Feeding Your Baby

Are your kids picky about eating fruits and vegetables? Learn to make food interesting and enjoyable for your child and the rest of the family.

How to Know When Your Baby Is Hungry?

by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., author of Feeding: The Brazelton Way

1. In the first weeks, most of his crying is likely to be saying he is hungry. If he's been changed, does not soothe with gentle rocking and singing, and is not crying piercingly (a cry of pain), he's probably ready for a feeding.
2. If he's not been fed for an hour or more, it may be time to feed again. After a few weeks, he'll be able to take in more at each feeding and stretch out the time he can go before he's hungry again.
3. When a baby is ready to feed, he'll often lift and bob his head, open his mouth, and even smack his lips, and he'll try to suck on whatever comes his way.

How to Know When Your Baby Has Had Enough?

by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., author of Feeding: The Brazelton Way

1. If you are bottle-feeding your baby, you'll be able to measure the amount he takes in at each feeding. Your baby should be waking up often enough for at least six feedings a day. If not, you'll need to rouse him.
2. If you are breastfeeding, you may need to go by other signs. To start with, your baby should soon be able to empty the first breast you offer, and often even the second.
3. A baby who settles contentedly after nursing has likely had enough.
4. A baby who frequently wets and soils diapers (at least six wet diapers each day, and for bottle-fed babies, at least a few soft, mushy, yellowish stools) is also probably a well-fed baby. Breastfed babies often go for a day or two between stools, and sometimes more, especially after the first few weeks.
5. Your baby's pediatrician will monitor your baby's growth by checking his weight, height, and head circumference. Although your baby may lose a little weight in the first week, he should catch up and make good progress thereafter.

Feeding a Quiet Child
by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., author of Feeding: The Brazelton Way

A quiet, sensitive child may be on a different track from her peers. She may comply with being fed and continue to be compliant even during the usual times of conflict. For example, unlike other children her age, she may allow herself to be fed into the second year, apparently content to be a passive recipient. Then, all of a sudden, refusal! No longer will she put up with being fed. Passive resistance may be her response.

Her refusal to be fed is a warning to her parents to pull back and let her try feeding herself. Since she has not had experience with finger feeding or with utensils, her first attempts to feed herself may be clumsy. A big mess at every meal—food on her face, her clothes, the table, the floor, everywhere—will be the inescapable price for her earlier compliance.

Parents may even be thankful for the slobbery mess when it comes—a welcome relief from the initial food refusal of this phase of self-assertion! Patience with such a child will be the saving grace. Let her learn how to take over the job of feeding. Offer her only two bits at a time of an attractive finger food for each meal. Then ignore her struggle and leave it to her. Keep her company, but don't cajole during meals. If and when she downs the two bits, offer her two more at a time, until she starts smooshing them or launching them over the edge of her high chair. This means it's time to stop—until the next meal. Don't let her "graze" between meals. And for now, don't worry about a well-rounded diet. Remember that this previously compliant child is quickly learning the skills of self-feeding. It might have taken her several months longer to learn had she been less passive and started in with her attempts to take over her own feeding earlier. Be patient and follow her lead.

Feeding an Active Child

by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., author of Feeding: The Brazelton Way

At the other end of the temperament spectrum is the active, constantly moving, curious-about-everything child. She is far more interested in sights, sounds, and rushing around than in food. A parent whose motive is to see that the child is well fed is bound to feel frustrated, even desperate. "Sit down in your seat," a worried parent will beg as the child climbs out of her high chair to hang teetering on the edge. The child looks up coyly, holding out one hand for a "cookie." Anything she can eat will do as long as at the same time she can clamber around the house, up and over furniture and into drawers to pull out clean clothes with grubby fingers.

Many parents of active children have asked me: "Should I feed her on the run ? She'll never eat enough sitting down. She barely sits before she's gone. I wait until she's hungry, but she never is. I feel like I need to give her bits of food all through the day so that she'll get enough. What should I do?"

