Solid Starts was founded in 2020 to revolutionize the way we feed our babies and toddlers. Their FREE first food database provides nutrition information and preparation information for the foods we eat and how we can make it accessible and safe for babies to eat from the time they start solids. I welcome the founder of Solid Starts, Jenny Best, to talk about Solid Starts and feeding babies and toddlers.

We discuss:

• How we as parents and our parenting style can impact feeding
• Why feeding is an incredibly important milestone
• Why self-feeding is important for babies

Check out all the Solid Starts resources: Free First Foods Database, Solid Starts App, Starting Solids Bundle

Connect on Instagram @solidstarts

00;00;01;03 – 00;00;20;24
Jenny Best
I wanted to kind of twist the cap off of the baby food chart and turn all of that upside down and say, well, if we want to get to the family meal, because that’s ultimately the goal, right? Is getting baby to eat what you want to eat. So you’re not constantly making two separate meals for the rest of your life?

00;00;20;26 – 00;00;32;22
Jenny Best
How do we get from there to there? And how can we get the foods that we eat into baby’s diet sooner? It turns out it’s completely safe to do. And there’s a lot of benefits to doing it early on.

00;00;32;24 – 00;00;55;00
Dr. Mona
Welcome back to the show. This podcast is growing because of you and your reviews, so keep leaving those reviews, updating them, and sharing the show with any parent, grandparent, teacher, anybody who takes care of children. I am so excited to welcome a favorite of mine, not only on social media, but what she’s doing and her business is doing for eating and feeding children.

00;00;55;07 – 00;01;16;28
Dr. Mona
And this is Jenny Best, mom and founder of Solid Start, a platform that’s revolutionizing how we feed our babies. It has helped over 2 million families and continues to grow. And we are talking about starting solids and picky eating and just a conversation with Jenny and how she found this company. Thank you so much for joining me today, Jenny.

00;01;17;00 – 00;01;20;28
Jenny Best
Hi. It’s so good to be here. I’m glad we finally made it happen.

00;01;21;01 – 00;01;27;15
Dr. Mona
Yes, I mean, I found you in the pandemic, so I believe you did start solid starts. In what year?

00;01;27;18 – 00;01;31;11
Jenny Best
2020 was for the year. Things got really rolling. Yeah.

00;01;31;11 – 00;01;52;00
Dr. Mona
And so I started my platform in 2019. But then obviously in the pandemic, things really grew and I loved it. My son turned, you know, for six months for solid foods and your first food database, which I’m sure talk about was our go to, you know, how to especially make things safe to, you know, feed babies and whatnot.

00;01;52;00 – 00;02;11;05
Dr. Mona
And I don’t think anyone listening she didn’t know who you are. But in case they don’t, you know, you’ve created this incredible platform, community and resources with solid start. Where did this inspiration come from? And just tell us more about this platform for anyone who’s not familiar.

00;02;11;07 – 00;02;43;17
Jenny Best
Sure. Yeah, so. Well, first, it’s the first completely free resource for babies and parents who are just starting solids and who want to start solids with an idea toward getting to, you know, the real food fast or the family meal faster versus, you know, the jarred baby food or a pouch. Those things are both totally fine as part of the process, but I wanted to kind of twist the cap off of the baby food chart and turn all of that upside down and say, well, if we want to get to the family meal, because that’s ultimately the goal, right?

00;02;43;17 – 00;03;04;00
Jenny Best
Is getting baby to eat what you want to eat. So you’re not constantly making two separate meals for the rest of your life. How do we get from there to there? And how can we get the foods that we eat into baby’s diet sooner? It turns out it’s completely safe to do, and there’s a lot of benefits to doing it early on.

00;03;04;01 – 00;03;28;25
Jenny Best
So the inspiration really hit when, it goes back a while. But my first born, I did the typical sort of Gerber jars, whatever pouches, whatever. The pediatrician told me to do this many tablespoons of rice cereal. This was a while ago, so it was a bit dated. And my baby did not like it. He didn’t like me kind of coming at him with a spoon.

