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Summary: IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN TO FEED, BUY THIS BOOK
Review: So there you all are, the five of you, finally sitting down at the dinner table. You, the mother, have managed to deliver a hot (or at least warm), nutritionally balanced (there is something green on the table), and home cooked (or close to) meal. Carefully, and with a sense of well-being, you dish it out and cut it up and place tidy plates of food in front of your first-grader, your pre-schooler and your toddler. Your husband helps himself. And as you, yourself, raise that first forkful to your lips, your first grader begins to push his food aimlessly around the plate, your pre-schooler shovels huge bites of pasta into his mouth, then pushes his plate away and announces he is waiting for desert (without having touched his broccoli), and your toddler throws all her food on the ground and screams delightedly, "uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh." Your sense of well-being vanishes, and you wonder, with your head in your hands, what, on earth, you've done wrong.If this scenario recurs almost daily at your house (as it does at mine), then you should BUY THIS BOOK. It is one of those rare parenting books that actually gives you answers. It delivers them up in a friendly, no-nonsense style, based on the author's experience as a mother of three and as registered dietician/clinical social worker. Ellyn Satter has seen it all, and we can all benefit from the wealth of her experience. After reading this updated and expanded edition, I have learned to let my children serve themselves from the serving dishes on the table, and then to sit back and not worry about what else happens. Satter's philosophy regarding feeding is that it is the parent's job to determine the what and when of feeding: what food gets offered and when. And it is the child's job to determine if he will eat the food and how much. Elegantly simple; eminently powerful. The book offers straight-forward advice on feeding your child, from pregnancy through childhood. The sections on infant feeding are informative, educational and, (imagine!) non-judgmental. Satter's advice on the debate between breast feeding and bottle-feeding is comforting and credible. The book also covers introducing solid foods, building positive eating relationships, and avoiding feeding disorders. If you've read and benefited from earlier editions of "Child of Mine", you'll love this new edition, which includes the anecdotes and lessons of Ellyn Satter's many years of experience dealing with families and food.
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Summary: A Must Have for your Parenting Library
Review: Switching from breastfeeding to solid foods was a very stressful moment for me and my husband. This book gave us all the advice and support we needed. All aspects of breastfeeding are covered in a particularly intelligent manner. Satter's advice are the same we received from trustworthy lactation consultants. She covers all aspects of feeding and eating all the way through the toddler years. This new edition is also truly "revised and updated" compared to previous editions you may find at your local public library. I wish we had had access to this book right when our son was born. It's a GREAT GIFT for new parents, much more useful and reassuring than the typical blue/pink blanket.
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Summary: Solid, practical advice
Review: The book provides not only solid recommendations on diet itself, but also gives do-able advice about how to approach food and feeding with kids. Many parents feel a great deal of anxiety and guilt as they deal with feeding issues. Too often, nutrition books on the market are so restrictive or complex that parents end up feeling defeated, and even more guilt-ridden. This book empowers parents with tools and simple guidelines like "Let kids choose how much to eat." What a relief for parents when they realize it's not a tragedy when their kids don't finish the whole plate of food! I've made it a habit for the past several years to get this book for friends when they become pregnant with their first child. Numerous times, I've heard back from these friends that the information was priceless, especially during the touchy transition between breastmilk or formula, & solid foods. Bottom line: BUY THIS BOOK! It's one of the best around.
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Summary: relax about your child's eating
Review: The main message of this book is that parents should not try to control and stress over their children's feeding practices. Babies (and toddlers) are pretty well regulated and know what and how much to eat. The parent's job is simply to provide a variety of healthy and nutritious foods and ensure a pleasant mealtime atmosphere. The rest is up to the child. I wholeheartedly agree with this premise--parents should not try to hoax babies into eating or to restrict a chubby toddler's diet. I think that most of the other nutritional advice in the book is valid as well--that we should not attempt to mold out children's bodies into a media-dictated "perfect" form, that eating meat and drinking whole milk is essential, and that the occasional piece of candy is not the end of the world. The reason I felt compelled to write this review is that to a lot of attachment parents this is superfluous information. They already know they should work with, rather than control their children. The division of responsibilities comes naturally to them. And, even though the book offers a very gentle, very child-let approach to feeding, it is far less understanding in other aspects of child rearing. For example, it highly recommends the Ferber technique of sleep training--reading through these pages might be painful for gentler parents. In short--the book offers valid information on feeding, but this information is superfluous to people who already practice an instinctive and gentle parenting.
