Show Notes
This week's episode is all about getting your kids cooking, and I couldn’t think of a better person to help me cover this topic than Katie Kimball of Healthy Kids Cook. Katie and I both agree - getting your kids in the kitchen as early as possible (and safely of course) can have SO many benefits, and instill lifelong skills that will follow them and flourish as they grow. I know from experience the benefits my family has had with getting my kids in the kitchen as early as I could! My boys can both cook exceptionally well (arguably better than me, but don’t tell them that) and I can say confidently it’s because I always included them during meal prep, even with the little tasks. Listen in to learn about the most popular question Katie and I get - what age can I start involving my child? Plus, what tasks they can do, how to progress and grow their cooking skills and how to entice them to get involved when they don’t seem interested. Ps. if you have a picky eater, this episode has some helpful tips for you too :) If you found this episode or any of my episodes helpful, and you know other parents will benefit from them, head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review, I’ll be forever grateful! Reviews help make sure the episodes make it to parents just like you, who want to raise a happy, healthy eater! ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: For all the information you could ever need to start solids with your baby, check out my Baby Led Feeding online course. This will show you how to feed your baby from 6 to 12 months in a way that will set them up for a lifetime of healthy eating, and can actually help prevent picky eating! BABY LED FEEDING ONLINE COURSE: https://mylittleeater.com/baby-led-feeding/ If you’re already into the toddler stage, or close to it, and you want to know how to handle the changes that happen in toddlerhood, as well as be prepared to prevent or manage picky eating, check out my Feeding Toddlers online course. This gives you all the steps you need to begin enjoying happier mealtimes with your toddler! FEEDING TODDLERS ONLINE COURSE: https://mylittleeater.com/feeding-toddlers/ KATIE'S BIO: Katie Kimball, the national voice of Healthy Kids Cooking, is a blogger, TEDx speaker, former teacher, and mom of 4 kids who founded the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse, recommended by The Wall Street Journal in 2020 as the best online cooking class for kids. Her blog, Kitchen Stewardship helps families stay healthy without going crazy, and she’s on a mission to connect families around healthy food, raise critical thinking skills using the lab of curiosity that is the kitchen, and grow the Kids' Meal Revolution where every child learns to cook. If you want to learn more about the Katie’s Kids Cook Real Food E-course, find some cooking tutorials to get your kids cooking, teach your child safe knife skills or look at her Cookbook, find all the info you need on her website! https://kidscookrealfood.com SKIP TO… The inspiration behind Healthy Kids Cooking (3:17) Age appropriate kitchen tasks for your child (7:47) Skills to teach your kids in the kitchen (14:19) Breaking down tasks so they’re more manageable for your little one (18:05) Strategies to help when your child doesn’t want to take part (20:31)
More from The My Little Eater Podcast
We see online all the time “baby friendly recipes”, “baby led weaning recipes”, “6 month old food ideas”, etc. So it’s easy to think that we need special recipes for our babies. But here’s the truth…you don’t! Not only is it extra work to make one meal for you and a seperate baby friendly recipe, it’s also not helpful to be eating different foods from your baby from the perspective of modeling eating behavior! Also, allowing baby to partake in “adult meals” means it’s that much easier to introduce foods with different flavors, textures, and spices - expanding your baby’s palate and the types of food they will accept. Plus - who wants to be eating baby finger foods all day everyday? It’s absolutely possible to serve your baby - even your little 6 month old - the same food that you’re having. Meals YOU actually enjoy too! There are obviously some considerations, which I go over in this episode (hint - the guidelines out there for babies and salt intake are more flexible than you think and it’s easy to omit added sugar and make almost any food safe with a few modifications!). I also talk about how to deconstruct meals and make meals easier for your baby to consume. This goes for whether you’re doing purees or finger foods for baby! And good news - if your family meal plan could use a little more variety and tweaking to make things healthier and baby friendly - don’t worry - my newly revamped 60 day Baby Led Feeding Meal Plan walks you through the first 30-60 days of starting solids with family friendly recipes - good for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and adults. You’re all going to love them! This meal plan makes sure that all your baby’s nutrient needs are covered and each meal is perfectly balanced (as well as contains iron rich foods for baby led weaning)!. It also strategically introduces allergens to your baby in a step-by-step way over 60 days so you never have to worry about which highly allergenic foods to introduce when, and how to introduce them to your baby. Each and every recipe in the meal is safe and appropriate in texture for your baby, while keeping your baby advancing in eating skills and challenged with various textures from my Texture Timeline™. Get out of that mealtime rut and enjoy tasty, healthy meals for the picky