EP 28: 7 Mistakes NOT to Make in Feeding Your Toddler

What if the nutrition choices you worry about most are not the ones that matter most? In this episode of Nutrition for the Early Years, Dr. Liz Daniels shares seven common feeding mistakes parents make during the baby and toddler years. With warmth and honesty, she explains why multivitamins are not always the answer for picky eaters, how kid-friendly leftovers can add to parent guilt, and why oral care should start as soon as teeth come in. She also talks about juice, flavored drinks, salt fears, food labels, and the need for parents to care for their own health too. This episode gives parents simple, guilt-free guidance to focus on what truly helps kids grow strong and build healthy habits from the start.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why food matters more than most supplements
• How to reduce guilt around leftovers
• When to start brushing your baby’s teeth
• Why juice does not need to be a daily habit
• How to focus on the big picture instead of stressing over every label detail
• Why caring for your own health is one of the best ways to support your child’s nutrition

Episode highlights:
(2:44) Mistake 1: Relying on multivitamins for picky eaters
(4:52) Mistake 2: Letting food waste and leftovers create guilt
(9:23) Mistake 3: Skipping early oral hygiene
(11:10) Mistake 4: Offering juice and flavored drinks too often
(12:26) Mistake 5: Worrying too much about salt in home cooking
(16:12) Mistake 6: Focusing too much on tiny label details
(19:19) Mistake 7: Forgetting parent health matters too
(21:04) Final encouragement for raising a healthier next generation

NEW COURSE! "Read the Pattern: Feeding Your Baby 0–4 Months" — because a healthy relationship with food starts earlier than most people think. Course Link!

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only, not medical advice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Nutrition for the Earliers Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Liz Daniels, your nutrition-focused pediatrician, here helping you with guilt-free guidance for feeding your family well. I'm so excited to talk to you today. You guys, today I'm kind of a little salty, and for good reason, no pun intended, I'm going to talk about some things that are common mistakes I hear all the time in nutrition for the kids, zero to two, that I really want you to know. Mistakes I don't want you to miss because they're subtle, they're simple, and knowing these can really set your kids' health apart for the better. Okay? Let's dig in. Welcome back to the Nutrition for the Earliers podcast with me, your host, Dr. Liz Daniels. I'm a nutrition first kind of pediatrician, and this podcast is for the parent who's second-guessing their grocery cart, worrying if their kid is going to end up with the same food struggles that they once had. I love getting into the weeds of what kids actually need, and then putting it into context of where they're at in growth and development so you can let go of the shame and guilt and focus on what actually moves the needle together. Let's get into it. I get the absolute honor and privilege, truly, of being able to walk with families over the course of years to see kind of, you know, how things go in the beginning, what they're thinking, what their thoughts are, their goals, their dreams. And then as their kids grow, the things that really bother them. And some of the things that are really worth paying attention to, some that honestly they shouldn't care at all about. And so it's like this incredible gift. I am going to share with you years of experience from not only my own life, of course, with expertise and knowledge, but also the shared collective experience of thousands of families and the things that in hindsight they wish they'd done differently. So when you have a kid who is zero to two, their nutrition is really important. I know that, and you know that. That's why you're listening to this podcast. And so, you know, today it's like, I think there's so much noise, there's so much out there. And you know what, there's a lot of really good advice. We're learning more, but there are still some very important classic studies that when we look back in time and look retrospectively, we can see the things that really move the needle and some of the things that don't. And my goal today is to share with you the common mistakes that I think you can just know about so that you can let go of some of what maybe the internet is telling you you need to do. And some of it I think we should pay closer attention to. So it might not be what you think, but and a lot of these are actually in how we think about food, not necessarily exactly what we're serving. I'm gonna tell you about the foods, but the things that I really want to focus on are the thought process that got us there, because that is how we change behavior. So, number one, it is actually multivitamins. Um, sorry, not sorry, I do not support multivitamins for most kids. In my career, I would say there's probably a handful of kids that I have offered them to or suggested them. And that's after knowing what they're eating and not eating, knowing their kids' health, knowing where they are in the growth curve, so much context is put in there. The other reason I really, really don't recommend this for everybody is because our food is most important. And the thing that a lot of parents don't understand is that in the toddler years, especially if you have a picky eater, the thought is, okay, well, I know that they're not eating a lot of vegetables, so I need to make sure that they're not missing out on anything. So let me give them a multivitamin and you think of it kind of like vegetable insurance. And baloney sandwich, it's not. Never will be, never can be. It's not the same thing. So what ends up happening is that our kids who are really good at eating crackers, cereals, um, chips, those things that are already fortified with certain B vitamins, you then add a supplement on top of, which guess what they have a lot of B vitamins and zinc. And you