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Dinner Time Dichotomy

April 11, 2017 by Karen Leave a Comment

Dinner time is no easy feat for families with children. It starts the day they’re born when they sleep all day and then become colicky when it’s time for the parents to eat dinner. Then comes toddlerhood when they do everything with the food but eat it. Food is on the floor, the ceiling, in their hair and every crevice that’s impossible to clean but not in their mouths. Preschoolers aren’t much better; this is when they decide to assert their independence by saying, “I don’t like it.”

It’s no wonder parents wave the white flag and become short order cooks by making separate meals each night. One meal that ensures Child #1 will eat and another meal that Child #2 will eat, plus one for the parents.  It feels like it takes three meals in one night for it to feel like a successful dinner.

Successful family dinners are not meant to please everyone. The reality is to plan and cook one well-balanced meal, regardless of your families response (rejection). Here’s how:

  1. Be authoritative and set the menu, allowing input from family members.
  2. Family-style meals, keeping it simple.
  3. Stick to the meal time structure, if the kids choose to pass on dinner remind them it is their choice not to eat.
  4. If your child chooses something else, have them make it themselves. Remember, being authoritative means you provide the what (nutritious foods), they choose the how much and whether not.

The more you accommodate personal preferences, the more unsuccessful mealtime becomes. The variety of meals shrinks and parents quickly fall into a rut. Parents who cater to each family member inadvertently create a meal time dichotomy of we eat this, and the kids eat that.  If you’re finding yourself in this stressful situation then I highly recommend the following resource:

Fearless Feeding is a book about childhood nutrition that will calm and empower parents, provide step-by-step feeding guidance at every child development stage and teach parents the skills they need to get healthy meals on the table fast.

Bon appetite!

Go Strong Mamas!

 

BONUS:  We love Gordon Ramsey’s YouTube channel, he’s generous with tips and advice as well as incredible recipes.  Here’s a recent one where he shares some delicious lunch recipes for kids.

 

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Address the Social and Emotional Impact of Food for you and your Kids

January 22, 2016 by Karen 2 Comments

What is Food’s Social and Emotional Impact?

Therapists assess a child and family in feeding therapy and address their fundamental needs. The first few weeks of therapy focus on educating the family and collaboratively agreeing on a plan that will lead to success and eventually discharge from services.

Basic SOS (Sequential Oral Sensory developed by Dr. Kay Toomey) feeding protocol is a 12-week program. Most kiddos fly right through not always needing the full 12 weeks. Then there are what I call my curve ball kids. The kids who are not necessary text book cases and end up teaching me just as much as I have taught them. I love these kids, they are so brave.

There are many more components to feeding than just oral motor and sensory. That brings me to the basic things that I was taught as a student. When looking at feeding you look at 3 things.
1. Functional (are they physically able to do it?)
2. Sensory (what aversions are they responding to or avoiding?)
3. Behavioral ( what are the behaviors associated?)
I’d like to add a 4th aspect of feeding to review

Social and Emotional Relationship with food

This 4th aspect of feeding impacts all of us, beginning to form as young as 6 months of age. This is the age when feeding becomes a LEARNED BEHAVIOR.  I capped and bolded for all you parents who are picky eaters yourselves; for all the parents who like things neat and tidy and wipe their babies hands and mouths as soon as they get messy. Also, for all the parents who overreact (guilty of this myself) to protective mechanisms such as, gagging and coughing that happens (and you want it to in order to know these protective mechanisms are present and functioning ) when babies are learning to eat solid foods and different textures and consistencies. It is a deeply rooted thing that includes healthy eating, emotional eating, binge eating, poor self-images, traditions, cultural and economical differences.

Our relationship with food is contingent on the first 3 factors listed (functional, sensory, behavior) but it is also highly influenced by our families, peers, culture, and environment. The language surrounding food is critical for both vocabulary and developing perspectives on variable food items. I remember improvising the language with one of the twins favorite picture books by Sandra Boyton. The original image was of a Hippo saying, “Ew, broccoli stew”……in my version the hippo said, “Mmmm, broccoli stew!!”
Social Emotional Impact of Food      My boys actually had tantrums when the other drank the “broccoli juice” from the bottom of the broccoli bowl at dinner.  They read my version of that book since they were 6 months old. They are listening and learning very early on and developing their relationship with food in many different mediums of learning. They include language (both written and verbal), observation (watching family & peers), environmental (opportunities for mass exposure to a variety of foods) and most importantly, experience (being active participants in selection, manipulation/play and tasting); notice I did not mention eating. Eating is at the very top of all the layers of foundation a child has to experience before getting to the last step of eating.

Developing a positive relationship with food means acknowledging all the factors detailed above. We addressed the language piece, be hyper-aware of what you are saying and what others are saying about food in the presence of your children. Observation includes your child watching you willingly trying new foods. Buck up ma and pa, take a bite and keep a smile on your face, it’s called good parenting.