eaters and baby led weaning babies in your home - without cooking more than one meal for everyone! I want to give you your time back with your baby so you can just look forward to mealtime instead of spending time figuring out which ones to make. I wish I had something like this when I started solids with my boys! Get the 60 day Baby Led Feeding Meal Plan here! Leave a review and win! Help The My Little Eater Podcast hit #1 on the charts and reach even more parents who may need some extra help when it comes to feeding their little ones! All you need to do is head over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a quick review about what you loved about this episode, or a previous one. Thanks so much in advance for your continued support. As a thank you, you’ll be entered to win a 15 minute call with me where you can ask me anything about feeding. Just make sure to leave your Instagram handle so I can find you if you’re the lucky winner! ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: 60 DAY BABY LED FEEDING MEAL PLAN: https://mylittleeater.com/blfmealplan/ Grab this epic meal plan to have over 80 recipes to use when starting solids with your baby, to serve as nutritious meals for picky toddlers, and just for the whole family to enjoy! If you do have a baby just starting solids, it also includes info on moving through my signature Texture Timeline™, as well as allergy introduction. It ensures variety and takes the guesswork out of what’s for dinner for up to 60 days! All of the meals are balanced to keep the babies, toddlers, and adults getting all the nutrition they need. BABY LED FEEDING ONLINE COURSE: https://mylittleeater.com/baby-led-feeding/ Starting solids isn’t meant to be just another thing you have to stress over as a p
On this 100th episode of the My Little Eater Podcast, I’m bringing back my “how to serve” series. Because, at the end of the day, I want you to feel prepared to start solids with your little eater, and being confident in how to serve fish to your baby (among other things) will help with that! Fish is an important food for babies, not just nutritionally where it’s an excellent source of protein for babies, it’s an iron rich food, and some types even have essential omega 3 fatty acids for proper brain development. But it’s also important from an allergen standpoint, introducing it early and often is key in helping to prevent an allergy from developing, and understanding how to cook fish for baby led weaning will help make that possible. This is why I’m giving you all my top tips today for serving fish to your baby, including going over my favourite fish to serve babies, and how I would offer it (this one will surprise you!). I’ll also give you a bit more info about why fish is such a great option, from a nutritional perspective, for your baby’s growth and development. Leave a review and win! Help The My Little Eater Podcast hit #1 on the charts and reach even more parents who may need some extra help when it comes to feeding their little ones! All you need to do is head over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a quick review about what you loved about this episode, or a previous one. Thanks so much in advance for your continued support. As a thank you, you’ll be entered to win a 15 minute call with me where you can ask me anything about feeding. Just make sure to leave your Instagram handle so I can find you if you’re the lucky winner! ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: BABY LED FEEDING ONLINE COURSE: https://mylittleeater.com/baby-led-feeding/ Starting solids isn’t meant to be just another thing you have to stress over as a parent - it’s supposed to be fun! So, let me help you keep it that way and ensure you raise a baby who loves all food! My Baby Led Feeding Online Course will help you start solids with confidence, ensuring you have the knowledge to gently push your baby through textures to prevent picky eating and be healthy in all aspects! If you’re looking to start solids with your baby, then you need to get the gear! Head over to Bumkins to grab some of my favourite feeding supplies, like their long-sleeved bib, chewtensils, or one of their first feeding sets - perfect for starting solids with your little eater! And make sure you use my code at checkout for 15% off your purchase. BUMKINS DISCOUNT CODE (15% OFF): MYLITTLEEATER15 https://www.bumkins.com/ EP. 46 - BEST TYPES OF FISH FOR YOUR BABY: https://mylittleeater.com/46-safefishforbabies/ FISH GUIDELINES FREEBIE: https://courses.mylittleeater.com/fishguidelinesforbaby SKIP TO... What age can babies have fish? (1:56) The benefits of serving fish to your baby (2:51) Are there downsides to serving your baby fish? (7:11) Where fish fits on my Texture Timeline™ (9:37) My favourite fish to serve babies (12:13)
