as much as they need to to survive and to grow and to be healthy. They are hardwired with the desire to explore their world and master their world, and this applies to the food that’s in their world right along with everything else. If parents are enjoying their food and putting food on the table that they themselves enjoy, then the child is going to figure, well, this is what I’m going to learn to eat as well.

And so the parents don’t say a word about it, but they make this sort of tacit mastery demonstration. This is what it means to be a grown-up with eating. And the child sees that and thinks in his child’s mind: well, this is what I’m going to grow up to do and eat.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. And this is another aspect of your work that so closely aligns with everything I learned from my mentor Magda Gerber and everything that I teach — this authenticity that you talk about for us to not be, “oh, I love this wonderful broccoli. Look at this fun tree I’m going to eat!” and instead we can just put it out there and act natural and not have all this pressure on ourselves to try to make things happen and-

Ellyn Satter:  Oh right. And just enjoy it or if you don’t, you say, “Well, I don’t much care for broccoli, but mom enjoys it. And so it’s on the table and I’m going to try it a little bit in hopes that someday I enjoy it too.”

Janet Lansbury:  Right. And she’s not pushing it on me. Another thing I’ve found interesting is with the parents that I interact with, there seem to be kind of almost two types of parents around feeding and eating issues. There are parents that find it a very ho-hum topic. Like they don’t think twice about it and it’s just not a deal to them at all. And there are other parents who are very focused on it, very focused on what their child is eating. I mean, is there a reason for that? Is it our upbringing? Is it our culture? Do you notice this yourself that there are some people that just, it’s just totally natural for them and others that really struggle?

Ellyn Satter:  Well, yes, I have. I have noticed that and certainly, both types of parents can be very successful with feeding their children as long as the not-so-interested-in-food-and-eating ones don’t go to the extreme of being neglectful with feeding. And so long as the worried-and-focused-on-it ones don’t go to the extreme of being controlling with eating. It’s like everything else in parenting, the important thing is finding the middle ground, and that middle ground is being able to put a meal on the table and be reliable about feeding your kids.

And I’m talking about toddlers and older, I’m not talking about structure for babies or kids before the age of two, but being reliable about feeding your kids and reassuring them that they are going to be fed is the bottom line for both sets of parents. For the ones who are ho-hum about feeding, they sort of drag their guts through getting a meal on the table. They choose food that they enjoy so they can sit down and enjoy their children during meal times. They get the job done.

Whereas the folks at the other extreme, well, they’re going to do the same thing. And those folks are going to have to resist their tendency to be interfering with their child’s what and how much the child eats because they themselves perhaps have a long list of good food, bad food, eat this, don’t eat that, worry about my weight and continue to try to get it down.

Which brings us to the whole topic of eating competence and whether or not the parent is in a position to be relaxed and positive about their own eating and trust themselves to eat what and how much they need in order to do well.

Janet Lansbury:  Oh, yes. It always comes down to us first. Doesn’t it? Darn!

Ellyn Satter:  Oh, it does. Well, it’s a cycle, isn’t it? Because we eat the way we were fed and we feed the way we eat. And so, sooner or later, as we say when we go into therapy, this cycle has to stop

Janet Lansbury: If we want it to. Yeah.

Ellyn Satter:  Well, if therapy is successful, the cycle stops and therefore your children and grandchildren have access to better parenting than you did.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. Your work is about changing a cycle, really, where we’re sort of functioning as parents… it may be that we’re not staying in our lane in terms of what our job is versus what our child’s job is in regard to eating. And you’re helping parents to stay in their lane and feel secure in that lane.

Ellyn Satter:  Yes. And therein lies reward, relaxation, and joyful eating and parenting. Over and over again. I hear from these parents who talk about the struggles they’re having with their children around eating, and then they embrace the Division of Responsibility with Feeding. And within days, the child becomes happier, more relaxed, and willing to come to the table. Family meal times become enjoyable for the first time in however long, and the parents say, “he feels better, I feel better. And together we feel better all day long.”

It’s not just at mealtime that this has an impact, but all day long, because, well, probably because together they’ve been dreading mealtime all day long and that predictable struggle that’s going to erupt there.

So the feelings come fast and the relationship comes fast. And once that’s in place, parents are able to relax and let time take care of the child’s getting to the point where they can eat a variety of food. Those feelings and relaxed meal times persist. But if the parent gets caught up again with their agenda, then those good feelings go away pretty fast. In today’s world, it’s darn hard not to get caught up with agendas because there is so much interference with sensible feeding.

Janet Lansbury:  Can you be specific about that?

Ellyn Satter:  Yeah. “Getting your child to eat his fruits and vegetables is tremendously important. If he doesn’t, he’s going to die young.”

Janet Lansbury:  Boy.

Ellyn Satter:  “Don’t let your child weigh more than the 85th percentile, because if he does he’s overweight and you have to do something about it, you have to get him to slim down.” That kind of interference is really standard. Isn’t it Janet?

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah. So how can parents get over this hump to trusting? What is the process, or what are some of the ways that you’ve helped parents to see the light or to free themselves of all this burden that they’re putting on themselves to try to control things that we really don’t control?

Ellyn Satter:  Well, if I’ve got the time clinically and, I’m long past doing clinical intervention, but my colleagues and the people we train do clinical intervention where they sit down with the parent and they take a close look at what’s going on with feeding. They’re probably going to do video tapes and sort of analyze what those mealtime interactions are like. They take a look at what happened when the child was a baby and the kind of advice that parents got way back then, whether the child was just a typical kid or whether he had some medical or neurological developmental issues, and what kind of advice they got with feeding way back then. Many times parents come along carrying the baggage of all the advice they’ve gotten ever since their child was a baby. “You have to get him to eat. Get it into him. I don’t care how you do it.” Or, “you mustn’t let him eat that because he’s getting too fat.” Or, “you have to cut down on the amount that he’s eating because he is getting too fat.”

So the assessment helps them to see that, to see the handicaps they’ve been working with and how they’ve gotten to the point where they are. And then we introduce the concept: The Division of Responsibility in Feeding, and we’ve helped them to understand their child’s competence with eating. We make a recommendation that they follow and tell them, “we’ll walk along with you while you do this,” because it is scary. I mean, if the child has been having struggles when they’re doing what they’re doing, how dare they give it up for fear that those struggles are going to get worse? And so we work with them while they make the transition.

But you are absolutely right, Janet. It does take steady nerves and a leap of faith in order for parents to go with the Division of Responsibility and trust their child to eat as much and whether they are willing to eat.

Janet Lansbury:  Yes, that leap of faith. So many aspects of parenting I think are centered around that. But it’s scary. A couple of things that you advise… I mean, even to me, these are scary and I love it, but I want to hear a little more about it. That’s where you say to offer sweets and desserts with the meal…

Ellyn Satter:  Well, I kind of keep my fingers crossed about the meal, because I say at mealtime, if you’re having dessert, let everybody have a single serving of dessert, a child-size serving for kids, and a grown-up-size for adults and that’s it. No second servings of dessert. But then you are creating scarcity. Anytime you have scarcity, a kid’s going to get preoccupied with it. So you have to neutralize the scarcity and you do that at snack time. And that is sit-down snacks, not running around and eating snacks, but sit-down snacks where periodically, you put out a plate of cookies and some milk and let the child eat as many cookies as they want. Or other sweets — put the child’s favorite sweet here.

And at first, kids eat those sweets like there’s no tomorrow. I mean, it’s like, they can’t get enough. But you, again, have to keep your nerve while they do that because after you do this a few times, they are going to eat a couple, and then they’re going to run off and do something else. The sweets lose their magnetic attraction for the child. It’s the scarcity that makes kids eat large quantities of these foods.

And the thing is, I mean, at the same time, it seems scary and unnecessary because after all, you can keep the lid on sweets when the child is at home and little, but you’re going to lose that control when the child gets to be 11, 12 years old and is walking to school and goes right by the corner grocery store, goes to a friend’s house or in other ways gets access to sweets. And at that point, they’re going to eat them like there’s no tomorrow. So what you’re doing with these meal and snack strategies with sweets is equipping your child to manage the world, to not be overwhelmed by the food in the outside world that you’ve been restricting at home.

