Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense Editorial Review:
Widely considered the leading book involving nutrition and feeding infants and children, this revised edition offers practical advice that takes into account the most recent research into such topics as: emotional, cultural, and genetic aspects of eating; proper diet during pregnancy; breast-feeding versus; bottle-feeding; introducing solid food to an infant's diet; feeding the preschooler; and avoiding mealtime battles. An appendix looks at a wide range of disorders including allergies, asthma, and hyperactivity, and how to teach a child who is reluctant to eat. The author also discusses the benefits and drawbacks of giving young children vitamins.
Customer Reviews: not so great as it seems When I first started to read this book, I thought it was great; however as I kept reading I realized that this book is written for middle and upper income white Americans with somewhat authoritative advice for parenting. This book contained very little information about nutrition itself and offered lots of advice about how to feed your child and many other topics (e.g. how to get your child sleep through the night) which I found irrelevant. This book definitely suggests one approach fits all technique and sends a strong disapproving message to parents who might not follow the author's desired way. If you are a parent in favor of detachment parenting style, authoritative discipline, cry-it-out, eat processed foods and not breastfeeding, then this book is definitely for you. Otherwise, there are many other better books out there.
give that cookie WITH lunch and see what happens! "Here's the best take-away I got from this enlightening book and it had a PROFOUND affect. There is a central theme about the "division of responsibility" at various stages of child development and, basically: "You (as parent) are responsible for the WHAT, WHEN and WHERE of feeding. Your child is responsible for the HOW MUCH and WHETHER of eating." It's that simple...and hard for control-freaks to practice. But I'm SO glad I read her book or I never would have understood the lasting implications of the power struggles that happen with food, parents and children. It should be a must-read for every parent forcing food down their kids throats or negotiating about taking 3 bites of this and 2 bites of that before they can have this or that. (Satter also convinced me that my child won't starve if she chooses not to eat!) One more thing...if my daughter gets her one cookie WITH her lunch, and chooses to eat the cookie first...guess what happens? She goes on to eat her lunch, (after or during her cookie treat) and enjoys her meal! But if I hold out the cookie as some reward for getting through lunch, she rushes through the meal and, after about 6 bites says, "I'm done and ready for my cookie!" So don't sweat the cookies mom...divide the responsibility and conquer! Your child will be healthier for it."
Outdated nutritional info The Positive:
I can sum up the positive by saying her main point is you should have a division of responsibility in feeding. Parents are responsible for the what, when and where and kids are responsible for how much and whether of eating. She points out that even if you are successful in the short term, forcing a kid to eat is counterproductive in the long term.
Now for the negative:
Comments like (paraphrasing) if you choose to feed whole grain bread to your toddler, limit them to no more than half of their bread (which the latest recommendations would say NOT to serve at every meal). Toddlers ages 1-3 should be eating 19 mg of fiber per day and they won't come anywhere close just from eating whole grains. She recommends OJ as a good fruit substitute (only the juice manufacturers still promote juice as a reasonable fruit substitute for anybody). Most current nutritional research points to the USRDA being too low for most nutrients for optimal health, but she seems very lax about worrying about vitamins.
She doesn't clarify the difference between good fats (omega-3's which most toddler's don't get enough of, olive oils, nut oils) and bad (hydrongenated, most saturated animal fats).
She refers to starches as "complex carbs". Current nutritional terminology uses the term based on the glycemic index of foods and most of the "complex carbs" she refers to spike blood sugar faster than raw table sugar, or the oreos or candy she mentions. These foods are directly related to the childhood type 2 diabetes epidemic.
It just seems that there are better guides to what foods to offer toddlers/kids that I'm surprised the book is still so popular. Our pediatric practice was offering a seminar by a nutritionist recently based on the book with an offer of a copy of the book for participants, I had assumed it was either a new book or she just released a major update with more recent research and was really disappointed that so many parents are being mislead about what to offer their children.
Many of her suggestions (like have bread at every meal) would jive with me more if her focus were on having toddler friendly options among the foods at your meal, particularly if the focus is a kid who a doctor has identified as not gaining weight well. Since her focus is on teaching toddlers to eat what the family eats though it seems misguided.
You can get a much better idea of what to offer your child at MyPyramid.gov for free and just offer good balanced choices for 3 meals and 2 snacks per day and don't force the child to eat. Most nutrition researchers I work with (Walt Willett in particular) feel that special interests like packaged food manufacturers still had too much influence in the latest MyPyramid update and some of the categories are skewed to recommend more processed versions than research supports so still take those recommendations with a grain of salt.
Her breast verses bottle recommendations aren't much better and she goes so far in being non-judgemental, she avoids presenting the research on the benefits of breast milk or what to look for in an infant formula if you decide to bottle feed. If you've already made the breast verses bottle decision, and have chosen to nurse, there are better books out there.
For introducing solids to infants, [...] has much more up to date suggestions for food options with the latest research of what to introduce when and how.
Save your money and look elsewhere.
must-have I'm a registered dietitian, and I give this book to all my friends when they have their first child. It is the best around, very informative and down-to-earth guidance on nutrition for babies and toddlers. Satter is a dietitian and therapist, so she has a uniquely helpful outlook on the parent-child feeding relationship.
Great info especially if you have food issues I found this book to be very helpful. My oldest child is 4, my youngest is 2 and we still do not have food battles, never have. This is the only "feeding" book I read.
As a former ballet dancer and diet fiend, I found the book to be very helpful as far as how not to pass on my prior food 'games' to my girls.
Closer Look
