rivka | Rescinding the Corvette offer.

This morning I turned on the TV to a cooking show while I was eating my breakfast.

Alex clapped for Rachael Ray. Okay, so she's been strangely interested in Rachael Ray for a while - but sheesh, so much for my unbelievable specialness. I still love her to pieces, but now she can just wait for Rachael to buy her a Corvette.

A brief digression about Alex and TV:

Yes, we know that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV at all before age two because of concerns about its effects on development. I am utterly unconvinced by the putative TV-ADHD connection, and beyond that, the primary concern about TV in babyhood is that it crowds out activities with a higher developmental payoff, such as playing, interacting with other people, and being active. That's definitely a valid concern, but it seems most relevant for families where the TV is always on and kids are planted in front of it for long periods of time. That doesn't describe our household.

That said, we try to limit Alex's TV exposure in sensible ways. We watch most of our TV when she's sleeping. If the TV's on when she's awake, we try to arrange ourselves and her toys so that she's not facing the screen. (Other things being equal, she prefers to face us.) We don't turn on any children's television; I also avoid anything violent or graphic and anything with a lot of quick cuts. That pretty much leaves televised baseball and poker, cooking shows, decorating shows, West Wing reruns, and the occasional documentary. And we usually watch things on TiVO, which means that we can skip the commercials. Mostly she ignores the TV... but she does seem to like watching 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray.

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There's also a high percentage of children under 2 with tvs in their rooms. Whaaa? I think that's insane.

Gah!

See, just when I think I'm doing a good job of being nonjudgmental about other people's parenting styles, I come across something like that. What the hell?

The Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study is another prime source of parenting OMGWTF. For example:

- Soda is being served to infants as young as seven months old.
- In any given day, one third of toddlers 19-24 months are not consuming a vegetable and nearly 20 percent are not consuming any fruit.
- French fries are the most commonly consumed vegetable for toddlers aged 15-24 months.
- By 19-24 months, most toddlers consumed sweets, desserts or salty snacks at least once a day.

In addition, almost half (46%) of 7 to 8 month olds consumed some type of dessert, sweet, or sweetened beverage, and this percentage increased as age increased. (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/474963)

What the hell?! That's Alex's age. I can't even imagine where people are getting the idea to serve desserts and sweetened beverages. (I assume that doesn't include 100% juice, which is "sweet" but not "sweetened.")

Here's what Alex eats:
Breakfast: 2oz pureed organic fruit and 2-3 tablespoons of brown rice cereal.
Dinner: 2-4oz pureed vegetables, sometimes with additional grains (oatmeal, pureed brown rice).
All other times: Formula.

I guess I forgot to add in the ice cream. Sheesh.

I guess I forgot to add in the ice cream.

And she will resent you for that. :)

Elena eats cereal, fruit and veggies. And breastmilk and formula. Very little variation from that.

I have seen with my very own eyes a woman pouring Coca Cola into a toddler's bottle (yes, like a baby bottle, but held by a walking talking toddler with teeth) to - get this - *calm the toddler down*.

Uhuh.

A.
(Who would have ticked "yes" to "do you feed your child dessert?" on that survey, because we finished most meals with a bowl of pureed fruit...)

(Who would have ticked "yes" to "do you feed your child dessert?" on that survey, because we finished most meals with a bowl of pureed fruit...)

The survey asked for the specific food items the child consumed on the target day, and then the researchers categorized the food by type. It's the only way you could do it, really, because otherwise you have people giving their kids Kool-Aid and ticking off that they gave "juice," or classifying strawberry ice cream as fruit, or whatever.

There are certainly days when Liam doesn't get any vegetables (unless you count the tomato sauce on organic spaghetti-o's). He does get fruit several times a day, because he likes more fruits than veggies. I take heart in the idea that toddler's food consumption should be evaluated over the course of a week, not on a day-by-day basis.

One of the challenges of common meal is that there's dessert almost every night. Sometimes it's fruit or something similarly healthy, but frequently it's ice cream, which Liam loves. We give him bits of ours, probably no more than a tbsp or two in total.

But the soda thing completely flabbergasts me too. Over on mothering.com, someone even reported seeing a baby with brown liquid in its bottle and being told it was COFFEE!

Personally, I think that fruits are largely interchangable with veggies in terms of their nutritional status. And a good thing, because I eat very little fruit due to my food allergies.

I'm not anti-dessert, actually - I wouldn't see anything wrong with a toddler having a little bit of ice cream or a cookie or animal crackers or something nearly every day. (Ordinary-sized cookies, not the big cafe cookies.) But that's in the context of a healthy overall diet! Solid food is such a small part, nutritionally, of 7- and 8-month-olds' diets, that I can't imagine having part of that be dessert.

I'd guess that the toddlers who aren't getting fruit and vegetables are being raised by adults who don't like fruits and vegetables, so don't think of them as an ordinary and beneficial part of their diet.

Sure. People feed their kids the same stuff they eat.

K. [I mean, yes, I made my own baby food, too, but does everybody? Of course not]

If I had a food processor, instead of an ancient Hamilton blender - so ancient that it's avocado green - I'd probably be making my own baby food right now. I did buy a hand-cranked food mill, and I adore it as a concept, but it's going to have to wait until Alex is a bit more ready to deal with coarser textures.

At least there's organic packaged baby food, which is made from whole foods rather than the icky vegetable concentrates that Gerber uses.

Oh, my kids ate the Gerber stuff too. I look forward to presenting my darling daughter with my much splattered copy of "Feed Me, I'm Yours," 12th printing, 1977.

That book suggests using a blender for making baby food. That makes sense, given that food processors weren't common kitchen equipment in the late 70's. I got my first one in about 1996, come to think.

I was a stay-at-home mom during those years, which of course meant I had far more time that a working mom to spend on fussing over food. I was also chiefly motivated to save money. My grocery budget was only $20/week back then. While it was a long time ago and the economy has changed a lot, it also meant that we didn't have a lot to eat.

K. [who made her own baby formula for a while, out of sheer economic necessity]

My sister fixes my niece her baby food in the Blender. She told me its cheaper and easier than buying food - she only bought a few to have the cans/bottles for storage. Sis buys the frozen fruits/veggies, cooks them, and then blends them. I'm planning on doing the same thing. Any suggestions?

No, buying food in little jars is easier. There's no question about that at all. You must have the time, the energy, and the interest to make your own baby food. It's been a few decades since I had a baby around here, but I recall pressing the cooked foods through a strainer with the back of a wooden spoon to make sure the puree was absolutely smooth for a brand hew eater. But not for very long, since I figured that the baby could figure out how to deal with lumps, which they did.

Make lots at a time, once you're sure your kid will actually eat it and tolerate it. Freeze meal-sized gobs in ice cube trays or on cookie sheets, then put the frozen blobs in a zip lock baggie.

I used Campbell's Vegetable Beef soup as finger food, since everything was cooked to a very soft texture and nicely diced into baby sized pieces. You could consider the same thing with soup you have around (homemade, even) for older babies.

Your sister is probably a better source of advice that I am, given how long it's been since my kids were babies. Though check back in a year, we'll have a baby in the family by then.

K.

Rescinding the Corvette offer.

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Uh-oh, guess I'm a bad mom ;-)

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Blender & Baby Food

Re: Blender & Baby Food