My advice has been:

1. Keep mealtimes a sacred time for the family to be together. Don't let the phone or other interruptions interfere.
2. When your child loses interest in sitting at the table—that's it. Put her down and let her know her meal is over. No grazing between meals. No more food until the next meal.
3. Make meals a fun time to be together—at least as much as is possible with a squirming, food-throwing toddler. Make meals as companionable as possible—you eat when she does. But if she doesn't, eat your own meal and let her know that you can chat and be together if she stays at the table. If she squirms to leave, put her down. But she'll have to wait for your attention until you're done. Eventually she'll learn to model on you.
4. No television at the table or promises of special sweet desserts to get her to sit and eat.
5. Be sure you let her feed herself. Never say, "Just one more bite." If you do, you'll be setting yourself up for testing.
6. Don't go to special trouble to cook her a special or exciting meal—your disappointment is likely to outweigh the benefits. Instead, let your child know that "this is what we're having for dinner tonight." If she doesn't want it, she'll have to see if she likes the next meal any better.
7. Let her help with meals as soon as she is old enough to do even the smallest task, such as setting the table (start with the napkins only!), cleaning it with a sponge, and so on.
8. Have your child's pediatrician check her weight and growth, and ask her for supplements if necessary.
9. Above all, don't set meals up as a struggle or her high chair as a prison to keep her in.

Feeding at 4 Months

by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., author of Feeding: The Brazelton Way

Feedings should be more predictable now. Nearly all babies will have settled into a rhythm of 3-4 hours between feedings. Each feeding now is more likely to last for a predictable amount of time. A bottle feeding may take 10 to 15 minutes plus bubbling time. A breastfeeding can last 20 minutes, and sometimes more—with burping and bubbling. Quiet talking and gentle play, so rewarding, may add a little more time. The baby takes in half of his feeding in the first 2 minutes, and 80-90 percent in the first 4 minutes. If he falls asleep after that, he's probably had enough. But if he wants to nurse for longer, and if his mother wants him to, this can be a delicious time for closeness. The baby certainly won't be overfed with these longer feedings.

It has always seemed to me that a parent who takes a few minutes in the beginning to talk and hug and alert the baby, to calm him down if he's frantic, will have a more rewarding, smoother feed.

You probably know your baby's cries by now. The intense, end-of-the-day fussing should be over by now. An alert period of smiling and interacting may have replaced it. By now parents will feel more confident about knowing their baby and what to expect with each cry. Hunger cries are like no others, and you and your baby both know them.

A number of questions will linger in parents' minds during this period:

Q: Will I spoil him if I feed him every time he cries?
A: I don't believe that a baby this young can be spoiled. But be sure you recognize his ways of telling you about his other needs. He will tell you several different things by his cries. Not all cries are hunger cries. There are different reasons for them, such as boredom and the need to play, or fatigue, and the need to be put down to sleep. Each of these needs, and others, are expressed with different cries. Look for them, and you will feel more in touch with him.

Q: He seems to want to eat so often. What can I do to hold him off?
A: This is the age when you can begin to respect your baby's newly developing abilities. When you go to him in less than 3 hours, try to substitute play for your feeding for awhile. He is probably ready for some play on his own. Hang a few colored objects (e.g., plastic spoons) over his crib, so he can look at them as they twinkle in the light. These should be removed when the baby can successfully reach, and they should be fastened securely enough that he or an older sibling can't pull them down. Prop him at a 30 degree angle so he can look at them and listen to them. You may be surprised to see that, with the chance to watch, listen, and try to reach, he'll become intrigued.

He will discover that he can play by himself, handling his boredom and enjoying his waking time between feedings. This certainly will help you—and think what it may mean to him to sense that he can take care of some of his own needs. Then you can both gratefully enjoy the reward of a feeding at the 4-hour mark. You have both worked for it!

Q: Why does he wake up to feed every 4 hours at night?
A: The 4-hour sleep cycle at night is a normal one. Actually, you may be lucky. At least your child sleeps for 4-hour stretches at night instead of waking more often or staying awake at night and sleeping during the day. But this is a good time to begin to push him to learn how to sleep longer at night. As his brain begins to mature, he may be ready to go longer at night.

Continuing to pick up and feed him every few hours could lead to sleep troubles. Feedings every 4 hours at night may not be the answer now. Learning to get himself to sleep may be.

I have found that when a baby has begun to learn how to get himself back down, interrupting the 4-hour cycle can help break it. Wake him at 10:00 or 11:00 P.M. before he wakes himself. Feed him an extra feeding then, without play or exciting interactions. Put him down before he's asleep, leaving him to get himself back down to sleep. The extra feeding can break the every-four-hour cycle, and it may help him learn to get himself to sleep and to sleep longer at night. It has worked to push many of my patients toward an 8-hour sleep at night. Feedings may help, but they won't contribute to the real job of "learning how to sleep."