See the Servings

A child’s world is simple: eating, sleeping, playing. From the child’s view, those simple routines provide the only options for flexing will-muscles.

For the distracted parent, those same simple venues seem to spiral into bewildering battle zones with almost no effort at all: endless food wars, extensive, detailed, rigid ritual-streams that consume hours before bedtime really happens, fearsome tantrums and  time-consuming sophisticated negotiations in return for just a few minutes of “self-directed play.”

We can’t solve all those issues at once, but a coffee scoop can help in at least one area.

Food Amounts

What can be more natural than for parents to be concerned about what their child eats? Good nutrition helps build strong bodies and alert minds. It controls weight and provides energy for purposeful living. A baby’s first conversation with his or her parents is usually to announce that the tiny tummy is feeling hungry, even when the baby doesn’t know what hungry really is.

But an infant doesn’t have a gauge that registers “full” when the tummy tank has been topped off. And sometimes–make that often–we parents are confused with our infant’s conversations (crying). We just aren’t fluent in their language. Of course, feeding always quiets them, since their mouths are plugged when they are eating, so we insightful parents gravitate to “feeding on demand,” even if the request was for a dry diaper, or a walk around the room, or a pain alert signal for something unknown churning in the bowels.

A Rabbit-Trail about On-Demand

And before we go any further, a two day old is not demanding anything when he or she cries. It may seem a bit in-your-face to the civilized adult, long-used to pleasant, sociable, verbal requests. One of our first tasks as parents is to not feel pressured by these untrained conversations, but to respond as if the request is pleasant and sociable. Responding with a pleasant and sociable tone of voice and a relaxed demeanor is the first step in a long process of altering decibel-driving newborn conversations into patient requests for assistance.

“My, we are talking so loudly, little treasure. Mama heard you. Let’s see what you need. Won’t it be more pleasant when your body and your mind grows a little bigger? Then you will be able to quietly ask, ‘Mommy, I think I’m hungry. Is it time for me to eat?’ Are you big enough today to cry  a bit more quietly? Not today. OK. Maybe tomorrow you’ll be big enough.”

Such words coming calmly, matter-of-factly, and consistently from the parent communicate intelligence and attention to the child, who is not fluent in YOUR language. They communicate security and control.  At first, the words are more for you than the child, of course, but they do set an expectation of change for the child from something less desirable to more desirable for civilized living.

But we were talking about coffee scoops, weren’t we? Your little one-year-old DOES NOT need adult servings of food to thrive. An official coffee scoop is 1/8 of a cup. It doesn’t look like much to a starving 280 pound dad whose been out working in the yard all day. It doesn’t even look like much to a perpetually dieting mom. But a flat scoop of veggies and a flat scoop of fruit, 1/4 of a slice of bread, and another little scoop of casserole or a 1/2 a scoop of straight protein (chopped chicken, for example) is a big meal for a solid food newbie. Go ahead, measure out such little bits. Put them on a plate. Look at them. Learn how little they really are. Then be content and in control when about that much goes into the little mouth. Don’t allow something as important as eating nutrients to get side-tracked into power struggles over quantity. Coffee scoop: ask for one for your baby shower.