On this episode of the podcast, I’m teaching you about why the size of finger foods for baby led weaning is so important. There literally can’t be a “one size fits all” approach to preparing finger foods for your baby. Texture of foods and the development of various oral motor skills have to be considered as well. Understanding why larger pieces of food are often safer for your baby, not to mention easier for your baby to move around in their mouth, is key to seeing progression with baby led weaning, and in preventing choking. Whenever I show pictures of baby led weaning finger foods for 6 months, I hear from a lot of concerned parents that the large size of the foods will cause their baby to choke. When in reality, small pieces of food are more likely to be choked on - especially in the beginning. I think we have this picture in our head of our parents and grandparents, and maybe even us with our older kids, cutting up their food so they can eat bite sized pieces and more easily chew them. What we’re forgetting is that babies are brand new to this! They don’t know how to move that tiny piece of food around in their mouth, they don’t have molars to chew it with, or even know how to move their mouth in a way that would grind down that tiny bit of food. Older kids will because they have experience on their side! This is not to say that babies need teeth or to know how to do all those chewing motions to have finger foods - not at all (they have to start somewhere!). We just have to know how to prepare food safely for them, which is why often bigger pieces of food are perfect as baby led weaning starter foods. Listen in to hear more about how I recommend you prepare baby led weaning starter foods, and if there are any exceptions to the rule of offering larger sized pieces in the beginning. Leave a review and win! Help The My Little Eater Podcast hit #1 on the charts and reach even more parents who may need some extra help when it comes to feeding their little ones! All you need to do is head over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a quick review about what you loved about this episode, or a previous one. Thanks so much in advance for your continued support. As a thank you, you’ll be entered to win a 15 minute call with me where you can ask me anything about feeding. Just make sure to leave your Instagram handle so I can find you if you’re the lucky winner! ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: TEXTURE TIMELINE CHALLENGE: https://mylittleeater.com/texture-timeline-challenge-live If you’re ready to jump into starting solids with your little one, and want to learn more about how to do baby led weaning and purees, or maybe you want to learn about spoon-feeding your baby, self-feeding, and when to stop purees, enroll in my Texture Timeline™ Challenge! It kicks off February 23rd, 2022 and runs for 5 days with live support from me every single day! BABY LED FEEDING ONLINE COURSE: https://mylittleeater.com/baby-led-feeding/ Starting solids isn’t meant to be just another thing you have to stress over as a parent - it’s supposed to be fun! So, let me help you keep it that way and ensure you raise a baby who loves all food! My Baby Led Feeding Online Course will help you start solids with confidence, ensuring you have the knowledge to gently push your baby through textures to prevent picky eating and be healthy in all aspects! If you’re looking to start solids with your baby, then you need to get the gear! Head over to Bumkins to grab some of my favourite feeding supplies, like their long-sleeved bib, chewtensils, or one of their first feeding sets - perfect for starting solids with your little eater! And make sure you use my code at checkout for 15% off your purchase. BUMKINS DISCOUNT CODE (15% OFF): MYLITTLEEATER15 https://www.bumkins.com/ SKIP TO... Why small pieces of food are difficult for a baby to handle (3:35) Why you also need to consider the texture of finger foods (6:42) Why some babies struggle with softer textures (10:10) Why larger pieces of fo
On this episode of the podcast, I’m calling it like it is and getting fired up about something I feel very strongly about…mixing purees and baby led weaning! But, more importantly, I’m here to tell you that spoon feeding is NOT wrong, or bad for your baby. Period. I listened to another podcast over the past weekend that sparked this episode of my own, and I’m not pointing any fingers, but I will explain why I wholeheartedly disagree with their stance on puree feeding and whether or not you can combine puree feeding and baby led weaning. I’ll chat about the main controversy of purees vs. baby led weaning - does it really need to be one or the other? I’ll go over how to do baby led weaning and purees, in fact, I’ll share with you the benefits of doing so! And we’ll cover some other important topics like why I feel strongly that you need to feed your baby in the way that feels right for your family, and how baby led weaning is not better than spoon feeding, despite what some experts would have you believe (pssstt…it’s not a competition, there is no winner here). So, if you’re sick of hearing about the black and white of feeding, or parenting for that matter, and want to learn about how you can safely exist in that grey area in-between in a way that benefits both you and your baby - download and listen now! Let’s collectively decide to throw out any narrative that suggests you have to do things one way to be a “good parent” and if you do it another way you’re causing irreparable harm…nope. I don’t agree with that, and I’m over reading about it online. You CAN find a happy medium in feeding (and in other things too ;) ), and I’m here to help you do just that. P.S. Don’t forget to send this to another parent that could benefit from finding their happy medium by learning about how to do baby led weaning combined with purees. Leave a review and win! Help The My Little Eater Podcast hit #1 on the charts and reach even more parents who may need some extra help when it comes to feeding their little ones! All you need to do is head over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a quick review about what you loved about this episode, or a previous one. Thanks so much in advance for your continued support. As a thank you, you’ll be entered to win a 15 minute call with me where you can ask me anything about feeding. Just make sure to leave your Instagram handle so I can find you if you’re the lucky winner! ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: BABY LED FEEDING ONLINE COURSE: https://mylittleeater.com/baby-led-feeding/ Starting solids isn’t meant to be just another thing you have to stress over as a parent - it’s supposed to be fun! So, let me help you keep it that way and ensure you raise a baby who loves all food! My Baby Led Feeding Online Course will help you start solids with confidence, ensuring you have the knowledge to gently push your baby through textures to prevent picky eating and be healthy in all aspects! EP. 76 - SPOON-FEEDING USING THE BABY LED WEANING METHOD: https://mylittleeater.com/spoon-feeding-purees/ TEXTURE TIMELINE CHALLENGE: https://mylittleeater.com/texture-timeline-challenge-live If you’re ready to jump into starting solids with your little one, and want to learn more about how to do baby led weaning and purees, or maybe you want to learn about spoon-feeding your baby, self-feeding, and when to stop purees, enroll in my Texture Timeline™ Challenge! It kicks off February 23rd, 2022 and runs for 5 days with live support from me every single day! If you’re looking to start solids with your baby, then you need to get the gear! Head over to Bumkins to grab some of my favourite feeding supplies, like their long-sleeved bib, chewtensils, or one of their first feeding sets - perfect for starting solids with your little eater! And make sure you use my code at checkout for 15% off your purchase. BUMKINS DISCOUNT CODE (15% OFF): MYLITTLEEATER15 https://www.bumkins.com/ SKIP TO... My opinion on combining BLW and purees (2:09) Important considerations
On this episode of the podcast I’ve got some special guests joining me to talk all about the benefits of flax seeds, chia seeds and hemp hearts - otherwise known as super seeds! Kim and Tina are the founders of Tiny Sprouts Foods, where they formulate seed mixes for babies and toddlers to help them meet their nutritional needs. And as a lover of the benefits of seeds, I’m always tossing them into dishes we make at home as an added nutrition booster because it’s just so easy! Kim and Tina explain many nutritional benefits of seeds - fiber, omega-3’s and iron are among some of the nutrients they offer, plus so many more - and this episode digs deep into them all…plus how they can even help a picky eater! And if you have a toddler, you know the importance of preventing constipation and seeds are a great example of a high fiber food for constipation. Make sure to listen in to get more details and find out easy and safe ways to incorporate them into your baby or toddler’s meals! Plus… if you’re wondering how the heck you store them, you’ll want to check this episode out too! Trust me when I say you’ll be shocked (I know I was)! Leave a review and win! Help The My Little Eater Podcast hit #1 on the charts and reach even more parents who may need some extra help when it comes to feeding their little ones! All you need to do is head over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a quick review about what you loved about this episode, or a previous one. Thanks so much in advance for your continued support :) As a thank you you’ll be entered to win a 15 minute call with me where you can ask me anything about feeding. Just make sure to leave your Instagram handle so I can find you if you’re the lucky winner! ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: BABY LED FEEDING ONLINE COURSE: https://mylittleeater.com/baby-led-feeding/ Starting solids isn’t meant to be just another thing you have to stress over as a parent - it’s supposed to be fun! So, let me help you keep it that way and ensure you raise a baby who loves all food! My Baby Led Feeding Online Course will help you start solids with confidence, ensuring you have the knowledge to gently push your baby through textures to prevent picky eating and be healthy in all aspects! FEEDING TODDLERS ONLINE COURSE: https://mylittleeater.com/feeding-toddlers/ If you have a toddler or child aged 1-8 years old and you want to prevent or manage picky eating and learn how to enjoy stress free, happy mealtimes as a family - enroll in my Feeding Toddlers Online Course now! Get started early on curbing unwanted mealtime behaviours before they start, overcome picky eating and set your toddler up to be an adventurous eater! TINY SPROUTS PRODUCTS: https://tinysproutsfoods.com/?ref=HMdDMKNbQV--I If you want to try some of these amazing super seed blends mentioned in the episode, you can use the code MYLITTLEEATER and get 10% off your purchase! TINY SPROUTS BIO: Tiny Sprouts Foods is a children's nutrition company that produces easy, convenient, nutrient-rich products that offer functional health benefits to the developing child. They are committed to making every bite count through their debut range of Organic Superseed BoostersTM, which can easily be added to any food to boost nutritional content and support a child’s daily health needs. Leading with a transparent and simple approach, Tiny Sprouts Foods strives to reduce mealtime stress and help parents & caregivers navigate children’s nutrition, enabling children to sprout, grow and thrive to their best potential. You can find out more about their products on their website, with their Digestive Booster being their best selling product! Also head to their Instagram and find out more info about each super seed and some yummy recipes. WEBSITE: https://tinysproutsfoods.com/?ref=HMdDMKNbQV--I INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/tinysproutsfoods/ SKIP TO… Tiny Sprouts story (2:25) What are the “super seeds”? (3:55) Mulled vs. whole: what’s better? (11:19) Storage (13:59)