My Toddler Only Eats Peanut Butter
It's always seemed kind of funny to me the way you can find a ton of “expert” advice on feeding your baby. Each piece of advice is always different from the one before it, but the one thing that ties them all together is their innate ability to make us feel inferior. Somehow we have failed as parents because no matter how we top it, or blend it, or disguise it, our two-year old's will not eat broccoli. I'm here to tell you that they're all wrong.
In a technical sense, of course, they are right. It would be best for your child to have exactly the right amount of fruit, and veggies, and the perfect ratio of proteins and carbs, but lets be realistic. There are days when my son won't eat anything but peanut butter on bread no matter what I put in front of him. Does that make me a bad mom? I don't think so.
I always offer my son a variety of foods, and I always give him a serving of what the rest of us are having first. There are some schools of thought that will tell you a child's survival instinct will kick in and they will eat what is there before they will go hungry. Not my child. When my son doesn't want to eat what is on his plate, he will play with it for a little while, then fuss to tell me he isn't satisfied. If I don't get him something else, pretty soon his food is a splatter pattern covering a four foot radius around his high chair. So, yeah, when he doesn't seem into what he's got, I get a back up.
I may be spoiling my son a little bit, but I'm also allowing him the personal freedom to choose what is best for him. Our cravings are meant to tell us what our bodies are lacking right? So why should we listen to ours and not theirs? In the end, I think the most important thing is that my son eats; he is strong, and healthy. Every child is different. Trust your instincts; you know better than anyone else what your baby needs.