Eating Well for Life - Raising Kids Who Thrive Lecture 4

This was a great lecture. It reinforced all of the things I've been reading about how to introduce foods to children. It cited several studied that reinforced what was mentioned in the book "First Bite" by Bee Wilson.

My favorite study cited was the one where parents were given education about healthy eating, mainly around fruits and veggies. The result of the study showed that if the parents changed their behavior, the children were more likely to change theirs. It reinforced this notion that the best thing we can be for our children is great role models.

Highlights from the lecture:

Key suggestions:
1. Pair new foods with familiar foods.
2. Encourage children to eat new foods without being harsh or forceful.
3. Eat the food yourself in front of the kids.
4. Avoid filling up with sweets before introducing new foods.
5. Be patient and let your child eventually adapt to new foods.



Babies are influenced by what mom's eat in utero and while breastfeeding.
Exposure to foods is key.Moms who eat healthy produce kids who prefer healthy foods.

Around 2 years, there is a shift towards pickiness. Why? Small children don't have as much of a buffer regarding new foods that may be dangerous, so the evolutionary mechanism is a phobia of new foods. The novelty avoidance happens during the historical end of breastfeeding.

Food tastes better when you're hungry. It is better not to let a child fill up on familiar foods when trying new foods.

Historically we went from being hunter/gatherers to being more sedentary. So we move less and have abundant calories available.

Be careful about associating foods with nausea. Don't introduce new foods when a child is coming down with something.

Clean your plate pressure backfires. Children who are pressured don't eat more than those who don't.

Eat more healthy foods yourself. Studies have shown that if parents increase their eating of fruits and veggies, their children will too.

Raising Kids who Thrive, Lecture 3 -- Sleep

This was a great post on sleep. We haven't had much trouble in our house, but I think that's because we followed a lot of this advice to begin with.












I liked the "science tip" that suggested relying on "meta-analysis" that looks at myriad studied to draw conclusions. So often we see a headline that says a new study says X, only to have a contradictory study come out the following week. With a meta-analysis, you're looking at a variety of studies to draw conclusions.


Here's the lecture summary:

Tip 1: Establish and maintain a consistent bedtime routine at 4 or 5 months old.

Tip 2: Roughly follow the guidelines for sleep at different ages. Watch for signs of too much or too little sleep.

Tip 3: Avoid screens prior to bedtime.

Prior to the invention of the light bulb, there was pressure to sleep, or be inactive,  when it was dark. Now we have more choice about when to sleep. We've found that sleep is necessary, with signs similar to  intoxication with sleep deprivation.

Our bodies and minds do certain "housekeeping" processes during sleep. Kids grow during sleep. Weight gain is often associated with too little sleep.

Breast milk can provide tryptophan which can help regulate sleep. Swaddling helps avoid startle events.  Loud white noise can mimic the sounds from the womb.

Provide lots of sensory and behavioral cues during the bedtime ritual.

Bright lights, particularly blue light, negatively affect the ability to go to sleep.

(Science tip: if an study is based on a meta-analysis, it typically is based on a collection of many studies.)

Recommended book: Ferber Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. Helps the baby get more ability to self soothe.


Karp, The Happiest Baby on the Block.  The video of the same name helped us immensely when we had to work on getting our LO to sleep.

Sleep is important throughout life. Keeping a sleep diary may be helpful to see if there are any troubles regarding sleep. 

Sleep descriptions (what kids typically get):
1 month - 16 hours total
2-12 months - 14 hours
1 year to 3 years -  12 hours
age 4 to 10 -  10 hours
over 12 - 8-9 hours
best tip is to know what your child's habits are.

Cleaning Up

Now that our little guy is starting to feed himself, I think this is going to be very helpful:

Ryobi Cordless Vacuum

I've recently adopted the Ryobi brand because their batteries are interchangeable and they seem to keep the same style from year to year and version to version.

Raising Kids who Thrive Lecture 2

Seeing, Hearing, Thinking Infants


My thoughts: 

This lecture reinforced the idea that I've had all along: children begin learning right away and the more you can interact with them and give them experience with the world the better. 

I really enjoy his description of the experiments. It's interesting to me how they are able to create experiments that help to show some aspect of childhood development.

Main Points:

This lecture focuses on evidence that infants are seeing, hearing, thinking and feeling beings from much earlier than commonly believed.

For example: Potty training in the US happens between two and three years of age. There is evidence of children being semi-potty trained as early as 7 months of age. (Mostly the children will wait to go until the parent brings them to the toilet.)

Tip 1- Interact with your child in high level ways. 

One study indicates that babies can do some simple counting. The study procedure shows a baby a doll. A curtain then blocks the baby's view of the doll. The baby is shown a second doll going behind the curtain. The curtain is removed showing two dolls. The second phase repeats the process, but shows one doll instead of two. The babies attention to the missing doll is evidence that this is a surprise for them. (Kind of like a magic trick.) This study has been repeated in several variations showing addition, subtraction, etc. The conclusion is that children have a rudimentary understanding of the number of objects.

Five month olds can't do more complicated math (5-2), but 7 month old starts to be able to discern this. Gravity, sounds, rolling, etc have all been tested indicating they are all trying to understand these things in the world.

It's helpful to give a baby a rich environment from the beginning, talking to the baby about everything in the world. "Humans are born very dependent on adults for their survival, but they are seeing, hearing and thinking right from the start."


Tip 2 - Don't go overboard with Tip 1. 

There is no evidence that providing "super enriching" experiences have any effect at all. 

Tip 3 - Provide physical action opportunities. 

Tummy time is a good example. Another example is to play catch with a small ball--rolling the ball to them. This gives them the opportunity to learn to anticipate the action of objects.

At two months, you can play "Velcro catch" by giving the baby mittens with Velcro on them. Then put Velcro on selective toys. (Always use caution here.)