Small children are notorious for being picky eaters, but some say that you may have an impact on just how picky your child is. Eating a healthy, varied diet during pregnancy, and continuing to eat various healthy foods during the first year of life, if you are nursing, exposes your child to many different flavors and encourages acceptance of new flavors and foods later on.
During pregnancy, your baby is fed nutrients through the umbilical cord. At the same time, the amniotic fluid, which surrounds the baby, takes on the flavor of the foods you eat. Even though your baby isn’t technically ingesting the amniotic fluid the way you ingest food, she is constantly swallowing it and tasting the same flavors that you do. You have a huge impact on your child’s palette.
Likewise, if you choose to nurse your child, your breast milk will take on the flavors of the foods you eat. Certain flavors come through stronger than others, such as onion, garlic or mint. Some flavors will take longer to enter the breast milk that others, and certain flavors will hang around longer as well. Some flavors, like banana, don’t seem to register at all.
It’s interesting to look back on my diet during my pregnancy and compare it to my son’s likes and dislikes today. Some things match up and some things don’t. When I was pregnant, I noticed that I always felt a flurry of movement after eating an apple. I always wondered if my son would get as excited about apples once he started eating solids. He does enjoy apples, but not nearly as much as he loves bananas. He also really likes many different vegetables. Vegetables are something that I ate a lot of during pregnancy because I was trying to get most of my nutrients naturally, rather than through vitamins. It’s possible he developed a taste for vegetables in the womb. His love for beef is definitely not reflected in my pregnancy diet; it was one of my aversions. He doesn’t like milk despite the fact it was one of my cravings.
I think the most important thing to take out of this is that variety is what is important, rather than specific foods or flavors. If you eat a nice variety of foods, your child will get used to experiencing new flavors on a regular basis, and will be less resistant to trying new foods when he or she is older. I’m also inclined to believe that your diet while nursing has a bigger impact than your diet during pregnancy.
Have your kids picked up on any of your favorite foods? Are they picky eaters? Do you think that correlates to your pregnancy or nursing diet (if applicable)?