know what? We end up reaching the upper limit or even above the upper limit, especially in our kiddos who have selective appetites. Now, I'm not saying that kids who have selective appetites aren't having real nutrition gaps. They do. And that's my whole life. But multivitamins aren't the solution for the majority of kids. In fact, it takes attention, it takes knowing what it is that they're missing out on and finding ways to get that in food. Because guess what? A lot of our foods can give you so many more nutrients that are bioavailable and ready to absorb outside of the multivitamins. So, friends, I'm sorry to say, but the first mistake I would let go of is multivitamins for your picky eater. That's a whole nother conversation. Of course, we can get into. I have other episodes about this, but I don't think that's helping you. That's not helping your kid in the long run. Okay. Now, the second thing that I want to share with you is something that I am guilty of. This is coming from my own behaviors. Okay, and that is one that is more about food waste. Okay, let me give you an example. You know, you sometimes feed your kids things that you know they're gonna eat and you think that they're gonna really enjoy. And plus they're kind of tasty and you don't like really hate that you're buying them. I'm talking about mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, friends. Like one of my favorite foods as a kid growing up, we used to live in rural Texas where we would go to the grocery store and we had access to okay food, but you guys, we had a Schwans delivery truck. I don't know if you have Schwans where you live, but um, they were some tasty frozen foods. Talk about ultra-processed. Yes, I really loved, really loved um the bagel dogs and the mini pizzas. But, you know, I got to the point when my kids were starting to get more selective, and I truly would, because I was also in residency and medical school, I was working, my husband had to cook some of the meals. We needed some food and we were also really broke. So there was like, I don't want to spend a lot of money on expensive food that they're not gonna eat, right? Like this was my logic. Okay. Now, so I would make the mac and cheese and the chicken nuggets, just like everybody else. And again, no problem with that. I have lots of brands now that honestly I still purchase in my own home and have no problem giving my kids. So I'm not vilifying that. I'm simply saying that my logic, my thought process is what needed to change. And if I could do it all over again, I would. And I encourage my parents who have little ones, zero to two, to really think about. You do not need to eat your kids' leftovers. If you're buying something that doesn't serve your health and your body, it really doesn't need to come in the home. There are times and places, okay? I am not saying you can't get chicken nuggets. Stick with me for a second. What I'm saying is that when it's on repeat, it actually ends up becoming things that we end up eating too out of again, convenience, fatigue, all of that. And that ends up impacting our health. So my plea to you is that your future self will thank you. If when you make your food, because inevitably, if it's healthy food and it's good food and you have the leftovers on that, you're not gonna feel guilty about it. You're not gonna feel guilty about the leftover zucchini noodles that you made or the leftovers that were actually healthy, right? Like you're not gonna feel so bad about that. You feel guilty about the macaroni cheese and chicken nuggets that your kid didn't finish. And that is the trap. Because when you feel ashamed about things that you are doing, it reinforces guilt about what you're feeding your kids. And that's the heart of this, my friends. The other option is just to eat it without feeling ashamed. But so many moms I know would feel really frustrated. They're like, I just don't want to throw it out. And let me just tell you, if you end up throwing it out, it's because your kid didn't really need it and they weren't that hungry in the first place. They didn't need you to make something that was really kid friendly. They just weren't that hungry. And it's okay. Like if you would rather serve them something healthy, they will eventually get used to it and practice. This is a broader conversation. But I just want to speak to the parental guilt and shame that we have when we eat our kids' leftovers. Um, guilty as charged, this is my own, this is my own admission here. But I share this in in honesty because not only is it something that I would do, but I have seen a lot of parents share this frustration. If your kid has leftover food and they're not eating it, this isn't a, you need to come and eat more food, need three more bites before you get down. We don't need to negotiate. This is our moment to pause and to ask ourselves, why do we care so much? Like, what are we really worried about? Because I'll tell you, in my mind, I was really worried about food waste. I wasn't really worried that my kids were that hungry. Some parents, that is their worry. And then we address that in a different way. But if the worry is like, I don't want this to go to waste, well, guess what? If they did eat it and you cleaned a diaper, it still becomes waste. Like it, you know, the point here is that we don't need to punish ourselves with that tool. Okay. If you're eating your leftovers, you have permission to get them something different that you're not going to overeat or eat the leftovers of. Okay. Number three, the other thing that I tend to see a lot of is skipping oral hygiene. This is important because our oral hygiene is the gateway to our microbiome. And oral health in the first couple of years of life is actually really often overlooked, really important. And there are different recommendations. I'm just going to put out there that the AAP, American Academy of Pediatrics, recommends fluoride toothpaste starting at six months, as soon as you have teeth eruption, essentially. If you have teeth coming through, you can start brushing with fluoride toothpaste. Good