Understand your child’s development and temperament
During the first 2 years, you and your child go through 3 stages in development. Knowing these stages helps you to understand and trust your child and parent in the best way.
Newborn: the first 8–12 weeks
Your baby does best with being calm and alert when you do what he needs you to do. He comes out of a quiet, dark place into a world full of sights and sounds. To eat well, he needs your help to not be upset by all of the commotion. He shows signs that tell you when he needs to wake up, to sleep, to eat, and to stop eating. Watch for those signs, and do what he needs. You will not spoil him. You cannot spoil a tiny baby.
Infant: 2–6 months
Your baby is learning to love. You show her you love her by feeding when and how she wants to eat. She still needs help being awake and calm during feeding, but now her main task is bonding with you. You talk and smile, she talks and smiles back, and you keep it going. Or she starts it. When she gets tired or too excited, she looks away. Wait and be quiet—don’t chase her, and don’t wander off—and she will come back for more! Again, do not worry about spoiling her. You cannot spoil a little baby.
Older baby: 5–9 months
Your older baby is interested in things, and he wants to see what is going on around him. This is the start of separation-individuation. He loves you as much as ever and wants you near, but it is not just the two of you anymore. He will suddenly sit up and look around in the middle of a nipple-feeding. He drains a bottle or breast in a hurry—he has things to do! Your introducing him to solid food goes right along with his interest in things.
Almost-toddler: 7–15 months
Your almost-toddler cares deeply about doing it herself. One day, she will suddenly refuse the spoon, grab at it, and refuse foods she has enjoyed before. She will be happiest—and you will too—if you let her feed herself. Let her use her fingers as best she can. Do not try to feed her, or she will fuss and not eat. She is not being naughty. She still loves you and needs you. She still likes the food. In fact, if you let her feed herself, she will eat almost anything.
Toddler: 11–24 months and beyond
Your toddler learns to be part of the family at the same time as he can still be his own little person. Instead of dropping everything to feed him as you did when he was a baby, establish structure. He can learn to wait a bit to eat so he can join in with family meals. But don’t let him wait too long or get too hungry. Give him sit-down snacks between meals. Since he will likely change suddenly from being a happy-to-eat-anything almost-toddler to a picky toddler, you may think there is something wrong. There isn’t. He is just being a toddler.
Don’t forget to have fun!
Enjoy your child, cultivate your curiosity, and take pleasure from watching him grow up. Do not get caught in an agenda for what or how your child will eat or how he will grow, or it will spoil your fun. Do your jobs, then relax. Trust your child to do his part with eating, moving, and growing.
If your child was prematurely born
It is harder for a premature baby to become and stay calm and alert. What happened in the hospital was upsetting for her. On top of that, her nervous system is still not quite mature. It takes time, but you can get on her wavelength with feeding.
Her developmental stages will come along later and more slowly. She will master her sleeping and waking, learn to love, and insist on being her own little person the same as any other child. She will just take longer to move from one stage to the next.
If your child was (is) ill or has special needs
The advice in this booklet applies to you and your child. You can still trust your child to learn and grow. Her developmental stages may come along later and she may master each stage more slowly, but they will come along and she will master them. You may be told that she can’t regulate her food intake and won’t grow up with eating like other children, but that is simply not true. You can trust her and follow a division of responsibility in feeding her. At the same time as you must be attentive to medical, developmental, and oral-motor issues, your feeding challenges will mostly come about because your child is a child, not because she has special needs.
Your child’s temperament
Your baby was born with a certain temperament. You do not cause him to be that way. Get to know him and let yourself love him just the way he is. Understanding his temperament helps you be more patient with him—and with yourself! Keep in mind that he will not always be that way! If you do a good job with feeding, your slow-to-warm-up baby will become more flexible, and your uptight baby will become easier to please.
The difficult baby
The difficult baby is uptight in the extreme. He cries a lot, cries loudly, is very difficult to soothe, and has trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking up enough to eat well. First, some encouragement: difficult babies who are parented well during the early months and years show the least behavior problems and greatest social skills of all children as first graders. In the meantime, if it seems hard it is because it is hard. Difficult babies have a lot of trouble establishing homeostasis, trouble that persists for at least the first year and probably longer. Reread what it says about homeostasis and about the newborn. Study the next chapter, How to feed your newborn and infant, and do the very best job of feeding you possibly can. Study your child’s sleep states and hunger cues and follow them as best you can. Concentrate on the quality of feeding, not the quantity of food. You will be an advice magnet, so be skeptical of all input, except “I can take him for a few hours.” You will be told to stop breastfeeding (or scolded for not breastfeeding), encouraged to keep trying formulas or nipples until
