Do you have a picky eater in your house? As babies grow, they can develop aversions to foods they once liked. Pediatricians, nutritionists and feeding specialists give their top tips for handling picky eaters.
Coping with a picky eater —
Do you have a picky eater in your house? As babies grow, they can develop aversions to foods they once liked. Pediatricians, nutritionists and feeding specialists give their top tips for handling picky eaters.
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You can begin "picky-proofing" when baby begins eating solid foods. "Babies learn taste preferences from a very early age, so offer a variety of tastes, textures, and even temperatures of food," said pediatric feeding specialist <a target="_blank" target="_blank">Melanie Potock</a>, author of "Adventures in Veggieland."
You can begin "picky-proofing" when baby begins eating solid foods. "Babies learn taste preferences from a very early age, so offer a variety of tastes, textures, and even temperatures of food," said pediatric feeding specialist Melanie Potock, author of "Adventures in Veggieland."
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Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altmann, author of "What to Feed Your Baby" has a list of <a target="_blank" target="_blank">"11 foundation foods"</a> she believes will help children learn to love healthy food. "Let your infant lean in and open his mouth when he wants to eat," said Altmann. "Don't force feed or play airplane games -- that doesn't help."
Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altmann, author of "What to Feed Your Baby" has a list of "11 foundation foods" she believes will help children learn to love healthy food. "Let your infant lean in and open his mouth when he wants to eat," said Altmann. "Don't force feed or play airplane games -- that doesn't help."
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Encourage your child to make friends with food at a young age by involving them with cooking, said Potock. She also suggests playing with food, such as using beans in a tic-tac-toe game.
Encourage your child to make friends with food at a young age by involving them with cooking, said Potock. She also suggests playing with food, such as using beans in a tic-tac-toe game.
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Potock also suggests talking about how food is grown, such as with green beans and "Jack and the Beanstalk." Better yet, she said, grow your own veggies if possible, and have your child harvest and cook them. Take your child regularly to the farmers' market to see and touch new temptations.
Potock also suggests talking about how food is grown, such as with green beans and "Jack and the Beanstalk." Better yet, she said, grow your own veggies if possible, and have your child harvest and cook them. Take your child regularly to the farmers' market to see and touch new temptations.
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Michigan pediatrician and researcher Dr. Julie Lumeng suggests pairing your picky child with one that is eating a variety of foods. "Children are more likely to be willing to taste a new food if they see another human being tasting that new food," she said. "And it's even more powerful if it's a peer."
Michigan pediatrician and researcher Dr. Julie Lumeng suggests pairing your picky child with one that is eating a variety of foods. "Children are more likely to be willing to taste a new food if they see another human being tasting that new food," she said. "And it's even more powerful if it's a peer."
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Parents should model healthy eating behavior, said Ellyn Satter, author of "Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense."<br />"Kids do better with eating when they get their parents' undivided, positive attention," said Satter, adding that rule applies even when serving take-out or going to a restaurant. "However you put together a meal, it's still important to sit down together and pay attention to each other when you eat it."
Parents should model healthy eating behavior, said Ellyn Satter, author of "Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense."
"Kids do better with eating when they get their parents' undivided, positive attention," said Satter, adding that rule applies even when serving take-out or going to a restaurant. "However you put together a meal, it's still important to sit down together and pay attention to each other when you eat it."
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At age 2 and 3, it's developmentally appropriate for toddlers to have aversions to foods they used to like, said Lumeng. Worried parents often begin coaxing, harassing or even bribing with dessert. Don't do it, said Lumeng. She just completed a study showing that pressure tactics don't work.
At age 2 and 3, it's developmentally appropriate for toddlers to have aversions to foods they used to like, said Lumeng. Worried parents often begin coaxing, harassing or even bribing with dessert. Don't do it, said Lumeng. She just completed a study showing that pressure tactics don't work.
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Instead of pressuring your child, continue to cook meals that you enjoy and include one or two items the child likes. "But don't cater to them and limit the menu to only things the child readily accepts," warns Satter. "And don't force them to eat. Let your child choose what and how much to eat of what you put on the table."
Instead of pressuring your child, continue to cook meals that you enjoy and include one or two items the child likes. "But don't cater to them and limit the menu to only things the child readily accepts," warns Satter. "And don't force them to eat. Let your child choose what and how much to eat of what you put on the table."
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Following these tips will help parents survive the picky eating era and set their child up for later success, experts said.<br />"As the child moves through the natural stage of picky eating and emerges out the other side," said Potock, "they've been exposed and are friends with a lot of different foods and are ready to try them again."
Following these tips will help parents survive the picky eating era and set their child up for later success, experts said.
"As the child moves through the natural stage of picky eating and emerges out the other side," said Potock, "they've been exposed and are friends with a lot of different foods and are ready to try them again."
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Coping with a picky eater
CNN  — 

The age of women giving birth climbed as infant death rates declined in the United States between 2000 and 2017, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Crying baby boy doesn't want to eat.
Crying baby boy doesn't want to eat.
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But the welcome news was tempered by the fact that Black infants still have over twice the risk of dying as White infants, experts pointed out.

Infant mortality rates fell for all age groups, and shifts in the age of women giving birth accounted for about one-third of the decline from 2000 through 2017, according to the report, published in the CDC’s National Vital Statistics Reports on Thursday.

Infant death rates dropped by 16% for women ages 30 to 39 and 12% for women 40 and older, the report found. The rates also dropped for babies born to women under age 29, but only by 8% to 9%.

Still, experts warned it may be too soon to celebrate this decline in deaths.

“What should not be acceptable to us is that we still have about 22,000 infant mortalities — or infants who do not get to see their first birthday,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, chief medical and health officer at March of Dimes in New York, who was not involved in the new report.

“For Black women, that rate is over two times, so there’s still an unacceptably high racial disparity in infant mortality,” Gupta said. “Infant mortality is unacceptable to begin with, but the enormous racial disparity must be addressed.”

It’s already known that Black infants have 2.3 times the infant mortality rate as White infants, according to the US Office of Minority Health.

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The new CDC report, based on birth and infant death data from the National Vital Statistics System, also found that the percentage of births increased between 2000 and 2017 for women ages 25 and older in the United States.

The sharpest rise was in women over age 35, the report found. Overall, birth percentages among:

  • Women ages 25 to 29 increased 9%
  • Women ages 30 to 35 increased 24%
  • Women ages 35 to 39 increased 30%
  • Women ages 40 and older increased 39%

However, there was an even sharper decline in percentage of births for women below age 25. Births to women under age 20 declined by 57% and by 21% for women between 20 and 24.

“One of the things that this report shows is that we made tremendous progress in curbing the trends of teenage pregnancy in this country and we’ve been declining at about 8% a year,” Gupta said.

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“However, that progress disproportionately positively impacts non-Hispanic White women,” he added. “And what we’re seeing is the shift that happens in aging is proportionately more likely to impact negatively Black women unfortunately. This is the importance of this data.”

The new report has some limitations, including that the findings are dependent on what information has been reported to the CDC and captured in the data.

“What comes in goes out. The limitation of this report is that the data could be incomplete,” Gupta said, adding that the data that is captured on race is what gets reported. “So there may be other data that didn’t get captured.”

CNN’s Sandee LaMotte contributed to this report.