00;03;28;28 – 00;04;02;15
Jenny Best
He really didn’t like the feel of puree kind of spreading on his tongue. And just the experience was really deflating. He was just not into it at all. And I didn’t know there was any alternative to spoon feeding or any alternative to a jar of baby food at the time and baby led weaning. And, the introduction of finger food, the early introduction, I think if it really wasn’t a thing as much back then when I was doing this, and so I really didn’t know there was anywhere else to turn or any other alternative to consider.

00;04;02;15 – 00;04;32;18
Jenny Best
So I just kind of kept trying. He kept resisting, I keep trying, he keeps resisting and kind of spiraled down. He started really refusing all meals, pursing his lips, turning his head, you know, crying upon the sight of the highchair, arching his back, wanting to get out. And mealtime was this, like fraught and stressful environment for us. And, you know, a year into that, you start doing everything you can as a parent because, you know, you hear your child’s losing weight and you start panicking.

00;04;32;18 – 00;04;54;21
Jenny Best
And I’m sure you’ve met with those patient families as a doctor yourself, and you see how terrified they are. But I was terrified he was falling off the growth chart, and he actually fell from like the 90th percentile to the first over, you know, of course, of many months of trying to spoon feed him and him resisting that.

00;04;54;23 – 00;05;15;29
Jenny Best
And so fast forward a few months of me kind of pressuring him to try to open his mouth there. You start doing everything you can, here, watch this video. Yeah. Sure. Let’s, you know, read this book while you’re eating and a sneaking a bite. And I think a lot of parents end up pressuring their children to kind of open their mouth or take one more bite because they’re terrified that they’re losing weight.

00;05;16;02 – 00;05;51;19
Jenny Best
And I think that that activity in and of itself, while well-intentioned, right. I think all of us as parents are doing the very best we can with the information we have at the time. It leads to unintentional pressure and a negative mealtime experience for the baby, which those kinds of things, you know, they form early. So, you know, he actually still struggles a bit today with his eating because he was on textualist food for a really, really long time because I was inadvertently pressuring him to eat by saying, oh, here, watch a video, open your mouth, all these things.

00;05;51;21 – 00;06;22;26
Jenny Best
And, so when I got pregnant with my twins a few years forward, a couple of years forward, I really wanted to do it differently. I was like, no, no, I cannot do this again. We will not be doing this again. And I discovered baby led weaning and started reading about the research of self feeding and all the benefits, both from an oral motor perspective and from a psychological perspective, and forming that kind of positive relationship with food and letting the baby can decide what goes in their mouth and when.

00;06;22;26 – 00;06;44;25
Jenny Best
And really was convinced that this was the path I wanted to explore. Tried it out with my twins, boy girl, fraternal twins, and it was like mind blowingly different. I couldn’t believe how easy they took to define just how you were telling me before we got on the call that your little one, your youngest, is not even wanting to spoon.

00;06;44;25 – 00;07;09;18
Jenny Best
Like, just give me their food. That’s how it was. I couldn’t, after struggling for years to get my first baby to even open his mouth for the spoon of puree, I couldn’t believe that my twins were like, give me that drumstick right now. That chicken drumstick! And just so happy. Oh, they were enjoying the meal. They were like, blissfully excited about it.

00;07;09;20 – 00;07;32;05
Jenny Best
And I just kind of sat back like, oh my God, there’s something really here. So I ended up starting the social media platform to document the experience, to show what we were learning along the way, because there wasn’t really a resource to look up. Well, how do I stay calm? How do I introduce eggs to a baby? How do I cut a strawberry for a nine month old?

00;07;32;05 – 00;08;02;19
Jenny Best
There just wasn’t any information about that, and I wanted to know that I was doing it safely. And I wanted to know that my doctor would approve of this and say, okay, he’s not going to choke. And this is how it goes. And so research led to me meeting a number of professionals online, and somehow we all kind of banded together an allergist, a pediatrician, and my infant swallowing specialists, feeding therapists, pediatric picky eating specialists and a nutritionist.

