The feeding style you use every day really matters. Maybe you don’t know what a feeding style is, or perhaps you’re not sure what your tendencies are…you are in the right place today, because I am defining it all in this show.
Your feeding style helps you:

• Create an opportunity for your child to develop a healthy relationship with food 
• Encourage your child to self-regulate his or her eating
• Set the tone for pleasant meals
• Take the lead on feeding your child (rather than your child being the leader)

If things are a little rocky, or you feel like you’re struggling a bit with feeding your child, it may be related to your feeding style.
You may not know this yet, but you will: Feeding is just as important as food.
In this episode of The Nourished Child podcast, I am talking about feeding styles—or in other words, the approach and attitude you use to feed your child, and how it can help or hurt your child’s food relationship and self-regulation of food intake.
Child of Mine, by Ellyn Satter, was my first insight into the realm of feeding, specifically, the feeding relationship between parent and child, and the notion that a trusting relationship (or lack of one) can influence children’s eating and their ability to self-regulate. Satter contends that a good feeding relationship with your child starts on day one and makes all the difference between joy or struggle in feeding. 
Of course, many parents struggle at one point or another with their child and feeding. But, with a good feeding relationship, the struggles may be less fierce, less time consuming, and less damaging.
This episode takes you through the feeding styles and their associated feeding practices, such as rewarding, restricting and pressuring. You’ll also get information about the most effective feeding style and how to modify your approach to be more in line with it.

You’ll learn about:

• Feeding styles: authoritarian, permissive, neglectful and authoritative
• Feeding practices
• The Division of Responsibility
• Structure
• Boundaries
• Reasonable Choice
• The impact of negative feeding on your child’s eating, food relationship and self-regulation

Feeding really matters. How you do it, how consistent you are, and how loving and thoughtful you are go a long way to creating a child who feels good about coming to the table and eating.

Resources:

Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility
Child of Mine by Ellyn Satter
What’s Your Feeding Style?
Feeding Practices: Restricting
Feeding Practices: Rewarding
Feeding Practices: Prompting or Pressuring
Fearless Feeding: How to Raise Healthy Eaters from High Chair to High School by Jill Castle and Maryann Jacobsen
Short-Order Cook Syndrome (FREE DOWNLOAD INCLUDED IN POST)
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