Janet Lansbury: And is there any research on that working?

Ellyn Satter:  The research talks about how children whose sweets intake is restricted become food preoccupied and eat more when they get the chance and are heavier over time. This is all of the eating in the absence of hunger studies that were directed mostly by Leann Birch, who’s done a lot of the child feeding research over the years. Her studies would bring kids into the laboratory and feed them lunch, ordinary foods that kids feel comfortable eating, and then check and double check to make sure that they weren’t hungry anymore, that they had enough to eat.

These studies were done with girls, I guess. So they take the girls into another room where there are a lot of sweets sitting around on tables. And then they had little projects for the girls and they said they wanted them to do the project. And the girls could eat as many sweets and other snack foods as they liked. And then the researchers would monitor how much each of the children ate. And they found that the girls who were restricted at home ate more in the absence of hunger than the girls who were not restricted. And they followed these kids over a decade or more and they found that over time, these restricted girls, their BMI went up compared with the girls who were not restricted at home.

Janet Lansbury:  Wow. And then this whole idea of putting dessert with the meal. So it’s just, sort of, on the plate with food that you’re offering? See, I can barely say this…

Ellyn Satter: Take a deep breath, Janet.

(Laughter)

Janet Lansbury: You mean, are you seriously saying-

Ellyn Satter:  Kids push themselves along to learn and grow, but they also take the easy way out if it’s offered. And with respect to the foods offered at mealtime, dessert is the easy way out because it is easier to like the sweet, high-fat cakes and cookies.

Janet Lansbury:  Right, what’s not to like?

Ellyn Satter:  And so dessert and these sweets really compete unfairly with the other food that’s at the mealtime. And so when kids see vegetables and protein foods and a variety of other foods at the mealtime over and over again, eventually they’ll get to eat those foods and enjoy them. But if there’s always a lot of dessert sitting there and they can fill up on dessert instead of learning to enjoy these other foods, then they’re going to go for the dessert. So that’s why I say one serving because dessert can competes unfairly with other nutritious foods.

Janet Lansbury:  But then with the other foods on the plate… you would allow them to have seconds on as much bread as they want, or…?

Ellyn Satter:  Yeah. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  …butter? Okay. So you don’t see a competition with that.

Ellyn Satter:  Well, people tell me, and I’ve seen this with my own kids. The kids will take a bite of dessert, then a bite of broccoli and a bite of potatoes, and then a bite of dessert, or they’ll eat the dessert first and then eat everything else. They have their own ways of doing this. It’s only for grownups that dessert signals the end of the meal. Children have no such compunction.

Janet Lansbury:  That reminds me of this place my children loved. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant, and they would love it because they could get all this food, and then they could get ice cream, and then they could get more soup after the ice cream. Only at this kind of place did that seem to happen.

Ellyn Satter:  Yeah. Well, tell me what allowed you to just sort of let them go and see what happened?

Janet Lansbury:  Well, I don’t even like to say this because parents share so many struggles with me that they have, but I never really thought much about this. I knew to offer healthy foods. I don’t have issues with eating personally. And I don’t know, it just seemed natural for me to kind of pass that on. We did have some stuff, but nothing was a big focus or a big deal. And, Magda Gerber taught me about trust and that to me was very easy to do around eating. I trusted them… so it was nice.

Ellyn Satter:  And how much more fun it was for you to go to that buffet restaurant than if you were worrying about whether they were eating the right things?

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah. I never really worried about them eating. The only one I even thought about at all was my son who was so active and he ate the least of any of my children as a toddler. And this guy was, he almost couldn’t stop him moving. He was so active and it was puzzling, but he’s six foot four now and really, really healthy and-

Ellyn Satter:  Well, when he was little, was he growing consistently?

Janet Lansbury:  Yes. Yes. He was growing. He was doing fine, but it would seem like he ate nothing. So it was interesting. And I did think a little about it, but I just had to trust him because, yeah, he seemed fine. But I know a lot of parents that their doctors are telling them there’s a problem. Everyone’s telling them there’s a problem.

I would like, if you don’t mind, to read a question to you…

Ellyn Satter:  Well, before you do, I want to comment on your son.

Janet Lansbury:  Okay. Yes, please.

Ellyn Satter:  I’ll see if I can look up this reference: Stanger, Springer, I can never remember the guy’s name, but he published this wonderful summary of children’s range of calorie intake. And they were astonishing ranges like for a toddler boy, the range was between 400 calories a day and 4,000 calories a day.

Janet Lansbury: Goodness.

Ellyn Satter:  And the child who was eating 400 calories was presumably healthy like your little boy who was such an easy keeper that he was seemingly getting along on air, doing well on a very low level of calories. Whereas other children who seemingly eat an enormous amount of calories regulate perfectly well and grow consistently at this upper range.

So again, it’s this child competence thing that children come pre-wired with their homeostatic mechanisms, with their need for a certain level of energy in order to keep them going. And that might be a high need or a low need.

Janet Lansbury:  And they know themselves better than we know them. I think that’s in that too.

Ellyn Satter:  Oh, absolutely. They instinctively know, but they don’t know with their heads. Anytime you try to put something in a child’s head and teach them to manage themselves, things don’t go well. But if you observe their instinctive capabilities, they’re definitely there.

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah. So a lot of times I’ll hear from parents: “What should I do? My child is telling me they only want dessert, asking how many bites they have to eat to get the dessert.” And your solution to put it on the meal plate really solves that, right?

Ellyn Satter:  Yeah. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  Because I would just say if dessert’s not working, if it’s just becoming this distracting thing for your child, then maybe you don’t need to have desserts for a while, not as a punishment, but maybe it’s not necessary. If it’s becoming a bargaining tool or something, then it’s not working for your family.

Ellyn Satter:  Well, I think that certainly is one solution. The other solution would be to say, well, the dessert’s there. Eat it or not. The same kid who wants you to bargain is going to eat his dessert and say, “can I have more dessert?” And you’re going to say no. And he says, “Well, then I’m not going to eat anymore.” And so he threatens you, right?

Janet Lansbury:  And then what do you do?

Ellyn Satter:  You say, “okay, I’ll see you at snack time.”

Janet Lansbury:  Okay. And then what if he starts whining? You put the food away and he’s saying, “I’m hungry. I’m so hungry.”

Ellyn Satter:  “Yeah. Okay. I hear what you’re saying. Snacks in a couple of hours.”

Janet Lansbury:  Right? That’s a hard one for parents because of this whole idea of I’m leaving my child hungry. I mean, I could see how that’s very triggering, that would be triggering for me.

Ellyn Satter:  Generally speaking, I’m not in favor of starving children into submission, but you’re not doing that. I mean, you are offering a variety of food. And from my point of view, the essential meal planning perspective is that you need to be considerate without catering. That is, you need to put on a variety of foods that you enjoy. And by a variety, I mean like a main dish or fruit or vegetable or a couple of carbs, milk. And then you need to put one or two foods in the meal that your child generally eats. It might be bread. It might be rice. It might be fruit. The parents on their Facebook site call these “safe foods.” What they mean is that when the child comes to the meal and sees those foods, he feels safe or they feel safe. How they feel like, okay, there’s something there that I can eat. And contrary to the standard expectation that if something is there that they can eat, that’s all they’ll eat. In reality, children generally feel more adventurous when they feel safer. Well, you know that Janet.

Janet Lansbury: Yes.

Ellyn Satter:  This is a way then of supporting them so they can feel more adventurous with their eating.

Now, this little kid who only will eat his dessert, we have to take a look at the meal as well and say, well, is dessert the only thing at that meal that appeals to him? Is there also bread? Is there also rice? Are there other foods that the child can generally eat? And when parents are making the transition from being sort of coercive and controlling to the division of responsibility and they do this considerate without catering bit with meal planning, they do find that their child is going to spend a week or two weeks eating bread, and that’s all they really want to eat at the mealtime. But eventually, they get tired of eating their favorite foods and they start to look around for something different. But the parent really has to clench their teeth and keep doing the division of responsibility because if they sort of lose their nerve and say, “Wow, why don’t you try this?” Or, “don’t you think that’s enough bread?” Then it goes on longer.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. Because the children, they’re right in there with what we’re feeling all the time. And I was going to say, even clenching our teeth they can feel sometimes.