00;08;02;19 – 00;08;04;14
Jenny Best
And we all banded together.

00;08;04;14 – 00;08;05;02
Dr. Mona
That’s it.

00;08;05;02 – 00;08;30;03
Jenny Best
Yeah. Well, I wanted to cross all my teeth and oh, man, I’m that kind of parent. I was like, no, we need we need the multidisciplinary. Like, I need everyone to tell me this is safe. I’ll banded together and decided to essentially volunteer our time for a couple of years to build the database, the free first food database, which is now one of the top apps in the world, I’m told, which is just mindblowing.

00;08;30;03 – 00;08;56;04
Jenny Best
So, but our goal is to keep the database, and the app, which you can download for free forever so that anyone, anywhere, any country, any culture could figure out how to introduce the food that they want their child to eventually eat with them to their baby, and hopefully just give them the confidence to make that leap from the jar of baby food or the pouch over to the family meal, whatever that family meal might be for them.

00;08;56;06 – 00;09;17;07
Dr. Mona
Oh, and I already mentioned how much I love your whole platform, but also just speaking to that first food database. And if you’re again, if you’re not familiar, you need to check it out one because they are very inclusive of culture. So I went through the first food database with my nanny. So we have a nanny for our six month old daughter at the time of this recording, and she’s ready for salads.

00;09;17;07 – 00;09;38;27
Dr. Mona
And I wanted my nanny to know how to cut this, that I didn’t have to tell her. Right. Like I know how to cut it because I’ve done it with Ryan, our son. We did, self-feeding early on as well, but with my nanny, I was like, hey, here’s the food, you know, cut it like this. And the older generation across of cultures, the older generation is hesitant, but we want to teach them.

00;09;38;27 – 00;10;00;14
Dr. Mona
And that hesitation drops down. Right. And that probably is why you had pediatricians that were like, I don’t know about this. In my training, we never learned about baby led weaning or self-feeding. We learned the, you know, you do the soft puree and then 7 to 8 months, nine months, you go to stage two. And it wasn’t until my first job as a pediatrician in Manhattan.

00;10;00;17 – 00;10;18;10
Dr. Mona
I worked with the clinician, and this practice was very international. We had a lot of diverse families, and a lot of families started asking me about baby led weaning, and I was like, what’s this baby led weaning? So I started reading about it, and a lot of my families were from Europe and they, you know, live half time in Manhattan, half time in Europe.

00;10;18;12 – 00;10;37;18
Dr. Mona
And I was like, this seems pretty reasonable. And so I started doing my own research outside of my training, and that is when I was like, this makes sense. You know, obviously if a child wants to do puree, we can teach them ways to like self feed. And so we did a bridge. We did puree but on a spoon so that she you know for the children grabbed it.

00;10;37;21 – 00;10;53;28
Dr. Mona
And that was more for the comfort. Right. Because it is. Yeah. And so that’s something that we did. And I showed my nanny like, hey, look at her do this. And so she also when we had a nanny for our son, they’re capable like let them do that. Yeah. To this day I, my husband is not really down with that.

00;10;53;28 – 00;11;28;25
Dr. Mona
He gets nervous and my, the grandparents get nervous. But the more we show it and you know, your platform is not just the database. It’s obviously a lot of resources on choking and gagging and feeding mechanisms. And it’s also what you mentioned already about how we inadvertently create feeding aversions, which is something that I am so passionate about because I do believe, and this is a loaded statement, but I do believe, truly from my practice, that a lot of feeding difficulties are facilitated by parents not knowing what they can do to help that behavior or stop that be.

00;11;28;26 – 00;11;41;14
Dr. Mona
Yeah. And that includes forcing through. Right. That includes force. Yeah. Of course there’s texture issues. Of course there’s feeding mechanism issues. We know that to be a reality. But we can’t deny that there is.

