Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense

Child of Mine provides information on all aspects of feeding, from pregnancy through the toddler years. Satter begins with historical and social perspectives on infant feeding, describing how formula was developed and discussing the social movement that lead to accepting a child's input into his or her own development. Nutrition during pregnancy, infant feeding, introducing solid foods, building positive eating relationships, and avoiding eating disorders are all discussed. The sections on breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding, and on the regulation of food intake (particularly the relationship between parental attitudes and children's eating habits) are especially recommended.

Satter provides specific nutritional information (including charts, diagrams, and nutritional breakdowns) interspersed with a no-nonsense, experienced perspective that will help you establish good eating habits that your children will benefit from long after they're out of diapers. --Ericka Lutz

Product Description

If this scenario recurs almost daily at your house (as it does at mine), then you should BUY THIS BOOK. It is one of those rare parenting books that actually gives you answers. It delivers them up in a friendly, no-nonsense style, based on the author's experience as a mother of three and as registered dietician/clinical social worker. Ellyn Satter has seen it all, and we can all benefit from the wealth of her experience. After reading this updated and expanded edition, I have learned to let my children serve themselves from the serving dishes on the table, and then to sit back and not worry about what else happens. Satter's philosophy regarding feeding is that it is the parent's job to determine the what and when of feeding: what food gets offered and when. And it is the child's job to determine if he will eat the food and how much. Elegantly simple; eminently powerful.

The book offers straight-forward advice on feeding your child, from pregnancy through childhood. The sections on infant feeding are informative, educational and, (imagine!) non-judgmental. Satter's advice on the debate between breast feeding and bottle-feeding is comforting and credible. The book also covers introducing solid foods, building positive eating relationships, and avoiding feeding disorders. If you've read and benefited from earlier editions of "Child of Mine", you'll love this new edition, which includes the anecdotes and lessons of Ellyn Satter's many years of experience dealing with families and food.


A very limited book   July 8, 2001
85 out of 108 found this review helpful

I tentatively liked the earlier edition of "Child of Mine", but there were topics that weren't covered, including my specific questions about my son's eating. So I eagerly bought the latest revision of "Child of Mine," expecting it to be more comprehensive. Instead, I found that the book was Satter's justification of why everybody should feed their kids the way she fed hers (in the 1970s?), ignoring newer research. She has a one-size-fits-all prescription for how to feed your child, with little room for families to make different choices from hers. I prefer authors who say, "I prefer X because of a and b, but other people prefer Y because of c and d." Satter just says, "Do X," and doesn't even present Y as an alternative, or, worse, she says that only kooks do Y. I bought the new edition hoping it had been expanded to include ideas about my two-and-a-half-year-old who likes to breastfeed but not eat, but there was nothing there for my situation. The only thing the book said about weaning was that most kids naturally lose interest in nursing at about a year. Sigh. The new edition of the book has more pages, but some topics from the earlier edition have actually been removed, replaced by notes that you should buy her other book on that subject. That's cheap. I'd prefer a quick summary about the topic and *then* a note to see the other book. I would buy the other book if the summary looked helpful, but I'm not likely to buy the other book if I don't know what's in it. The topics that remained were extremely repetitive coverage of a small number of issues.

It bothers me that Satter is not a strong advocate of breastfeeding. She makes some claims that are likely to scare new breastfeeding moms. For example, she says the only time she got a breast infection was when she began two consecutive feedings on the same side. That implies it's dangerous not to alternate which side starts each feeding -- a bogus piece of information. (In fact, I've never had a breast infection and for a year I started *all* my son's breastfeedings on the same side.)

Satter is famous for having invented the "division of responsibility" in feeding children. That's the idea that the parent's job is to present the child with nutritious foods to choose from, and the child's job is to eat -- or not eat -- according to the child's internal cues. She says she thought this up on the spur of the moment at a nutrition counseling appointment. That is, she made it up, it's not the result of research. Then she applied it to many other eating problems. It works for lots of situations. But this book reminds me of the expression, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail." That is, her answer to EVERYTHING is "division of responsibility." It's a nice idea, and it does have a lot of applications, but she harps on it so much that I got very tired of hearing about it. Also, "division of responsibility" badly failed my son. If you put food in front of him when he is hungry, he often *doesn't* eat, and then he's miserable because he is hungry. I know other kids like that. Satter fails to address their needs.

