The Best Chefs are at Daycare

Feeding Scarlett has been a constant battle of frustrations, triumphs, surprises, and emotional highs and lows ever since she started eating solids when she was six months old. We had initially started her on rice cereal as her first solid food, as recommended by her pediatrician and every child nutrition expert. Little did I know that I was in for a big learning experience. For most of us, we hardly think about the mechanics of eating because it feels so innate to us. We don't think about it until we have a child of our own. Little did I know that there's so much involved with eating for infants and toddlers. Here's my journey so far with feeding Scarlett: She enjoyed eating rice cereal the first three days but then decided that she didn't want it anymore. So we stopped and waited a few weeks before trying again. She did eventually eat it but never really fell in love with it. Starting her on other foods was a challenge too. She learned to like Gerber puffs, Cheerios, and jarred baby foods, especially the squashes, pear, and banana. However, when it came to giving her real food, that was a different story. We tried avocado and banana, which most of her friends had liked. She hated avocado and acted as if I had fed her arsenic. Her first taste of banana made her gag and throw up her entire lunch. It was not pretty. In fact, most foods we tried made her gag, literally. For the first 3 months when she started eating solids, I experienced emotional highs and lows merely based on whether she would eat her meal or not. I know, that sounds ridiculous but I think as a mother, I hung a lot of my feeling of success on being able to feed my baby. When she wouldn't eat, it felt like I was failing as a mother. There were many days when I was close to tears from frustration in trying to get her to eat. I knew that we can't force feed them but I was really close to force feeding her just to get her to eat something, especially after I spent all those efforts to make her a nutritious meal. I've heard this mantra numerous times but it took me a long time to actually digest it: We decide what, when, and where they eat, but they decide how much to eat, if any. After months of struggling, we hit a major turning point last September when we were in Hawaii. She was 13-months old and up until then, she much preferred any jarred foods or highly processed snacks over any of my home-cooked food. When we were in Hawaii, she suddenly started to show interest in whatever we were eating. She had papayas everyday and even loved dragon fruit, which we've all never had before. During this whole time, Scarlett ate like a champ at daycare. She ate just about everything they fed her. Even the foods that she wouldn't eat at home, she would eat at daycare if I dropped it off. Just three weeks ago, on a Monday, I picked her up at daycare and asked about how she ate. They told me that she ate really well and ate A LOT, as if I hadn't fed her all weekend! That's exactly what they said. How's she eating now? Not so bad, for the most part. Some days are better than others but she is gradually diversifying her palate and loves to feed herself. Here's what a perfect dinner is like for us: