Chapter One Choosing the Long Game You sit down with your baby for dinner. You''re having a simple meal tonight, something that was easy to prepare, which you enjoy. You serve your baby the same food you serve yourself. There''s no pressure to eat anything. You happily focus on your meal, enjoying your food while baby smashes and explores theirs. You converse with your baby even though you''re not sure they understand you. Laughter fills the room. You are relaxed and calm.

Everyone eats what they want, and leaves what they don''t, including baby, who pushes food off the table to let you know they are done. There''s food all over baby''s face, and you laugh about that, too. Human beings are connection-driven creatures. There is a special feeling of ease and comfort when we are doing things alongside other people we love. Mealtimes are just as much about personal connections as they are about the food. This is true for baby, too. Eating with you is a space for developing relationships as much as eating skills. The preceding anecdote isn''t really about dinner.

It''s a story about relationships: the relationship between baby and their food, between baby and their body, and between you and baby. Every meal has potential to strengthen each of these connections. It may sound obvious to say that love and trust are essential in all this, but sometimes what is most basic is what bears the most repeating. Parents and caregivers want to feed babies in the best way they can, but even the most attentive feeder can fall into the trap of focusing so deeply on the details of what to feed baby (or how much baby consumes) that they lose sight of the big picture--the joy of food and connection at the table. When you make the table a place of connection, where everyone feels safe, cared for, and listened to, your child will want to keep coming back. They will feel seen and ready to learn. They will understand what it means to feel full in a way that is self-determined. Focusing on your relationship with your baby at the table is what we like to call the long game--where all of our micro decisions at meals build up the future and the child''s long-term relationship with food, the table, and you.

The opposite of the long game is the short game: counting bites. Fretting over the number of milligrams of this or that your baby is eating. Distracting baby so they will open their mouth for one more spoonful. All of this detracts from what is important: creating a dynamic where baby is ready and wanting to learn how to eat. Creating a Space for Connection The first step in baby''s journey of learning to eat is interest. The key to getting baby interested and excited to explore food is their connection with the person who is eating with them. As we will discuss in Chapter 4, connection is a basic human need. When baby is in connection with you, they want to be near you and watch you.

When a baby is connected to a loving caregiver, they naturally imitate them and more easily learn from them. Babies have all the necessary tools to safely learn to eat, and in the majority of cases, these skills will naturally present themselves when baby has a strong relationship with a caregiver at the table. Throughout this book we''ll give you examples of what it looks like to create a mealtime space where baby wants to be. We''ll help you understand what your role is and how to stay in connection with baby throughout this process. By the time you''re done reading, you''ll understand why so many people are choosing to let their babies self-feed, how it will benefit baby, when to start, what you''ll need--and how to implement these ideas starting on day one. We''ll also get into all of the details--the gear, the foods, and how you prepare them--because details matter, but only if baby is ready and willing to be at the table. It''s very hard to make a baby eat when they don''t want to. You can create the right conditions to interest them in a meal, but ultimately, a child must choose to eat.

To do this, they need to choose to pick up a utensil or piece of food, open their mouth, and accept the food. Any attempt to get them to eat when they don''t want to will backfire, which research shows can negatively impact their relationship with food--and their relationship with you. Mealtimes happen multiple times a day, every day, making them a unique opportunity to establish and reinforce tangible skills like using a fork, chewing, and drinking from a straw, but also important intangible skills like handling disappointment, self-sufficiency, problem solving, and self-regulation. The adults at the table are learning too--to gradually let go and trust baby. Baby and caregiver are learning to trust each other. This is why we begin our book here and will return to this idea of connection at the table. Everything else follows from there. Investing in the Long Game Will Pay Off Teaching babies to eat solid food isn''t just about how much they eat in that moment; it''s about how you hope that the child will come to view food and meals in the weeks and years after.

That''s the long game. For some, this hope might look like a child who enjoys eating, loves coming to the table with you, and has a positive relationship with food and their body. For others it might look like a child who is highly adaptable at meals, willing to try new foods and flavors. These are long-game goals. The short game, in contrast, focuses on the here and now. It is heavily dependent on how your day is going. It''s more about what we need to do minute to minute to get through a certain moment than what we are working toward ultimately. In the ideal world, our short-game choices would perfectly line up with and support our long-game aspirations, but more often than not, immediate needs get in the way.

For some, the short-game decisions might look like spoon-feeding baby to minimize the mess so they can get out the door on time. For others it might look like letting a toddler watch TV to keep the peace at dinner. Or only serving favorite snack foods to avoid tantrums. In a short-game moment--whatever that moment may be--by all means, do what you need to do. You can always try again. If baby is approaching 6 months of age, now is a terrific time to consider your mealtime goals and start creating the patterns and practices that will get you there. If eating dinner together is something you want, start now. If you want baby to love foods that are culturally important to you, share those dishes early on.

While it may seem easier to wait to start these things, a unique window in time is about to open, where baby is incredibly receptive to new foods and practices. In other words, it''s easier to teach baby this now than it will be later when they are a toddler. After 12 months of age, many toddlers develop a natural resistance to trying new foods. This new phase is labeled "toddler neophobia" by some researchers, because it appears to be a significant fear of trying new things, including foods. And after baby''s first birthday it is often harder--not easier--to teach a toddler how to chew foods and enjoy new flavors. Not only is it harder to teach a child to chew when they will not put the food in their mouth, but also key physiological reflexes that help babies easily learn these skills fade with age. Does that mean the child who starts late will never learn? Of course not. But when it comes to food, it''s simply easier to teach many of these skills when a baby is younger.

Is it a guarantee that your toddler will eat everything they were served as a baby? Unfortunately, no. But the research is clear: the more exposure a baby gets to a wide variety of foods, the more likely it is they will continue to eat them (or eventually come back to them) in toddlerhood and beyond.,, To build new skills, babies need lots of time and space for repetitive practice. The same goes for eating. The more you spoon-feed a baby, the longer it will take for them to learn how to feed themself. Similarly, the more you rely on commercially designated baby foods, the longer it will take that child to accept the foods the rest of the family is eating. Yes, pouches and puffs can have a role to play in the short game. Please, use them when you need them.

Just keep the long game in mind. When we prioritize the long game and let babies fumble their way through, we provide children with important learning opportunities. On a macro scale, we want baby to learn that they are capable of learning new things and handling challenges. On a micro scale, we want baby to learn basic skills like self-feeding and chewing thoroughly. The more you get out of the way and let baby practice by trial and error, the faster they will learn--and that''s a long game that benefits parents and children alike.