Ellyn Satter:  They do.

Janet Lansbury:  So trying to breathe through the fear, I guess, or something.

Ellyn Satter:  Yeah. Or saying to the child, “I am going to let you eat as much as you want. It’s hard for me to just see you eating this bread all the time. But I know that you’ll do what you need to do with your eating.”

Janet Lansbury:  Putting those elephants in the room out there. I love that. Yeah. It’s so freeing because children are feeling it right?

Ellyn Satter:  Oh, yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  They’re feeling it. If we say it, it’s like yep, there I am. Here I am with you.

Ellyn Satter:  Right. If it’s out there, you can laugh about it and you can laugh at yourselves about it. And you say, “well, I love bread too so go for it.”

But then you have to be careful not to go to the other extreme of giving your child a lot of inadvertent attention for their eating extremes. You know what I mean, right? Because sometimes when kids eat a lot and an audience gathers and everybody is so fascinated and appalled by how much the kid is eating, actually, they react to that and overeat.

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah. That’s a brilliant idea to just put it out there. If we’re feeling it, just say it like, “Wow, okay, great. More bread. I’m going with this, a little scary for me, but I’m going with it.” It will help us, I think, to relax too, a little.

Ellyn Satter:  That’s right.

Janet Lansbury:  Okay. So if you don’t mind, I would love to ask you this question. It’s a bit long, but it represents the many comments I’ll get similar to this. Every time I post something about eating people are commenting, “Ellyn Satter, Division of Responsibility.” And then there’ll be a parent that says, “Well, this doesn’t work for my child. My child will not eat unless I make it happen.” So here’s the note:

I’m reaching out to you with a dynamic that has been present since my older daughter was 12 weeks old. She’s now two-and-a-half. After consultations with specialists, ENT, gastroenterology, occupational and physical therapy, we felt like she really was starving herself. At eight months old, we finally figured out that she had oversized adenoids, which forced her to breathe through her mouth and made it nearly impossible to close her mouth to drink from a bottle. While it was so, so helpful to have an answer, I feel like the damage had already been done. I have vivid memories of using a syringe to drop milliliters of formula in her so as to prevent a hospitalization. Feeding for the first year of her life had so clearly been a distressing, traumatizing experience for us all.

While things have gotten better, we have yet to round a corner where eating feels good or even natural for her. Not only is she a very picky eater, but she eats tiny amounts of the foods that she’s willing to eat. Hunger seems like a foreign concept.

Sitting at the table is a success if we can make it last five to 10 minutes. And preparing meals for her, trying to get her to eat is such a battle that it’s my least favorite part of the day. I know that she can pick up on this and that it is definitely contributing to our ongoing cycle. What I’m doing is not working. Some weeks are better than others, but it doesn’t seem to correlate to anything that we’re doing as parents.

Here’s what we’ve tried: At our best, we feel motivated and energized to expose her to different foods even though she won’t eat them and try to make mealtime as routine and fun as possible, and play music she likes. All of us sit down together and eat the same thing without putting too much focus on how much she’s actually eating. Other times I find myself offering her the same exact foods that she’s eaten in the past in an effort to get some, any, calories in her.

At my worst, I feel desperate or I’m noticing a trend towards less and less intake or feel like she is losing weight, I will resort to bribing and rewarding her for eating. “If you eat growing foods, then we can have a treat. If you have one more bite of oatmeal, then we can watch something.” I know this isn’t right. It doesn’t ever feel right and it certainly doesn’t feel sustainable, but I still feel so worried about making sure she eats enough food that backing off and relinquishing control feels nearly impossible.

Ellyn Satter:  Yeah. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  And she’s worried. She says: “I’m worried I’ve already caused so much damage that it’s irreversible or if I don’t keep pushing, she’ll stop eating, lose weight, fall off the growth curve and we’ll be back at square one.”

Ellyn Satter:  Oh dear. Yeah. This whole feeding thing has really taken over their lives. Hasn’t it? I mean, I feel for them all. I mean, there is a lot of misery in that message. This is a complex issue that is not going to respond to simple advice. I mean, we could SDOR (Satter Division of Responsibility), but at her best, the mom is following SDOR and it’s really not addressing the issue. So this is one of those cases that I was telling you about earlier on. If we have time to sit down with somebody and do a complete assessment and to really understand fully what the parents are saying about their history with feeding the child, what they’ve been through, what’s happening now, what are all the forces that are being brought to bear on this situation, and then come up with the treatment plan and then work with them as they move through that treatment plan.

Janet Lansbury:  And your institute does this, right?

Ellyn Satter:  Yes. The institute makes available online coaching to do just this, do the complete assessment, do the treatment plan, and then work with parents as they move through the treatment plan. And yeah, I think this mom is an excellent candidate for that. This is a service that costs money, but I think in comparison with some of the other routes that she’s gone down it is probably something that is accessible.

Janet Lansbury:  And then you have resources that obviously wouldn’t be conducive to helping this parent with what she needs, but you have a lot of resources with information for people that want to learn more about your work and you’ve written books.

Ellyn Satter:  The Ellyn Satter Institute has a website that is just packed with information. If your listeners pull up “Ellyn Satter Institute,” they’re going to get to the website, even if they misspell my first name.

Janet Lansbury:  E-L-L-Y-N.

Ellyn Satter:  Yep. That’s right.

Janet Lansbury:  S-A-T-T-E-R.

Ellyn Satter:  And they can click on “how to feed” and they’re going to find a bunch of 250-word articles about different issues with feeding. If they click on “shop books and videos,” they’re going to find a series of 50-page booklets that are stage-related: the first two years, 18 months through six years, six through 13, and 12 through 18, as well as Feeding Yourself with Love and Good Sense. So those are probably the good starter packages.

Janet Lansbury:  Wonderful. Well, I am so grateful that you are out there doing this incredible work for parents. And your reassuring manner, your empathetic manner is just a, you’re a joy to be with.

Ellyn Satter:  Well, thank you so much, Janet. It has been wonderful to be with you. And I really hope that your listeners will be able to discover the joy of feeding and the joy of eating.

Janet Lansbury:  Thank you. That was so helpful.

Ellyn is the author of “Child of Mine – Feeding with Love and Good Sense” along with scores of other books, videos, and healthy eating guides. Her website (www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/) offers a wealth of resources on not only food, eating, and feeding, but emotional health and positive family relationships as well.

For more advice about common parent-child dynamics please check out the other posts and podcasts on my website: janetlansbury.com. There are many of them, and they’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. And both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play or barnesandnoble.com, and in audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

And if you find this podcast helpful, you can help it to continue by giving it a positive review on iTunes and by supporting my sponsors.

Thank you again, we can do this.

The post Concerned About Your Child’s Eating Habits? Ellyn Satter Has Answers appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Teaching Children to Respect Personal Boundaries by Asserting Our Own”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury, welcome to Unruffled. Today I have a note from the parent of a three-and-a-half-year-old boy who is no longer breastfeeding but still very attached to his mother’s breasts, and this parent is having difficulty preventing her son from grabbing her and poking her, which makes her uncomfortable.

Okay, here’s the email I received:

“Hello, Janet. I have a three-and-a-half-year-old toddler boy. He’s spirited, extroverted and delightful. He’s also obsessed with my breasts. I nursed him until just shy of three. It was a long, slow weaning process. He nursed to sleep and for comfort. We weaned at last without too much trauma, however he’s still clingy and obsessed with my breasts. He loves to snuggle and smush his face into them. Lately, he’s gotten a bit rougher, wrapping his arms around one and trying to squeeze it. He also likes to poke them and laugh, and smash them together with both hands. It’s not fun.

My message all along has been that these are private areas and it’s not okay to do that, while also trying to be understanding and telling him that I will always snuggle him. I don’t want him to feel like I’ve denied him affection ever, but I do want him to stop manhandling me. Oh, and we have tried snugly substitutes like teddy bears, toy babies, but they’re all discarded. Any advice would be so appreciated. Thank you.”