00;11;41;14 – 00;12;05;24
Jenny Best
That’s a small percentage of the overall. Yeah. No, I’m so glad you brought that up because you know, we take heat time to time from talking about even the notion of being able to prevent picky eating. And one of the reasons I’m so passionate about it is because I discovered in the research, and there’s quite clear research on this, that there are distinct causes of picky eating.

00;12;05;29 – 00;12;34;10
Jenny Best
Yes, one of those is like medical issues, you know, severe allergies, celiac. If food is making your baby feel sick, that’s going to create a negative association with eating. Those are pretty like small percentages when you compare to the overall population. And yes, there’s neurodivergent issues and things like that might affect eating at the table or even just childhood characteristics, like some kids are more open to change and exploration than others.

00;12;34;10 – 00;13;05;16
Jenny Best
But the reality is, even if you put all of those things together, that group is still a very small percentage. I would say probably less than eight 7% of the issues with picky eating. The other causes of picky eating are fascinating, and they’re almost all within our control as caregivers. So, you know, things like a very controlling, anxious parenting style, commanding a child eat a certain way at the table that’s going to create a negative association as well.

00;13;05;18 – 00;13;26;20
Jenny Best
On the other hand, an overly permissive style of parenting, the research is really strong there, too. Oh, you don’t want this dinner. Okay, let me go make you something else. Right. And it’s not to say you can never do those things are never go back to the kitchen. But it’s kind of like where the scale is tipping in your favor, right?

00;13;26;20 – 00;13;43;23
Jenny Best
You kind of want to aim for balance, I think, with all of these things. But yes, controlling parenting, anxious parenting, if you are bringing a lot of anxiety and fear to the table and you’re snatching the food out of the baby’s hand because you’re panicking, they’re going to mimic that emotion, even start to pick up and feel that emotion.

00;13;43;24 – 00;14;17;20
Jenny Best
We don’t want our kids feeling afraid of food, or that food is scary in that way. So, you know, from negative mealtime experiences like force feeding or feeling pressure and even a six month old can feel even the hint of pressure at the table. We don’t think they can understand us, but they do. And then, you know, the other thing that really gets down to what you were talking about earlier with the guidance, you know, in your, study a discipline and from the American Academy of Pediatrics and so forth is a lack of exposure to chewable foods by a certain age.

00;14;17;23 – 00;14;34;25
Jenny Best
And this is hard to talk about because, you know, if you’re a parent here listening. And look, I spoon fed my child textualist food, literally squeeze the pouch on the spoon, okay? Don’t even let them hold the pouch. Squeeze the pouch under the spoon for more than 18 months. Okay, so, you know, I’ve been there. I’ve been there.

00;14;34;25 – 00;14;53;02
Jenny Best
I know what it’s like. I know what drives those decisions from not wanting to get messy to being afraid of choking, to being afraid of allergies, what have you. But the reality is, is that there’s a window of time in which the brain more easily picks up the kind of mechanisms of chewing and safe eating and swallowing.

00;14;53;02 – 00;15;07;07
Jenny Best
It’s a lot going on. You have to take a piece first. You have to learn to take an accurate sized bite. Then you’ve got to learn to move the food to the side of the mouth, to the molars for chewing. Molars aren’t quite there yet, but the gums are very powerful and very strong. Then you’ve got a kick in that reflex.

00;15;07;07 – 00;15;29;10
Jenny Best
You’re up and down. Then you gotta move the food back to the middle, the tongue to go down. When you’re a spoon feeding a texture less food like a velvety puree. Yeah. You may notice the baby actually tries to use the spoon as leverage to swallow it, because purees are soft to swallow. And this is such an important thing that I wish other pediatricians, like really were taught and learned.

00;15;29;10 – 00;16;00;06
Jenny Best
You know, in the realm of infant swallowing, purees are sucked to swallow. So that notion of stage one, to stage two, to stage three of thickness of puree, or even moving up to a lumpy puree, those are not foods that are going to trigger the chewing reflexes. And, you know, to be candid, this is a marketing thing by baby food companies to extend that, they would call the lifetime consumer value of the customer to keep you on their product for as long as possible.