Environment is your pantry, your refrigerator, and your local eateries. Try to provide fresh and healthy choices and keep the snacks you don’t want them to have out of the house. They’ll get ample opportunity to snack when they’re out and about. Home is the place where they are developing their palate the majority of the time. When they are surrounded by fresh and healthy food, their palate develops a preference for those bountiful flavors. Synthetic carbohydrates become blah or overly sweet to their palate. It’s like tasting the notably marked difference between Aunt Jemima pancake syrup and fresh tapped Vermont Maple Syrup.

Experience is everything in terms of forming relationships, keep them positive. Acknowledge Developmental Food Play Skills, they’re messy and an integral piece to forming a positive relationship with food. Include your kid’s input, thoughts, and ideas regarding what everyone should eat as a family. When kids are included in the planning aspect for meals, it provides them with the control they need to feel safe with new foods. Kids love to be in “control”, allowing them to assume the control role in the initial stages prevents them from asserting their control at the final stage (eating) by saying, “no, I don’t like that“.

A good place to start is examining your own relationship with food. It’s a dynamic process, examine the layers and identify the components you feel need attention to develop a positive relationship with food. It’s good for your body, brain, and soul!
GO STRONG!
 
 
 
 
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Babies with Reflux

June 8, 2014 by Karen Leave a Comment

All babies have some degree of reflux. Some worse than others. We saw this with our twins. One boy was an absolute joy to nurse, content, and milk drunk most of the time. The other twin was the complete opposite. I felt like I was torturing him every time he nursed. It was SO STRESSFUL!!!!!

He would cry because he was hungry. I would nurse, he would guzzle and scream, guzzle and scream, guzzle and scream. If I tried to hold him off, he would scream. This started happening between 3-4 months old. When we came home from the NICU, the nurses had us nursing them every 3-4 hours. Because they were sleeping most of the time it was very easy. It worked for his reflux. As they grew and we became more comfortable with our newborns I started nursing on demand. It was fine for one boy but that is when we noticed the reflux present in the other boy.

I knew from my feeding therapy training that putting him back on a feeding schedule was a must. The challenge I had was determining/measuring the amount he was nursing. He was and still is a guzzler. We put him back on a schedule of every 3-4 hours, it improved but the discomfort was still present during those hours. It seemed to happen most during those bewitching hours for all kids 4-6pm. Nursing him throughout the night was fine, most likely because he was going longer between nursing and too tired to guzzle like he typically did during the day. He was also slightly elevated either by my arm or we would let him sleep in the Fisher Price Newborn Rocker.

Thanks to a wonderful cousin who had first-hand experience with an infant refluxer, we started him on medication. What a difference, PHEW! A totally different baby. Reflux medication does not take away the reflux, it only acts as a bandaid to make them more comfortable. Medication and a schedule made our STRESSFUL feeder into a totally different baby.

In addition to the medication and the schedule, I found babywearing to be a lifesaver. He was upright and in an optimal position for digestion after nursing and I could still get things done. He was happy and mama was happy!
This is him in a Dolcino but I also used a Moby wrap with him as well.

We were able to wean him from the medication at 9 months. I continued to wear him and keep him on a schedule much like the one we follow as a family; 6 small meals a day. He continues to be a guzzler and a somewhat pickier eater than his brother. Our little refluxer will take a week or two longer to advance up the Steps of Eating but he eventually gets there.
Refluxers are prone to becoming picky eaters, they learn how not to eat very quickly. Hopefully, I have been able to provide you with the tools here on this blog to help your picky prone refluxer grow into a confident eater.

I’d love to hear about your experiences and what worked and didn’t.  Feel free to comment below or email me at hq@goodfitfam.com

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About Us

All our Boys

Karen Rodgers is a mother of twin boys, wife, and speech language pathologist for the Champlain Valley School District in Vermont and New England Speech & Feeding. She knows her way around a weight room and here on the GoodFitFam blog Karen and her husband Chris will share their wisdom, experience and contagious passion for kids, fun and fitness.

Speech + Feeding

Why Picky Eaters LOVE McDonalds

Kid’s Who Say, “I can’t”.

Be flexible and other Social Dynamics

Address the Social and Emotional Impact of Food for you and your Kids

Getting Your Kids to Eat New Foods.

Workouts

My Silver Lining Lat Workout

Sunday Morning Back Routine

30-minute Leg & Glute

Arm Blast

Building Mini-Pumpkins for Halloween

Parenting

Story Pirates for Language Narratives and Reading Comprehension

Have a Picky Eater? Here are 5 Things You Can Do to Help.

Getting Kids to Brush and Read

15 Hidden Netflix Links all Parents Need to Bookmark

Hosting a Quiet Book Swap

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