This is a fairly common issue that I hear about, and the advice that I have around this also applies to any kind of personal boundary that we need to set with our children. It could be about the way they’re touching us, climbing on us, poking us, touching our faces. What children need in these situations is clarity, and for various reasons, it can be hard for us to be clear and assert ourselves, to stick up for ourselves, right away, to say “No, uh-uh, no chance, not letting you do that,” and I find this really interesting. What’s going on that is making it difficult for us to prevent our child from physically bothering us?

But first, I want to go to our child’s point of view and what our child needs. Again, clarity. Clarity and a parent who’s confident and convicted in what’s okay, the rules. So in this case, this boy breastfed for an extended time, until he was almost three, and this mother says that he nursed to sleep and for comfort, so he did have the feeling that he needed to do that, and then this mother decided to wean, and she said it was a long, slow weaning. I don’t know what her reasons were for having this be a long, slow process. But as the child, I sense that my parent is uncomfortable. I sense when my parent doesn’t want me to be touching them a certain way, and it can be confusing if the feelings that I’m sensing in my parent don’t match their behavior with me.

In other words, say I’m the child, I feel you don’t like this but you’re not stopping me, or you’re kind of half-stopping me, or you’re trying to talk me out of it instead of stopping me, so I’m kind of stuck in this place of being this person that is annoying to you, and yet you’re not doing anything about it. You’re expecting me to stop.

It’s uncomfortable for a child to be in that position, and it can actually create what … the word this mother uses, which is obsessed, and clinginess, because that is a child getting stuck in the web of our tentativeness and mixed feelings that we have, this mismatch between what they sense from us and what we’re asserting. That’s what makes a child obsessed. It’s just a question that they’re never getting a clear answer to, and they might go further and further to try to get that answer.

Like, maybe this mother wasn’t that sure about the weaning, but then finally she did get to the point where she said, “No, we’re not going to do that,” and I don’t know how long she wanted to do that before she actually asserted her boundary, but regardless, now she says he’s getting even rougher. So he’s asking, Okay, I feel you weren’t really comfortable with me snuggling and smushing my face, but you didn’t stop me, so how about this? 

And he might escalate, which it sounds like he’s doing, to poking and laughing and smashing, and it’s almost like he’s waving these flags, Hey, hello. Are you going to stop me? What does it take for you to be clear with me?

The laughing that she says… it’s not deep joy because children don’t feel that joyful laughter when they’re making their parent uncomfortable. It’s more of an uneasy laughter. It doesn’t feel good inside that child to be that person that’s got all this power.

This mother says, “My message all along has been that these are private areas and it’s not okay to do that, while also trying to be understanding, telling him I will always snuggle him.” I’m not sure what she’s trying to be understanding of, except that he wants to grab her and do those things, but I think that the second part of that sentence, “telling him I will always snuggle him…” That’s the part of her that’s not sure that she has a right to say “Stop, no.” I would, right away, stop his hand before it gets anywhere near her breast, to make sure that he’s going to touch you where you want to be touched, in a manner that you want to be touched, and not allow him to go any further than that by physically stopping him.

He can’t be the one to stop himself.  He’s clearly asking for a message, but the message that she wants to give is not the one she’s giving. So, yes, that’s the message we want him to get, these are private areas and it’s not okay to do that, but that message has to be shown to a child, not explained in words. Explaining in words, along with showing our child is helpful, so we’re not just saying, “No, no, no.” We’re physically stopping our child first. “You want to do this. It’s not okay with me.” That’s all, and that can be something as benign as, for me personally, I don’t like my face being touched unless it’s super gentle. I don’t like my face being patted, so I would stop my child from doing that. Not angrily, but just sticking up for myself. “Uh-uh, no. Yeah, you want to pat. I don’t like that. I’m going to stop you.”

It’s simple if we believe in our right to have boundaries, to be as comfortable as possible with this other person that we’re developing a relationship with, a very important relationship, and also, that our child is capable of processing any feelings of disappointment, or loss of breastfeeding, or whatever feeling a child has about not getting to do what they seem to want to do in that moment. That’s okay, for him to say, “But, no, I want to do this,” or to even feel sad about it. That’s more loving than allowing a child to get stuck and obsessed and feel the confusing mixed message in our tentativeness.

In one of my posts I use the analogy of when we’re dating and there’s someone that we don’t want to date anymore, or maybe we never did want to date, but we’re not comfortable being clear about that, so we might say, “Oh, I’m not free that day,” or, “I have do this,” or, “I can’t do it right now,” or, “I’m still seeing someone else,” all of these things that go around just being clear, and how unkind that is to that person, because they get hooked in. They are, in a sense, falsely encouraged by us making excuses or not putting our foot down and saying no.

Before I had my oldest daughter and had to learn how to have boundaries and to confront, I was a very non-confrontational person, and I would do anything to not have to face those moments, face this person having their feelings hurt, being disappointed, maybe being angry with me, not liking me anymore, because everybody’s got to like me or I’m not okay, because I’m not secure enough in myself.

All those feelings will come up for us when we have children, and children offer us this incredible opportunity to heal them and to be honest, to be direct, and confront. And to see again and again that, yes, there is a reaction that’s uncomfortable for us to witness and to have caused. But what we did was allow for that child to have an emotion that is often more about a theme than about that specific issue, the theme of, oh, I don’t control everything in this world, or other changes are going on in my life that are difficult, releasing that.

We help to create that tipping point for our child to share feelings, and then our child expresses those feelings, and we see a calmer person. We see a child who feels freer, who’s not obsessed, because they got what they needed.

I’ve started to see this as keeping a child in chains because we’re afraid to be clear and honest and to stand up for ourselves, when that’s exactly what a child needs for us to model. Not just in terms of their relationship and their understanding of other people’s boundaries, but in their ability to assert their own. It’s a win-win-win when we’re brave, when we’re that magic word, “Clear.”

So, just going to some of the specifics that this parent mentions… “He loves to snuggle and smush his face.” So when he’s snuggling, keep a hand there, in front of your breast area, so that he doesn’t push into it with the full weight of his head, because he’s going to try everything, not because he’s a naughty guy or a bad person, but because he’s desperate for the clarity. So have your hand there when he’s snuggling, so that he doesn’t cross those lines with you.

She says, “Lately he’s gotten a bit rougher, wrapping his arms around one…” So don’t even let him go there. Pull that arm away or stop it if you can see it coming. Notice, “I see you’re going for that. Uh-uh, buddy. I’m not going to let you do that. I’m right here for you to snuggle, but I don’t want the grabby.”

You’re not just saying the words, you’re firmly blocking that from happening. Not overdoing it, but with a feeling of love for him, and again, understanding that he deserves and needs and wants to know that you have boundaries, and that you’re going to prevent him from annoying you, because he can’t be the one to do that.

So he may get one poke in before you’ve seen that coming, but you take that hand and you hold it back. “You want to poke. I see, there’s those pokey fingers. Uh-uh. It’s not happening.”

The more you can feel so comfortable that you don’t even have to raise your voice, you don’t have to be too serious about it, the more comfortable and clear it will be for him, because that shows: I feel like I’m doing something good here, and I don’t feel like you’re doing anything wrong. I just don’t want it, so I’m going to stop it. I’m not judging you, and I’m not feeling victimized at all. I can handle this. I can protect my body.

So don’t let him poke, don’t let him smash. Don’t let his hands near you unless they are going to your shoulders, going around your waist, going to a place that you want them to go. He does not need to grab your chest. He really doesn’t.

And that’s another important point. Sometimes the breastfeeding is such a powerful tool that parents have that they give it too much power. They forget that, Hey, looking in my child’s eyes, being present with him, or having him sit with me and snuggle me in a way that’s comfortable for me, is just as loving, if not a whole lot more loving, than having him breastfeed.

There’s nothing special or magically connecting for a three-year-old that can’t be replaced by two whole people in a relationship together, loving that snuggle that’s a real snuggle, and not allowing that one that isn’t. That’s love. That’s giving him real intimacy that’s clear and wholehearted on our end, not with mixed feelings. That’s the real deal.

This parent says, “I don’t want him to feel I’ve denied him affection, ever.” Right. Affection is not about breastfeeding. I know that’s going to be a controversial thing to say in some circles. Affection is definitely not about being grabbed or touched in any way that the parent doesn’t want to be. That’s not affection. Affection is making eye contact, seeing that guy that’s … his hands are all over the place, and you love him, and you’re going to stop him, and maybe let him yell at you about that, and then hold him a way that you love and are entirely comfortable in, so he will definitely not feel like you’ve denied him affection. You’ve given it to him in the way that feels affectionate on your end. It’s not affection if it’s just one person trying to get it and the other person doesn’t feel it back.

Maybe this is about reframing what a child needs, reframing affection, reframing love, seeing our child as a whole person, able to participate in a relationship with us. We can’t be a cardboard cutout. To be able to respect him as a whole person, we have to respect ourselves.

She says, “We tried the snugly substitutes.” Yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that those don’t work because that’s not what it’s about for him. It’s not about that he needs to grab something or needs to smush something. It’s really about his relationship with you, that he’s trying to figure out where the lines are. He’s asking this question. He deserves an answer, and this mother’s fully capable of giving it to him.

I really hope that helps.

Both my books are available, as always, on audio at audible.com, No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting . You can get both audio books for free with a 30-day trial membership by using the link in the liner notes of this podcast. You can also get them in paperback at Amazon and in e-book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and apple.com. Oh, and don’t forget to follow me on Instagram: @janetlansbury. (My daughter said to say that.)

Thank you for listening. We can do this.

The post Teaching Children to Respect Personal Boundaries by Asserting Our Own appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

But this post isn’t about the art of food presentation and colorful garnishes (a hilarious thought, really, considering my lack of talent in the kitchen). Instead, I’ve collected some simple suggestions for instilling healthy habits and a positive, mindful approach to eating.

Tummy Wisdom

We’re born with the ability to listen to our tummies, and the key to healthy eating is to keep doing that.  Our job as parents is to ensure that this important message doesn’t get obstructed by extraneous issues like our worries that children aren’t going to eat enough (or at all) without our nudging.

Trust in our children is the key to almost every aspect of parenting, but it’s especially essential at mealtime. Since children take their cues from us, our calm, trusting attitude will keep this channel between our child’s mind and tummy clear.  Present a few healthy options, let go, let your children do the rest, and they will be able to stay in tune with their physical needs for food.

The one thing that the many parents who contact me about food issues have in common – they are acting out of worry rather than trust.

When They’re Done, They’re Done

Remove “clean your plate” from your vocabulary. Don’t coax “just one more bite” or “here comes the airplane!”  Take the safest, most child-centered route by offering small portions and allowing your child to ask for more.

Breasts and Bottles

In the early months we must trust babies to communicate their needs and do our best to tune in and understand. Studies show that it is easier not to overfeed breastfed babies, because they have to suckle to get more milk, and they’ll usually stop as soon as they’re satiated. Bottle feeding requires even more attunement. The safest bet is to pay close attention and not give babies a drop more than they seem to “request.” Never try to overfill babies so that they’ll last longer between feedings.

When introducing solids to babies, be mindful of being responsive, never directive. Always let the child lead. She knows her tummy, you don’t. Even pre-verbal children will let us know when they are hungry and when they’ve had enough — if we make it easy for them. Assure children that you want that information.

Let your child out of her highchair as soon as you receive the slightest signal that she is done. (Consider using a small table and chair or stool to give a toddler more autonomy.)

Toddlers are often picky eaters. Some children remain that way. Even if your child eats next to nothing for a meal or two, trust him. When we panic, problems can begin.

Encourage Attentiveness

Infant specialist Magda Gerber recommended feeding infants on our lap to encourage attunement, attentiveness and intimacy. For the first few years at least, insist that children sit while they eat, whether you are at home, a friend’s house, the park, or anywhere else. This is a simple boundary that children as young as 9 or 10 months can understand and accept as long as you are consistent. Sitting is good manners, it’s safer than playing with food in your mouth, and it encourages focus on eating.

Don’t show TV and videos to get children to eat. This, again, stems from worrying rather than trusting, and it creates the habit of not paying attention to food and his or her own tummy wisdom.

Be attentive to children whenever they eat so that they can stay focused, relaxed and refueled by both the food and your connection. This is the best way to enable continued “tummy listening” and will pave the way for togetherness at mealtimes for years to come.

Eryn shared her experience:

Just finished lunch with my two-year-old and wanted to say a big THANK YOU for the encouragement to make meals a time of connecting, with zero distractions or agenda about what gets eaten, firm boundaries around leaving the table, throwing food, etc. Carving out the time to eat together this way is easier said than done, but the effect is that mealtimes are going to be some of my favorite memories of this age with my son!

For more, you might wish to check out the “feeding” and “mealtimes” sections here on my website.

I also recommend the book: French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon.

Thank you, Eryn, for sharing your story and photo!

(Adapted from an article originally published on eHow)

The post Giving Children the Gift of Healthy Eating appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

So, thanks again to all of you who have allowed me to share in the past, and to Fernanda for this recent message exchange:

Hi Janet, I’m hoping to find a respectful solution to help my baby (8 months) take the bottle again. She used to drink occasionally from it, and she eventually got up to a few bottles a day. Then one day she stopped. I’ve tried and considered everything (temperature, levels of fatigue, levels of hunger, sippy cup, open cup, you name it). I go back to work soon, and I’m afraid that she won’t receive the proper nutrition. We use the baby led weaning, and she doesn’t really eat that much. I am also scared that in order to compensate for the missed nursing sessions during the day she will cluster feed evenings and nights. I have two other kids to tend to, and one of them still very young. While I’m still at home and available, I’d like to know she is able to take formula milk from others, but it’s just not happening. I am failing at every try. Hope you have some suggestions for me.

Thanks!
Fernanda

ME: Talk to her about it. Hear whatever feelings she has and confront them honestly. Share with her what needs to happen, but mostly just acknowledge and hear her feelings.

FERNANDA: I truly do. I tell her I know she doesn’t want to take the bottle, and I explain the reasons why it’s important, but I’m afraid her nutrition will be affected.

ME: Spend more time hearing the feelings and don’t do more explaining. “You are saying a big ‘no’ to this! This way of drinking feels different to you.” If it’s formula: “And it also tastes different, doesn’t it?” Very calmly and patiently hold that space for her. You have to be trusting and calm. Believe in her ability to do this and give her time.

FERNANDA: Thank you, I will try phrasing it like that.

ME: You’re welcome. And you could certainly say more if she continues resisting and expressing her displeasure. This is about really allowing her to share all her feelings and being comfortable with that — so comfortable that you are actually encouraging her to share her resistance. You’re not just saying words.

FERNANDA: OMG Janet. She just had two ounces with me. I held her and said the words you mentioned. I told her she didn’t like it and she felt it was different. I said, “I listen to you and know this is not what you want.” I kept repeating and allowing some crying time. And then she just took it and drank it all. You just saved my sanity. I will try to do this once a day and will then teach my husband and our baby sitter to follow the same guidelines.

ME: Woohoo! You are now communicating person to person. That’s why it works. She wants to be understood and allowed to have her opinion. She has a right to share how much she doesn’t like this idea and that she doesn’t want to try something different, right?

She just wants to be able to tell you that. And you’ve heard her. This is actually the secret to parenting. So, now you have it.

***

To learn more about this respectful approach to infant care, I recommend:

Your Self–Confident Baby by Magda Gerber and Allison Johnson

Dear Parent: Caring for Infants With Respect by Magda Gerber

Pikler Bulletin #14 by Dr. Emmi Pikler

My book: Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting 

And these blogs:

Home

http://www.regardingbaby.org/blog/

http://peacefulparentconfidentkids

http://letthechildrenplay.net

http://respectfulcaregiving.org

My posts, especially When We Need Our Child to Cooperate, How Respect Makes Parenting Easier, and How to Talk to Your Newborn

My youtube channel

(Photo by Donnie Ray Jones on Flickr)

The post When Your Baby Won’t Take a Bottle (A Respectful Solution) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

‘Unbusy’ your head and ‘unbusy’ your body. Be fully there, interested only in your baby for that time. I believe it is healthy for any child to get this genuine interest.