00;16;00;13 – 00;16;36;25
Jenny Best
To teach babies how to chew, you have to offer truly chewable food. And the fastest way to kind of jump start chewing, thorough chewing, safe eating, as we would see it, is actually to go to the other extreme, unbreakable, resistive, kind of foods like sticks of food. So when we have babies who are children that we work with, who have been on purees for a very long time, gag a lot with just even a piece of rice or something like that, which, you know, then makes the parent go, I want to stay on purees longer because I can’t deal with the gagging.

00;16;36;25 – 00;16;59;19
Jenny Best
It’s scary. It looks like they’re choking. Our feeding therapists actually give them what we call food tethers. Things like the seed of a mango, a mango pit, a corn on the cob, a chicken drumstick bone, things that are unbreakable by a six month olds, jaws. But that put a lot of sensory input and pressure into the mouth, which helps the brain more rapidly.

00;16;59;19 – 00;17;33;12
Jenny Best
Make a mental map of the mouth, which will reduce the gagging, but also triggers lateral tongue movements and chewing reflexes. To really start going okay, I need to move this food over here. I need to go up and down, up and down, move it back and then swallow. A puree is just not going to do that. And unfortunately, one of the messages I’m really trying to bring to parents, now that I’ve dove into the research and really got intimately familiar with all the mechanics of this, is that there is no skipping ahead, you have to go through and kicking the can down the road saying, oh, I’m just going to wait until 12 months of

00;17;33;12 – 00;17;54;03
Jenny Best
age or 18 months of age. In my case, to do chewable food, because that’s when they’ll be more mature and they’ll have more teeth, actually makes it harder for the baby’s brain to pick up the skill because they’ve got the dominant soft reflex happening. And you’re reinforcing that by offering the mesh pouches or, you know, whatever you’re doing.

00;17;54;06 – 00;18;39;02
Jenny Best
The best thing I can tell those parents who are like, oh God, I need to make the leap now. And, you know, I need to go over to chewable foods sooner than later, but I don’t feel ready. Is that your baby’s body has your back? Yeah, the protective mechanisms. And I know you know this very well, doctor, but like, the protective mechanisms and the gag reflex is only one of many, are very powerful and strong in infant and from a feeding therapist perspective, or like an infant swallowing perspective, our specialists and licensed professionals love doing early introduction and finger food for that very reason, because some of the reflexes, the protective reflexes, start to

00;18;39;02 – 00;19;06;08
Jenny Best
fade after 12 months of age. And so in a lot of ways, you kind of want to introduce the challenging foods. And it sounds counterintuitive, I know, but you want to introduce the challenging foods. While babies protective reflexes against choking are at their all time high. Yeah, it makes a perfect kind of landscape for making mistakes safely and also just as babies.

00;19;06;08 – 00;19;28;26
Jenny Best
And if you remember, your young baby, like, can barely see you. And then there’s that moment where they like, actually focus on you. Their eyes are able to focus and they kind of know where they are. And you’re like, oh, hello, welcome to the world. Yeah, it’s similar with toddlers. They’re more aware, more and more bothered by gagging and discomfort textures in their mouth than infants are.

00;19;28;26 – 00;19;46;01
Jenny Best
A lot of young babies like a six month old baby might take a two big piece, a bite of chicken or something like that kind of go, oh, what’s this big thing in my mouth? And then have to gag it forward or spit it out. You’ll often see them go right back for the same piece of food. Yeah, really.

00;19;46;01 – 00;20;07;03
Jenny Best
Because they’re just, like, unfazed. They’re unfazed. So wired to explore the world orally. But a 12 month old, an 18 month old might gag and then be like, oh, that didn’t feel good. I don’t like it. I don’t want to do that again. So we really want to take advantage of that window of opportunity, particularly between 6 and 9 months of age.