oral hygiene is really important for our whole bodies. And, you know, then the parents say, okay, well, I'm afraid they're going to swallow it. Guess what? That's okay. You're not going to reach fluorosis. Um, it's really and truly okay. And it's helpful and protective for the teeth and the enamel. That enamel is really porous. The other component with oral hygiene that's often overlooked at a year is if we are still getting a bottle, if we're still getting breastfeeding, or we're still getting like anything that has sugar, and I mean that in the way of lactose or sucrose, glucose, any of those things, if that enters the mouth in the middle of the night, it is an opportunity for dental cavities to occur and develop. That's not okay to do like on a repeated basis. Yes, if your kid's sick in the middle of the night, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about, I just don't feel like stopping this habit, right? Like that is worth attention. So don't make that mistake. Oral health is key. We start brushing as soon as teeth are erupt. You are welcome to use fluoride toothpaste. If you don't want to use fluoride toothpaste, then I recommend you get some advice from your dentist and make sure that you have a good plan on how to manage oral care and protect them. There are some alternative ways. So I think, you know, just for the sake of trying to speak broadly, you can still do a really good job without that. Although I want to highlight that there are benefits and it's safe to do as young as six months. Now, here's the other mistake that I think some parents make. And I want you to know you can let this go. And it's juice and any flavor beverages. Like, really and truly, this is cultural for us to want our kids to have something that tastes good and is flavorful. But gone are the Kool-Aid days, my friend. We don't need to offer them juice. It's not benefiting them nutritionally at all. Like, really, not at all. There are times we'll do it for constipation. I would argue that there's even better ways than using juice for constipation in little ones, but there's no great role. If I had a hill to die on, I would say, why do we need to be having it in like wick? I never understood that. When I got wicked I was like, I just don't want this for my kids. I'd rather have real fruit. So, you know, PSA. But but I do think that it's important to know that if you get this and it's an occasional thing, celebrate that, enjoy it. But it doesn't need to be a regular three-year, zero to two-year-old. Like it just doesn't. The other reason here is that this is um like an opportunity. The behaviors we set in the zero to two years can become habits that are much harder to navigate as they get older, becomes an expectation. And by the way, juice is pretty expensive. Talk about waste. I don't think there's a lot there. Mistake number five: worrying a lot about added salt while cooking. I know, hot take, but hear me out, okay? Now, I love salt. I am a chips and queso kind of girl. I am all about the salty. When I was younger, I was a major sweet tooth. So this is a shift, and taste buds truly do change. That's, but you know, let me give you an example. If I am making dinner, say, okay, tonight my plan is to make butternut squash and sausage with um, we have salad as well. Okay, that's our that's our plan for our dinner tonight. If I am making my butternut squash and I put salt and pepper on it, roasted in the oven with avocado oil, comes out and I serve that to my baby or toddler, I am not going to feel any guilt. Here is why. When we're looking at sodium in toddler diets, and this actually isn't just the US, this is any westernized diet, the sodium intake in kids to and under is really high. But actually, it's not from cooking and our food, it's from processed foods because the sodium is really important in preservation of the food, as well as keeping it on the shelf. And then it provides texture. Sometimes it's used also for leavening or for other, you know, um processing components. And that's where the sodium is creeping up. Same for our diets as well. It is one and the same. So the sodium is coming in from processed foods. If you are making the food, then the sodium that their kids actually gonna be eating is not that much. If I had a one-year-old, how much butternut squash do you think they're actually gonna eat? Probably not as much as the sausage. They're probably gonna maybe eat that a little bit more. I don't know. But I would argue that that's really not the issue. The other reason I bring this up is because actually, even in Western diets, especially since the introduction of sea salt and um, you know, like in the early 2000s, we've seen that in women, especially with pregnant women, their iodine consumption has been decreasing. And this is concerning because iodine is important and absolutely essential for thyroid hormone. So, pregnant mamas, nursing mamas, you need iodine. And you're not gonna get that in most of your sea salts unless it's been specifically iodized. So you have to look for that on the back. Now, on the other hand, table salt will give you that. Guess what won't give you that iodine? Your salt from a lot of the manufacturing because it's added in from other components. So, specifically, table salt has iodine in it. This is something we kind of we actually benefit from. So don't be afraid for your baby to have its first foods if it's been seasoned and you had table salt on it. Don't freak out. It's going to be okay. Especially because when we look at some families on the other end of it, now I'm talking like everything organic, nothing processed, really, really clean. Actually, those kids, we might be lacking iodine in because the only way to get it is from adding it in on top of the diet. So just little PSA. I am not going to stress out. And I don't want any parent of a kid to stress out over the sodium that they're adding while they're cooking their food, assuming it's iodized, in the setting of looking at your processed food. Now, the this is twofold, right? Because if you are cooking your food, you're not necessarily