Satter several times describes certain people as "individuals excessively concerned about the safety of the food supply." When I read that, I interpreted it as a polite name for "wackos." Then I realized that it's her name for people who eat mostly organically grown food -- that is, me! So, as far as I can tell, Satter feels that non-organically grown food is perfectly safe and anybody who buys organic food is a wacko. I'd have appreciated gentler wording from her, such as, "I don't personally think it's necessary to eat organically grown food, but I can see why some people would choose it" -- and a scientific discussion of why she thinks pesticide residues in food are not dangerous and so organic food isn't needed. The polite name-calling is unnecessary.

She repeatedly says how horribly boring a lowfat diet is. She talks about kids who don't eat because the family diet is lowfat food. In her examples, as soon as the family adds fat to their diet, the kids start eating normally. When she mentions the food the example family eats, it is things like boiled fish with no toppings, and baked potatoes served bare. Good grief! I agree that THAT might be unexciting, but my family eats a lowfat diet that is nothing like this. My family eats a huge variety of food with very enjoyable flavors and textures. We eat curries, stir-fries, pastas, burritos, and a zillion other things. How could a celebrated nutrition expert have so little clue that lowfat food can be wonderful varied stuff?

Finally, Satter says she thinks people should not restrict fat in their diet. She gives her reasoning why she thinks the scientific studies that say fat is harmful are wrong. Then she goes on to call all the major nutritional groups -- I don't have the list in front of me, but it's groups like the American Association of Dietitians -- she calls them "extremists" and says that they're hopping on a silly trendy bandwagon and in a few years people will decide that fat is desirable after all, and that when that happens we should remember that she told us first. Ok, fine. When research says fat is healthy, I'll start eating more fat, but until then I'll wait. She repeats the word "extremists" several times -- more name-calling. She's calling all these major well-known nutrition experts "extremists"??? I don't think that's justified.

So.... I ended up really annoyed with Satter, and not at all pleased that I'd bought the book.


Satter's Other Books are a Better Buy   June 23, 2004
Lisa Manske (Wauwatosa, WI USA)
44 out of 47 found this review helpful

I bought this book after reading "How to Get Your Kid to Eat . .. But Not Too Much" and found this book to be redundant. The book itself is good, but if you read Satter's other books, you don't need this one.

In addition, I found "How to Get Your Kid to Eat" to be more concise with basically the same information. Busy parents can get the same help with feeding their children in a much shorter book.

This book focuses heavily on infant feeding, both breast and bottle, as well as starting solids. As a breastfeeding mom, I found the chapter on breastfeeding to be average. You're better off with a good breastfeeding book, as you'll need one anyway. The bottlefeeding information presented is very important, as it is tempting to try and control your child's eating when you use a bottle. This book helps you avoid that. There aren't many books on bottlefeeding. Again, though, the important facts about sharing control with your child while bottlefeeding are in her other books.

I highly recommend Ellyn Satter, especially to parents with eating issues that they don't want to pass on to their children. One of her two other books is a better, more comprehensive read, though.


Must-read for all parents   March 3, 1999
22 out of 22 found this review helpful

This book is the best I've ever read on the subject of infant and toddler feeding. The advice on breastfeeding, starting solids and feeding finicky toddlers is practical and down-to-earth--unlike some books which insist on rigid meal plans and servings-per-day which are just not realistic when feeding toddlers. The author emphasizes the loving relationship between parent and child, and discourages letting food become a battleground. She stresses a healthy attitude toward eating such as allowing kids to listen to their bodies in order to regulate intake, rather than forcing them to "clean their plate" or making them feel bad about eating when they tend toward overweight. All in all, its a very readable book with lots of usable information.


Superfluous for gentle parents   November 25, 2003
18 out of 45 found this review helpful

The main message of this book is that parents should not try to control and stress over their children's feeding practices. Babies (and toddlers) are pretty well regulated and know what and how much to eat. The parent's job is simply to provide a variety of healthy and nutritious foods and ensure a pleasant mealtime atmosphere. The rest is up to the child.

I wholeheartedly agree with this premise--parents should not try to hoax babies into eating or to restrict a chubby toddler's diet. I think that most of the other nutritional advice in the book is valid as well--that we should not attempt to mold out children's bodies into a media-dictated "perfect" form, that eating meat and drinking whole milk is essential, and that the occasional piece of candy is not the end of the world.

The reason I felt compelled to write this review is that to a lot of attachment parents this is superfluous information. They already know they should work with, rather than control their children. The division of responsibilities comes naturally to them. And, even though the book offers a very gentle, very child-let approach to feeding, it is far less understanding in other aspects of child rearing. For example, it highly recommends the Ferber technique of sleep training--reading through these pages might be painful for gentler parents.

In short--the book offers valid information on feeding, but this information is superfluous to people who already practice an instinctive and gentle parenting.