00;20;07;05 – 00;20;34;11
Jenny Best
Babies are just wired to learn how to chew and how to explore food at that age, and it’s a perfect age where the protective mechanisms against choking in the body are just so easily triggered and so powerful that it’s a really safe time to explore. So I know it’s like the opposite of everything we have ever been told by our doctors, by the, you know, institutions that govern this knowledge.

00;20;34;11 – 00;20;51;21
Jenny Best
But the reality is, is that a lot of that knowledge, you know, particularly ten years ago and before, was, not shaped, by evidence based research. And I’m sure, you know, a little bit of that, too. Pediatrics is a difficult area to have a lot of research in.

00;20;51;23 – 00;21;07;05
Dr. Mona
Yeah, and a lot of it, as we know, and you’ve talked about it is, you know, you already mentioned on this episode is the marketing of baby food and how that has impacted a lot of the advice that’s been given. And marketing is very, very important in all aspects of parenting. We know not just with the food industry, but toys in play.

00;21;07;05 – 00;21;29;18
Dr. Mona
And you need this and this, and this is going to help you sleep through the night. And this is going to do this. It’s like preying on parents fears and worries. And I want my kid to be safe and healthy. And I agree with that. You know, I feel like even when we look at milestones, you know, we talk about crawling and babbling, all of this stuff, you know, we have language and communication motor, fine motor, social, emotional, cognitive.

00;21;29;21 – 00;21;43;24
Dr. Mona
We need to really, really look at feeding as a milestone. And feeding does get grouped into speech and communication sometimes. But if you look at like the CDC milestones, there is not a lot about feeding milestones. And it’s something that is really important.

00;21;43;24 – 00;22;09;10
Jenny Best
Thank you. Yes. Where is that? Yeah, I think back to the time when I was that terrified mom, terrified of choking, terrified of allergies, spoon fed for, you know, almost two years. If I had had a handout that said, if you want to start with purees, do this, but at eight months of age, introduce finger food. I would have sort of known how far off track I got.

00;22;09;10 – 00;22;15;11
Jenny Best
You know, because I didn’t think I told our doctor. Like it just didn’t seem like a thing I should be aware of. There was no information about it.

00;22;15;17 – 00;22;35;03
Dr. Mona
I know that at six months, I need to have this conversation about what we just talked about, that, you know, here’s some resources. I give you a out, but I’m like, here’s resources. I want you to do what you feel comfortable. But if a family’s hesitant, right. Like of the more texture like to potato that’s, you know, like cut in a strip or whatnot, I put the potato, I say, hey, start with a loaded spoon, like, let’s do this.

00;22;35;03 – 00;22;57;15
Dr. Mona
Here’s how we can do that. It’s kind of bridging that sort of puree and, you know, grabbing the item. But I’m like, you’re going to be surprised and exactly what you said. The body’s going to protect itself. You’re going to fit the baby correctly. It’s going to be okay. And then I have had so many patients come into my office that aren’t my patients, like maybe they saw another clinician or they somehow moved here and I see them at nine months, one year.

00;22;57;22 – 00;23;14;27
Dr. Mona
Oh, we’re still doing purees. And I’m like, what are we doing here? And it’s a huge red flag for me. And I have to say is this. And I think parents need to hear this. Are you not doing more than puree because your baby can’t handle it? Or are you scared and don’t know how to advance? Because that’s really huge.

00;23;14;27 – 00;23;24;11
Dr. Mona
And I’m going to be honest, most of the time it’s the parent not knowing how to advance or that the baby can do it. It’s not the baby. Yeah, like you said. Yeah.

00;23;24;13 – 00;23;55;21
Jenny Best
That’s absolutely right. I mean, even with the infants that are feeding therapists work with in the hospitals or used to before they were full time with us, you know, we’re talking about babies with hearts outside of their bodies. Yeah. Down syndrome, all sorts of different things. Even then, the feeding therapies are choosing what we call food tethers versus purees because it jump start oral motor skills much more quickly to offer the chewable food and get that going versus a spoon and try you wonder what’s so interesting.

