Food for Tot: Feed Your Baby and Toddler with Confidence
Sep 8, 2026 · 32 min · 9 segments
Do you ever find yourself relying on pouches, bottles, or the same few “safe” foods because you’re worried your baby or toddler won’t eat anything else? When you know your little one will happily eat…
So I had a client whose 13-month-old was relying heavily on pouches and bottles, very specific foods, and Mom's biggest fear was so simple, and it's one that I think so many parents can relate to.
Her biggest fear was, "If I stop giving him the pouch at dinner, I know he won't eat the family meal." I want us to pause and let that sit for a second, because I know this is where so many parents are.
You don't want your little one living on puffs or yogurt melts, and you'd love for them to sit down and eat what everyone else is eating.
But you also can't bring yourself to take away the one thing you know they'll eat, because what if they don't eat? What happens if they're hungry? What happens if they lose weight? What happens if they don't sleep tonight? What happens if you somehow make the problem worse? And that's exactly why I want to talk you through this client's journey, not just what changed, but really what happened each step of the way that allowed the next change to happen.
I talk a lot about transforming feeding journeys, but what does that actually take to do? Let's dive in.
This wasn't a situation where we took away the pouch and suddenly he ate family meals.
The change was so much more gradual than that, and honestly, that's where I think there's so much hope for parents.
I talk to parents every day who feel like they're doing everything and still getting nowhere, and oftentimes it's not that what you've tried is wrong, it's just that you haven't focused on the simple, specific steps for long enough to see change actually happen.
So when I started with this family and their little one was 13 months old, parents described him as being stuck eating very specific foods and textures.
They called his snacks astronaut food because it was things like puffs and crackers, freeze-dried foods, all those crunchy textures that were really easy for him to accept at this time.
But at daycare, daycare claimed that he ate fine there, that he ate the meals and the foods that they gave him, but parents really didn't believe that.
After their little one had turned one, they knew it was time to transition off of bottles to make food his primary source of nutrition, but they felt really lost in how to get him there or how to help him accept a wider variety of foods or textures.
These were both full-time working parents who did not have the time or energy or capacity to do a whole lot extra outside of their normal day-to-day.
They needed somebody to lay out a roadmap for them to follow to create this progress and this momentum and this shift for their little one, because ultimately, they didn't have time to be making separate meals.
They could already see down the line that this was going to turn into a much bigger problem if they didn't create change now.
So they wanted him to be eating appropriate versions of what parents were eating and be able to move away from bottles, but there was a huge emotional barrier, and I think this is true for so many parents, is they were afraid to change what was currently working.
They knew they didn't want to stay here, but they were afraid to make the change in order to get to where they wanted to be.
So I had a client whose 13-month-old was relying heavily on pouches and bottles, very specific foods, and Mom's biggest fear was so simple, and it's one that I think so many parents can relate to.
Her biggest fear was, "If I stop giving him the pouch at dinner, I know he won't eat the family meal." I want us to pause and let that sit for a second, because I know this is where so many parents are.
You don't want your little one living on puffs or yogurt melts, and you'd love for them to sit down and eat what everyone else is eating.
But you also can't bring yourself to take away the one thing you know they'll eat, because what if they don't eat? What happens if they're hungry? What happens if they lose weight? What happens if they don't sleep tonight? What happens if you somehow make the problem worse? And that's exactly why I want to talk you through this client's journey, not just what changed, but really what happened each step of the way that allowed the next change to happen.
I talk a lot about transforming feeding journeys, but what does that actually take to do? Let's dive in.
This wasn't a situation where we took away the pouch and suddenly he ate family meals.
The change was so much more gradual than that, and honestly, that's where I think there's so much hope for parents.
I talk to parents every day who feel like they're doing everything and still getting nowhere, and oftentimes it's not that what you've tried is wrong, it's just that you haven't focused on the simple, specific steps for long enough to see change actually happen.
So when I started with this family and their little one was 13 months old, parents described him as being stuck eating very specific foods and textures.
They called his snacks astronaut food because it was things like puffs and crackers, freeze-dried foods, all those crunchy textures that were really easy for him to accept at this time.
But at daycare, daycare claimed that he ate fine there, that he ate the meals and the foods that they gave him, but parents really didn't believe that.
After their little one had turned one, they knew it was time to transition off of bottles to make food his primary source of nutrition, but they felt really lost in how to get him there or how to help him accept a wider variety of foods or textures.
These were both full-time working parents who did not have the time or energy or capacity to do a whole lot extra outside of their normal day-to-day.
They needed somebody to lay out a roadmap for them to follow to create this progress and this momentum and this shift for their little one, because ultimately, they didn't have time to be making separate meals.
They could already see down the line that this was going to turn into a much bigger problem if they didn't create change now.
So they wanted him to be eating appropriate versions of what parents were eating and be able to move away from bottles, but there was a huge emotional barrier, and I think this is true for so many parents, is they were afraid to change what was currently working.
They knew they didn't want to stay here, but they were afraid to make the change in order to get to where they wanted to be.
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3 of 9
Strategy Over Control
Strategy changes the goal, not the child.
Toddlers Are Not Problems
Successful transitions can change a parent's confidence.
From Meltdowns To Family Meals
Confidence, not stricter rules, changed family dinners.
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