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Summary: Superfluous for gentle parents
Review: The main message of this book is that parents should not try to control and stress over their children's feeding practices. Babies (and toddlers) are pretty well regulated and know what and how much to eat. The parent's job is simply to provide a variety of healthy and nutritious foods and ensure a pleasant mealtime atmosphere. The rest is up to the child. I wholeheartedly agree with this premise--parents should not try to hoax babies into eating or to restrict a chubby toddler's diet. I think that most of the other nutritional advice in the book is valid as well--that we should not attempt to mold out children's bodies into a media-dictated "perfect" form, that eating meat and drinking whole milk is essential, and that the occasional piece of candy is not the end of the world. The reason I felt compelled to write this review is that to a lot of attachment parents this is superfluous information. They already know they should work with, rather than control their children. The division of responsibilities comes naturally to them. And, even though the book offers a very gentle, very child-let approach to feeding, it is far less understanding in other aspects of child rearing. For example, it highly recommends the Ferber technique of sleep training--reading through these pages might be painful for gentler parents. In short--the book offers valid information on feeding, but this information is superfluous to people who already practice an instinctive and gentle parenting.
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Summary: relax about your child's eating
Review: This book has been very helpful for my family. It has allowed us to be relaxed about our children's eating. It has good information about how to approach food from early on. It is almost a book about the philosophy of eating and feeding children.
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Summary: don't stress about feeding
Review: This book has taken the stress out of feeding my toddler...it makes so much sense and has made feeding fun, instead of a battle. This has become the book I give my pregnant friends.
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Summary: A wonderfully helpful book for parents
Review: This book is GREAT! It has helped me immensely in transitioning my son from breastfeeding to eating on his own. He enjoys eating, eats a wide variety of foods, and is adventurous with new foods. We often get compliments and envious comments from other parents regarding his eating skills. After reading this book I often cringe when I see other parents complain about their children's eating habits, fight with their children over what they should eat, and frustrate themselves by cooking special foods for their kids which the kids then reject. All of this is unnecessary, and in fact detrimental to a child's sense of competence. It can also lead to eating disorders. This book does tend to be wordy and repetitive, and could have benefited from tighter editing. However, I think that the take-home message is a critical one for parents, and an important adjunct to your pediatrician's advice (which is often scarce on this subject). The above reviewers who gave this book poor reviews seem to be either unwilling to educate themselves about childrearing, or were looking for (and didn't find) justification for unusual feeding practices. It is ludicrous to think that Satter's philosophy is wrong because it has withstood the test of time... she is THE authority on this subject, and for good reason.
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Summary: Must-read for all parents
Review: This book is the best I've ever read on the subject of infant and toddler feeding. The advice on breastfeeding, starting solids and feeding finicky toddlers is practical and down-to-earth--unlike some books which insist on rigid meal plans and servings-per-day which are just not realistic when feeding toddlers. The author emphasizes the loving relationship between parent and child, and discourages letting food become a battleground. She stresses a healthy attitude toward eating such as allowing kids to listen to their bodies in order to regulate intake, rather than forcing them to "clean their plate" or making them feel bad about eating when they tend toward overweight. All in all, its a very readable book with lots of usable information.
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Summary: And Equally Great on Babies and Milk!!
Review: This book is the ONLY book I have ever seen that explains EXACTLY how to sterilize bottles and what the consequences are if you do not. That section alone should make it MANDATORY reading. It also offers an excellent discussion of breastfeeding that is more detailed and more informative than any of those idiotic what to expect books. It has excellent info on formula pros and cons that do not make it into other books. Very clear, sensible and useful even before your baby is ready to come home! And you will use it well into the elementary school years!
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