 Approaching caregiving as quality time with your infant will give you more enjoyable time together, and will give him the feeling that you value your time together, which affirms for your infant his value as a person.”                                    

                                    – Magda Gerber, Dear Parent: Caring for Infants With Respect

THE CHALLENGE (It applies to bottle feeding, too!)

Following Magda Gerber’s advice to “take the phone off the hook” and avoid other distractions while breastfeeding was a challenge for me when my kids were little. But when Magda helped me to see that my baby was a sentient, aware person, I realized how much paying attention mattered, particularly during our interactions involving touch and physical intimacy. Our babies are inclined to accept whatever we offer them — it’s all they know — but they undoubtedly feel the difference between a present and a distracted parent. This isn’t to say that as a nursing mom I was a model of focused attention at all times, but I was cognizant of the ideal, so I made an effort to rise to the occasion as much as possible.

I’ve often tried to imagine what that challenge would be like today with the ultra-engaging distractions of technology. I’d like to think I’d still be able to do prioritize staying present with my infants for hours of nursing each day, but I’m thankful that I wasn’t put to that test.

So, although I’ll always believe in the power of our presence and recommend it to parents, I’ll never judge them for not getting on board (or off their devices) entirely. All that said, I was truly surprised by the suggestion Hannah posted in a Facebook discussion group:

“Breastfeeding challenge! No looking at the phone while nursing! One week. Who’s with me? (Surely, I can’t be the only nursing mom here who struggles with this?) My idea is that folks who want in can say so here, and then in a week we can check in and see how we’ve done, what it felt like, etc. My mom, who knows nothing about Magda Gerber’s RIE approach, said to me tonight, ‘You shouldn’t check your phone so much when you’re nursing. The baby can sense it.’ Ouch. Time to make a change.”

I was even more astonished when Hannah’s challenge was answered with a chorus of, “I’m in!” with varying levels of enthusiasm and confidence.

“I have been sort of forced to do this because my 8- month- old unlatches to look at the screen repeatedly!”

“I am in! was thinking about it for some time, needed some motivation. Thanks!”

“Ah, hesitantly, I am in! I will read a book once she is asleep. Thanks for this!”

“I’ve struggled so much with this! I got in the habit in those early sleep-deprived days because I was terrified of falling asleep and smothering the baby! (PPD and PPA certainly didn’t help). Lately I’ve been obsessively reading news and just feeling upset and frustrated by it. It’s time to commit to putting the phone away during these important caregiving times. I want to be mindful and present with my children instead of dwelling in fear about current events.”

“OK bring it on (games on the iPad are my distraction).”

“Totally in, but when am I going to get a chance to scroll through these comments?”

ENCOURAGEMENT

There were also encouragers like Alyssa, who mentioned a post of mine from several years ago,”There’s a Person on Your Breast,” which wasn’t overwhelmingly well received at that time (to say the least). “This article is what finally broke my phone habit a few months ago. You can do it!!!” she shared.

Others chimed in:

“I stopped phone reading and FB while breastfeeding my youngest (when I found this group, which was probably while breastfeeding). While I missed the time to read and learn. I benefited from the calming effects of being mindful and aware. It was great!

“Just breastfed my 7-week-old in bed without my phone and it was sooooo peaceful, so I am definitely in!”

“Best choice I made was no distractions during nursing time with my son. Number 2 is almost due and I will do the same, but it will be harder this time I bet.”

Another parent shared her experience and a tip: “I was bad about this in the beginning until I learned that RIE discourages it. I stopped and it really wasn’t difficult. If you can’t reach your phone, it’s very easy to avoid.”

Others agreed:

“This is key! Put the phone far away!”

“You can do it!!! I broke my phone while nursing habit a few months ago, which, after nursing 3 babies before this one, was wellllllll entrenched. it’s doable! Putting the phone where you can’t reach it is important!”

DEFINING ‘PRESENCE’

Then Hannah, the original poster, asked, “Should we make an exception for when the baby is sleeping while nursing?”

Magda Gerber associate Lisa Sunbury weighed in: “The baby feels your emotional presence and attention or lack thereof, even if his eyes are closed. If your baby isn’t actively nursing, and is asleep, put him down. You want to practice being present during nursing, even if baby’s eyes are closed.”

Kate Russell, whose blog is inspired by Magda Gerber, concurred: “I have made the mistake of occasionally using my phone during nursing when my baby has her eyes closed but what I found was that I stopped tuning in to her. I stopped noticing her patterns of sucking during feeding. I would over nurse and not realize she had finished feeding and was then just dummy sucking. It’s astounded me how much I have learned about my baby during those feeding times and I definitely feel a connection with her even when her eyes are closed. It’s such an intimate act that it really does deserve our full attention.”

Sophie shared her personal concern: “This might sound paranoid but I’ll share anyway. With my first daughter, I always fed and looked at my phone. She wasn’t a great sleeper until she weaned at 7 months. I didn’t think much of it. Then with my second I did the same until she was about 2 months old when I thought how interesting it was that so many babies these days don’t seem to sleep as well as my mum remembers our generation sleeping back when there was no Wi-Fi. As soon as I had this thought it frightened me. Their little skulls are so underdeveloped, so of course they would be absorbing more radio waves than we would. Even cell phones advise that they be used at a distance of 30 cm from the skull! I found plenty of conflicting articles out there when I started researching, but I went with my gut and stopped feeding with my phone. I noticed a difference in her sleep almost immediately, plus all the other benefits of offering her my complete presence during a feed. I’ll never go back!!
Good luck ladies!”

I weighed in as well. “I define ‘presence’ while nursing or feeding a little differently. For me, what matters is our mindful presence… our availability and complete openness to our child. We could do this with our eyes closed and not actually be observing. In other words, the parent does not have to be so active in this exchange.”

OUR AWARE BABIES

Several had already noticed evidence of their baby’s high awareness and desire for connection.

 “I nurse my 10-month-old in her quiet nursery, in low light and away from her bubbly, bouncy older sister, so that she will actually nurse. Otherwise, she is just too distracted and awed by life to bother with nursing in the day time (but then she is up all night nursing!). I’ve been tempted a few times to bring my phone with me to nurse, but it’s like she has a sixth sense! The second I lift it up to look at something on my phone, she stops nursing and looks at me like, ‘Ok, mom, I’m feeling like not 110% of your attention is on me!’ She keeps me connected! Besides, is there any better feeling than just staring down at your nursing baby, snuggled up in your arms and knowing that at that moment, the only place in the whole world she wants to be is right there, snuggled up in the warmth of your arms?”

 “My son is also 10 months and he does the exact. Same. Thing. Mostly if it’s naptime or bedtime. He will refuse to go to sleep if I’m on my phone.”

“I just tried it – just as a practice for tomorrow. My baby was all occupied with nursing, and after a couple of minutes my hand wandered off to grab my phone without me even noticing! But I stopped myself. And then this 3-month-old baby just grabbed my finger and held it tightly, as if he wanted to help.”

PROGRESS

Hannah checked in a couple days later. “How’s everyone doing?”

“Day one down. How’d it go? I managed to get through it. Even though my girl picked up my phone and handed it to me. ‘Here’s your phone mommy!’ Saboteur!”

“I find this extremely liberating. I do not even miss the stupid phone-FB-whatever-I-was-doing! Like shaking a bad habit, which this so truly is.”

“I’m in. I actually put the phone away last night and just watched my 2.5-year-old. It was actually really sweet and he kept giving me gorgeous big smiles. Totally worth it! It’s really nice to have these quiet moments! Even though I get itchy fingers sometimes and want to pick up the phone!”

“Still haven’t used my phone! Feeling very pleased with myself. My partner gave me my phone at one stage and that was hard to leave it beside me but I did it.”

“Doing great. I really appreciate the time to sit still, take a break from horrible news media, appreciate my baby, zone out a bit even.”

“I’m doing well with it. It’s a habit I excused for myself because my daughters both looked off another way when nursing but my son make eye contact a ton. I feel good doing this connecting thing, which he deserves.”

I offered a clarification:

“I just want to reiterate that this is not necessarily about eye contact at all. It’s about being present and available. We can close our eyes and still be present, and available to our child. Maybe think of this as a kind of time-out from other concerns of the day… a few moments to bask in gratitude for our baby and the ability to feed him or her.”