buying as much or using as much of the processed food. Now, my Schwann's truck is a good example of how I got a lot of sodium as a kid. My 10 out of 10, that's one thing I would have avoided. And guess what? We do better when we know better, right? But like this is just to highlight when you are naturally choosing to make your cooked food, your home prepared food, you are also displacing that processed food that has a lot of sodium in it. So the trade-off is beneficial. Okay. My next mistake is one that I really want you to lean in on. Okay. Now, if you've been listening this far and you have listened to any of my other content, then you probably care a lot about what you're feeding your kids or your grandkids. And you know what? Kudos to you. You're probably looking at the back of labels, you're paying attention to ingredients, you're swapping things out at the store, or you're kind of giving a second glance at something that's being served to your kid or grandkid. And that is good. It's commendable. I want you to know, though, that if you are focused on every little thing, like your sodium benzoate, or you're worried about your mono and diglycerides, but you're not looking at the bigger picture of how often are we getting this in our diet, I think you're missing out and you might be missing the point. Here's what I mean. I really want you to understand that ingredients in the minutiae are so small and compared to the bigger picture of our diet that sometimes we forget the important stuff. So here's an example. I had a family not that long ago who had a toddler, two-year-old in first checkup, and he was um having a snack, totally normal, by the way. I don't have any problem when people do, and I don't judge them when they do. This is just a representation of our conversation. But the kid was eating um the Annie's organic fruit snacks. And we were talking about this because she she brought it up and she asked me, like, what I thought of it. And I said, Well, I'm so curious, like, what made you want to ask? And what are you, what do you think about it? What have you heard? And her thought was like, well, it's better than the Welch's products. And so then I wanted to lean in and ask because she was worried about it being organic versus non-organic, and she was worried about the ingredients. But the bigger picture is that really when I'm looking at the label, I'm thinking about added sugar. I'm thinking about fiber. I'm thinking about the the top nutrients that our kids tend to have nutrient gaps in. And those annies versus Welches isn't going to move the needle on that. So where I want to spend my time and attention isn't so much the minutiae of little ingredients, or even worried if it's organic or non-organic. I try to make preferences when I can on things. But for me, the bigger picture of that zero to two-year-old diet is really trying to make sure that we're getting whole grains, that we are getting plenty of our nutrients that we need in our food. So my top foods, which I've shared before, are like fatty fish, whole milk, seeds, legumes, eggs, and fruits and veggies, of course, but in diversity. So the rainbow of them. Those are the things that are more important. Yeah, and you're gonna do them when you can. If you're out and about and Aunt Shirley wants to, you know, share something with you, I'm not gonna worry about the social event. I'm not gonna worry about those little experiences as much or the birthday party. I'm thinking about what's happening on a macro level in my home, what's happening on a bigger picture on a regular basis. So surveying my grocery cart, surveying the purchases and the receipts, and thinking about how frequently I'm buying those pantry products are really what I'm gonna put my attention to, not so much just the minutiae of the ingredients. If you have the time and intention to do that, cool. But what really moves the needle are just saying maybe fruit instead of the fruit snack. That's an example. And here's my final one. This is for you, my dear parent. And it is that sometimes we care so much about our kiddo and we are trying to give them the best nutrition. But really, that great nutrition, the best diets are gonna come from when you are prioritizing your own health. So don't put yourself on the back burner. A lot of times parents will try to get the really expensive bougie snacks for their kiddo and maybe not take care of themselves. This is my PSA to you. If you're running on fumes, if you are eating really clean breakfast, lunch, and afternoon, and then come home and raid the pantry at nighttime, that's a sign that you're overwhelmed, that you need attention, that you need care, and that actually you might need a bigger breakfast, one with maybe the whole milk yogurt that you're gonna offer your baby. Maybe the fat-free is not gonna do it for you because you actually need satiety. Maybe you need more fats and carbohydrates in your diet. Maybe you need time and attention to rest or to meditate. And I mention this because I think sometimes, you know, when we're feeding our kids, we want to set them up for success. We want to set them up for the best and healthiest life possible. But if we're not taking care of ourselves, then we're not gonna feed them as well either. And we might also pass down behaviors that we're really ashamed or embarrassed about. And the whole goal in supporting our kids and sort of doing it better than what we had is sometimes actually from starting with ourselves. So, this is your permission to let some of those other things go that are not gonna get you any further. They're not gonna make your kid healthier. It's really you. It's you prioritizing yourself, thinking about how you can care for yourself and the whole family. And that's where we're gonna see a healthier kid in the long run. Thank you so much for listening. I hope this has been helpful and encouraging. Please share with a friend. If you have comments or questions, share them below. Happy to engage. And really and truly, I want to see us all have a healthier next generation. Thanks so much. We'll see you next week.