When my daughter was younger, my husband worked very long hours and since I was a stay at home mom, going to school part time and spending the majority of my time with her – I used to let her eat on demand. I did this when she was nursing, drinking bottles and finally when she was on solids. I received a lot of well-meaning advice from people that said I needed to set her on a rigid feeding schedule – but the one thing I knew about my daughter is that I could schedule our days pretty well – but rigidly telling her to eat when she wasn’t hungry was like telling a mountain to move when there wasn’t an earthquake.
It Will Spoil Their Appetite
The problem with being too rigid on when you feed your kids is not that your child won’t be hungry and not that you can’t fix them something they like – it’s that they may be more hungry at some times than they are at others. For years, my daughter never ate first thing in the morning – even after she was on solids, when she first woke up, she didn’t want to eat.
She would drink, either breast milk, some formula, regular milk and eventually juice – but she didn’t eat. Until the last year (she’s now 6) she didn’t eat at all first thing in the morning. She needed to be awake an hour or two before she would express any interest in food. When she was teething hard, I used to give her frozen egos to chew on and she would decimate them. But it wasn’t from eating them, it was the cold that she liked and the hardness to help with his teething.
Learning Experiences
Snacking is a learning experience for our babies, especially once they achieve solid foods. They like to explore the texture, the taste and more. Snacking also gives babies some control over feeding themselves – something any mom can tell you that they want. Babies are also very orally oriented and snacking gives them gratification orally.
The biggest trick to letting your baby snack is to avoid using food as a crutch – i.e. giving them a snack because they are bored or they are upset. It’s like saying, I’m sorry you’re disappointed – eat a cookie. I’m sorry you have nothing to do, try this toast. These are bad habits to begin teaching our children – using food as comfort instead of what it is there for – nourishment.
One of the best ideas I used for snacking with my daughter was keeping the snacks healthy, but monitoring them in the sense that she could have something every couple of hours or so – but nothing in the hour before an actual meal time. This let her eat as she pleased, but still let us schedule our regular meal times so that she got to enjoy eating with us.
Our schedule for eating is still pretty flexible – the only meal we eat on a dedicated schedule is dinner – it’s a time that we can all be together. Our daughter grazes still and she still prefers healthier snacks to junk food and more.
Do you let your baby snack?
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