Others commented:

“This is what I have discovered entering Day Three of my phoneless nursing. I am resting more, taking advantage of the natural relaxation that comes with nursing hormones. In turn, my baby is resting better too.”

“Good point. I love the eye contact because, you know, cute baby eyes (of someone I love). But closing my eyes while singing and nursing for my toddler at bedtime always felt better than being mentally distracted.”

“I’m getting a little antsy when the breastfeeding session goes longer than I’m expecting. I’m especially finding it hard at night. I’ve been trying to sit up and feed rather than lying in bed so that I can make sure my baby gets enough, plus safe sleeping, etc., but it’s sooooo much harder when I can’t use my phone to keep me awake or distract me from my exhaustion.”

OBSERVATIONS

When parents were able to keep their eyes open, they noticed how beneficial their observations could be for their baby’s feedings and sleep:

“Never had my mobile with me when I breastfed my first, but this time around my 7-week-old has been thoroughly neglected in that respect. And I’ve been feeling terrible about it. When I don’t have my phone, the feeds are also much more efficient, I suppose because I’m paying attention and making whatever changes are needed.”

“I find this too. When I don’t have my phone, she’s finished much quicker.”

“Yes, and I find less discomfort and vomiting if I remember to pull him off for a few seconds with the first big letdown (I have extremely fast flow) and in the night and morning the second let down too, which means less changing and quicker resettles and ultimately more sleep for me!”

“I had a couple of failed feedings as well, but this thread keeps coming back. And every feeding is another chance. It helps to look for advantages. She drinks more active and calmer.”

Hannah shared:

“First couple of days were pretty good but not perfect for me. But I noticed some things. First of all, my daughter has the softest little head. Okay, I knew that before but I got to touch it more than usual these last few days. Second, I noticed that I space out a lot but even with those space-outs I am more present more of the time than when I have my phone on. Third, I have been a bit more patient with getting the breastfeeding session started and I actually discovered that my daughter can latch all by herself really well. It had been a two person job before but now I see that, as long as she is in more or less the right position, she can do it all by herself. And it is painless! Fourth, I actually get a weird feeling in my gut when I reach for my phone. It passes when I don’t actually pick it up. It probably passes when I do pick it up. Anyway, I’m going to watch that one. I think it is related to the addiction somehow. Go team!”

Hannah later gave this update:

“I posted another question, after (and seemingly unrelated to) this one, about infant sleep (schedules, getting baby to sleep on her own). The responses were fantastic, and they made me see that there is no magic bullet to helping a baby to fall asleep on her own–it takes a lot of observation and communication, and maybe a bit of experimentation. The guest blog on Janet’s site by Alice Callahan made me realize this as well. I have been trying to observe my daughter more, and to experiment with letting her fall asleep on her own when that seems possible–looking for little openings, for example, after she nurses a bit when she is awake and in my arms. Anyway, I mention all this here because it occurred to me that all this observation–which seems like the absolute basis for getting the baby to fall asleep on her own–is impossible when I am on the phone.”

RESULTS

A week later, Hannah asked, “How’d we do?”

Erin: “If I were my daughter, I’d say, ‘I did it!!! All. By. My. Self!!!’”

Haritha: “A couple slip ups. But we nursed longer, more often, and with less gas for ditching the cell phone!”

Jaclyn: “I did it too! I think I’m going to make it a permanent thing! It was easier than I thought.”

Nell: “Yup, had a couple slip ups as well but overall I think it’s a permanent change!”

Hannah: “Awesome. Permanent change for me too. Now it seems crazy that I was nursing her with my phone in hand!”

Kimberly: “The new habit has formed!”

Shaleen: “Permanent change for me too. I’ve felt restless a few times, but overall it’s been a beautiful, mindful experience. I love looking at him and feeling him heavy and relaxed in my arms. Now I need to work on letting go of the guilt that I may have harmed him and my daughter before I made this change.
Thanks for initiating the challenge!”

Megan: “I’m on Day Four. A couple of slips but enjoying the extra closeness.”

Becky: “Yay everyone! I also had a few slip ups, but I’m using my phone less over all, which I’m very happy about!”

Erin: “I support it. I’ll admit I’ve used my phone a couple of times since the first 2 or so weeks without but it’s only for quick looks and it’s given me the desire to keep it out of my hands more in general.”

Jaclyn: “I’ve maintained it 99%. If I do get my phone, it’s to turn it down so I can’t hear the notifications.”

Megan: “I’ve turned my phone on silent and mainly use it to send a cheeky message to DH in the other room if I need a cup of tea or help with the transfer etc. I still occasionally sneak a look, but I’ve been singing more, reading and telling stories and just looking at my baby. DH has also been singing which is something new for him. It’s made bedtimes a bit more special. I’ve been wondering about making it really magical with a candle too.”

Libby: “I think it’s a challenge which should be shared far and wide! I have made huge improvements (with some slips ups and some really difficult times requiring constantly holding my 10-week-old and sick 3-year-old and, therefore, I decided that some chores and research really had to be done despite it taking my focus from bub) and most of all, am just very conscious of the full extent of what I’m doing when I pick up my phone during breastfeeding. It’s now occasional rather than routine. I’d love to say I’m doing even better than that but I’m also trying not to be too hard on myself – another challenge! Thanks everyone for all the motivating posts. Rereading them had a great impact too.”

Tulka: “I’ve managed the whole week, even though TV was on in the evenings. But am prepared to go on, because it gave me some great moments of sheer joy to watch my baby latched. They are beautiful when they drink and are in sort of trance and as their eyes are closing just before they enter the Land of Dreams.”

Leshia: “This is harder than a New Year’s resolution, but so worth it. Thank you.”

Are you up for the challenge?

Thank you all for allowing me to share your comments!

For more about Magda Gerber’s approach, I recommend: Dear Parent: Caring for Infants With Respect and Your Self-Confident Baby… and also my book: Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting:

I also recommend Magda Gerber’s website and Lisa Sunbury’s blog at regardingbaby.org

The post The Breastfeeding Challenge appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Research Supports RIE’s Infant Feeding Practices

“You have to finish what’s on your plate before you can have dessert.” It’s something that many of us likely heard as children, and have possibly even used with our own kids. Wanting our children to learn not to be wasteful (or ungrateful) with their food is understandable, but it turns out that ultimatums like this may have some unintended, and possibly lasting negative, consequences.

Parenting Style & Self-Regulation

The ways in which we interact with our children, our parenting style, has the broadest influence on a child’s behavior because it creates the emotional climate within which practices can be accepted or rejected by the child¹.

Parents, and the ways in which they interact with their child, influence the development of self-regulation, the ability of a child to govern him/herself, in very specific ways². Studies have shown that self-regulated children have parents who show positive versus negative emotion^3-5, who are accepting (not dismissing) of their children’s emotional expression^6,7, and who are not overly controlling of their children’s behavior^8,9. These are many of the basic principles of RIE, championed by Magda Gerber, which teaches parents to be responsive to their child’s needs using sensitive observation, to be fully engaged in activities when the child indicates readiness otherwise letting their children explore and play freely, and to be consistent in their behavior, clearly defining limits and expectations to develop discipline.

The Link to Health Eating Habits

Healthy self-regulation is key to healthy eating habits in children. Certain types of behavioral feeding practices, which are often closely linked to parenting style, have been shown to diminish a child’s ability to self-regulate food intake. Over time, this inability to self-regulate (to listen to internal cues of hunger and satiety) can lead to overeating, eating in the absence of hunger, and ultimately to health consequences like overweight and obesity: parents’ short term food goals end up having lasting and negative consequences down the road.

Specifically, numerous studies have shown that highly directive and/or controlling feeding practices are linked to lower self-regulation and higher weight status among children^10,11.Children who are instructed to “clean their plates” tend to be less responsive to energy density cues than children who were taught to focus on internal cues of hunger and fullness¹², and in general children whose parents were more focused on external cues of consumption, rather than trusting their children’s ability to accurately identify feelings of fullness, had lower self-regulation and greater eating in the absence of hunger^13,14. Low maternal support (which measured four dimensions of emotional support using the Relational Support Inventory[1])

The post Parenting To Prevent Childhood Obesity (Guest Post by Kiyah Duffey) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

I am beyond excited to have found your blog Janet, and this debate has been so revealing for me. My daughter is almost 1 year old and I have been practicing Attachment Parenting because it has made sense to me. This blog is my first more formal introduction to Magda Gerber‘s approach and I am having a huge A-HA moment! Thank you so much, I can’t wait to learn more about this thinking and approach. I have a question I wonder if you would address. From Magda’s approach how does a parent approach changing a pattern that has been set into place?

In our case I have gotten my daughter into being solely dependent on my breast during the nighttime hours. She still wakes several times every night and “needs” to have my breast to calm and return to sleep – sometimes this return to deep sleep happens INSTANTLY, and other times she actually nurses although she is usually in a certain level of sleep the whole time. That is to say, she is rarely truly awake. If I do not give her the breast she wakes fully and is soon screaming until she is returned to the breast. She always quickly returns to deep sleep after being put to the breast. Although most of the hours of our nights are spent in sleep, I am tired of waking so many times in the night, every night, and can clearly see that this is a pattern that I have created. But how to change it? Thankfully, I have not been so indiscriminate in daytime hours, although I have used the breast to comfort when I might have paid attention differently and tried other methods.

I am fascinated by human development and with the parenting process, so I can’t wait to start using Magda’s insights to help me parent better.

Thanks in advance for any help! Megan

          Hi Megan,

First, I just want to mention that the pattern you recognize (so astutely) you’ve created is a version of what most of us do — a perfectly understandable response to our baby’s cries, especially during the night. A baby’s cries are heart-wrenching for us to hear, designed by Nature to arouse us from a deep sleep. We are inclined to believe that every cry is a call to immediate resolution, and breastfeeding (or a pacifier) can appear to be the immediate answer. Our instincts tell us to make the crying stop, rather than to support our baby’s emotional health by hearing, acknowledging and understanding cries before we act.  Crying babies make us feel like bad parents.

When babies cry in my parent/infant classes for whatever reason, I try to reassure parents that crying is allowed here, and that a baby’s cries are not a judgment against them — quite the contrary. It takes a brave and enlightened parent to remain calm, listen to their baby cries and offer an attuned, accurate response. Babies cry to communicate a variety of needs – and sometimes the need is to complain, or otherwise express feelings that the parent cannot necessarily “fix”.

Struggles at bedtime are particularly difficult for parents to endure. We’re tired and weary, and keeping the peace at night — getting everyone back to sleep as quickly and easily as possible — is a priority. We nurse, rock, use a pacifier…whatever it takes.

Some babies will eventually transition on their own to un-aided sleep, but most want to continue (and continue, and continue) going to sleep the way they are used to…who can blame them? And if the arrangement is comfortable for the parents, and the baby seems to be functioning well during the day, there’s little reason to make a change.

But you are an insightful mom (and tired), and you sound ready to help your baby find a new pattern. The great news is that babies are extremely adaptable, and once we commit to changing a habit of any kind and project confidence in our decision (the most important element for success) babies usually only need a few days to make a transition. I only wish that I could tell you it will be seamless and soundless!

Actually, helping our child change habits of any kind is usually much easier than we imagine it will be, once we are sure that the change is best for all concerned.  But if we (our child’s leader) are tentative, uneasy or uncertain, it is much more difficult for the child to transition comfortably. Children sense our ambivalence a mile away.

So, first make a plan and proceed with confidence. Since your baby has become accustomed to many feedings, I suggest reducing them gradually, one at a time. 

Then, give your baby a little preparation in advance. Magda Gerber encouraged parents to talk honestly to babies about changes in their routines (and every other aspect of their lives, for that matter) and to include them in the process. “Tonight, if you wake up, we won’t be having milk each time. I want you to go back to sleep, so you get a really good rest.”

Believe your baby capable of falling asleep independently with your support rather than worrying, or pitying her.

Then do less, and allow your baby to do more. Instead of nursing in the night, you might stroke your baby and talk softly, allow her feelings to be expressed and acknowledge them. “I hear you. You want milk to help you sleep and you’re upset. It’s time to go back to sleep. You can do it.” And she really and truly can with your support and belief in her.

For more support and information about crying and emotional health, sleep, and changing patterns, I highly recommend these articles:

Allowing Crying Without Crying It Out on Natural Parents Network  by Suchada Eickemeyer, another Attachment Parenting enthusiast who has been recently introduced to and inspired by RIE.

Emotional Health And Development Of Self-Esteem In Infants by Roseann Murphy at Little River School Online

Interview With Aletha Solter On Crying And High-Needs Infants at Aware Parenting.com

      Changing Toddler Sleep Habits and Baby’s “No Cry” Sleep Is Exhausting, guest posts here by sleep specialist Eileen Henry

I love your enthusiasm for Magda’s approach, and I’ll do all I can to help.

Warmly,

 Janet

The post Breastfeeding For Comfort (The All-Night Diner) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

I recently read a post that stimulated a lively discussion. The author’s point: a photo of a woman breastfeeding should not be considered intimate — “intimate” implies something private and sexual. Although breastfeeding can be a tender time of bonding, it’s often “just a meal”.  It should be openly engaged in anywhere and not necessarily given special attention, or any attention. “Although I did stare into my son’s eyes and kiss his fingers and yes, cry, while he nursed, I also read books and magazines, fooled around on Facebook, watched TV and was downright bored.”

Commenters disagreed with the author about the term ‘intimate’ connoting sexuality, but most concurred that while breastfeeding can be a time of love and intimacy, it is just as often “servicing” a baby. “Fast food”, one mom called it.

‘Intimate’ is not just a sexual word in my book (or the dictionary for that matter), and there’s no getting around the fact that breastfeeding is a physically intimate activity.  My point (and infant expert Magda Gerber’s belief ): babies need it to be emotionally intimate, too. That doesn’t mean we have to be behind closed doors, staring in each other’s eyes. But it does mean being present, whether we’re feeling bored, tired, impatient or lonely, whether our eyes are open or closed, whether we’re in the middle of a shopping mall, on a bus stop bench, or cozy in our chair at home.  Our baby needs us to share the experience, to include him, not be somewhere else.

What disturbs me is not a mom’s choice to make a particular feeding session “just a meal”.  It is the assumption that our choice makes no difference to a baby.  There is a perception implicit in this particular discussion, elsewhere on the web, and pervasive in our culture that babies are not as conscious and aware as you and me. They are not fully present, not quite real people yet. I once had this view myself, so I understand it. But, in fact, recent studies like the ones reported in Jonah Lehrer’s  Wired Science – The Frontal Cortex show that babies are even more aware than we are, because they lack the neurological ability older children and adults have to tune out stimuli.

What is our baby thinking when we’re watching TV or on Facebook while he’s sucking away?  Does he feel valued…or totally insignificant? How might our inattention affect his self-worth?  Granted, it is easy to underestimate and ignore a person who has very limited communication abilities. Babies can’t ask for our attention. They accept what we give and come to expect it, but isn’t that all the more reason to give them the benefit of any doubt?

Our baby is new to the world, and every moment we spend touching and holding him is a lesson about intimacy, about what it means to be in a relationship with another.  We don’t have to be a perfect parent — stuff happens, and we can’t always be attentive while we feed our baby. We just have to perceive our baby as a person, a partner, and have the good intention to include him whether it works out each time or not. That might mean acknowledging, “I’m sorry, I’m so tired that I’m going to close my eyes while you drink, but I love you.” Or, “It’s loud and distracting here, I know. “  Or even, “Just let me accept this friend request and I’ll be right back with you.”

The author of the post, who created her site “because of her passionate commitment to breastfeeding”, and others are admirably spreading the word that breastfeeding is the optimal choice for mothers and should be openly accepted and encouraged by society. I share her concern that the notion of attentive feeding can be intimidating and overwhelming for new moms, who may be struggling to establish breastfeeding, needing to do whatever it takes to get through the early months.  But the issue is not about being perfectly attentive every time. It’s an attitude. It’s making those times when we’re distracted the exception, so our babies can learn that physical and emotional intimacy belong together.

***

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