00;23;55;25 – 00;24;19;13
Jenny Best
And now that have you I’m like, okay, you’re going to tell every other doctor, you know, this information because the mind blowing. Yeah. So we just published, we have a whole portal called Solid Starts Pro for professionals such as yourself pediatricians, dietitians, OTS, SLPs, all that kind of thing. And it’s continuing education for credit. So we published nerdy courses like the Neurobiol Allergy of Choking and the Neurobiology of Swallowing.

00;24;19;13 – 00;24;45;08
Jenny Best
Oh, I love it. Which are which are there if you’re part of the membership? Yeah. And what is so fascinating to me, just as a parent, it kind of auditing some of these professional courses is that when food is placed in another person’s mouth. So let’s say you’re putting a piece of food in your child’s mouth that increases the risk of choking.

00;24;45;11 – 00;25;08;20
Jenny Best
So the converse of that, when humans at any age selfie, they decide cognitively I see that food. I’m going to pick it up. I’m going to put it in my mouth. The brain is more ready to facilitate a safe eating, chewing through chewing, and a safe swallow. Choking, by definition, happens because of the missed coordination of the swallow.

00;25;08;20 – 00;25;38;12
Jenny Best
It’s actually rarely the size of the food or the exact, you know, kind of shape or slipperiness of the grape. It’s often just a mis coordination of all of the muscles that need to work together to make that happen safely. When we chew and swallow food, the body during the swallow closes off the airway. There’s a little flap of tissue which I know, you know, comes over and folds over the airway so that food slides down into the food tube and not into the airway.

00;25;38;13 – 00;26;07;29
Jenny Best
So the body is designed regardless of the size of food or the shape of food, to put it into the right tube, the food tube. But I think as parents we’re like, oh, if it’s too big of a bite for sure, the child’s going to choke is actually not how it works at all. But self feeding, letting your infant, your baby six months old, nine months old, 12 months old, whatever it is, self feeding in and of itself reduces the risk of choking.

00;26;07;29 – 00;26;24;08
Jenny Best
And this is the thing I want pediatricians to know and to go read the research. And this is, you know, very well documented. And it makes sense, right. Like imagine like close your eyes for a second and imagine your partner putting food in your mouth. Like, I would be like, oh no, no, no, no, get away from my face.

00;26;24;08 – 00;26;26;10
Jenny Best
Like, don’t you even come near my grandpa and you’re my face.

00;26;26;10 – 00;26;27;13
Dr. Mona
And at the very least.

00;26;27;13 – 00;26;51;10
Jenny Best
It feels intrusive, right? Which is why, if you want to start with purees, which is fine to start their move to finger food by 8 or 9 months if you can. But let baby grab the spoon for you. Let baby decide. I see that food. I grab, that food, I bring that food to my mouth because that cognitive process right there is already queuing up for a safe eating experience.

00;26;51;10 – 00;27;18;29
Jenny Best
So that to me, is where we’re going to win the pediatricians over. I think, Mona, because it’s science, it’s physiology. And it’s like, oh yeah, I get that. And so we really want to get that knowledge out there to the medical community and to others, anyone who will listen because, yeah, like we said, a lot of the recommendations up until now have not been based on research, but rather heavily influenced by corporate America.

00;27;19;02 – 00;27;22;02
Jenny Best
And that’s a whole other history in a home. The podcast we can do.

00;27;22;04 – 00;27;54;07
Dr. Mona
We can start a whole series on capitalism and parenting. I would no, I have a lot to say about that. And, you know, the research you have for clinicians is so important. And it’s frustrating to me because I agree with everything that you are saying. I fully believe it. And I still battle with fellow clinicians that may be a little bit older sometimes, or even my peers that are my same age and training level that are like, okay, I will say it tends to be more from the older, crowd that doesn’t have younger children, but it is so important because like I said, the milestone is there and a lot of families are

00;27;54;07 – 00;28;15;00
Dr. Mona
coming in, and the pediatrician or clinician that they’re seeing is that first line. They don’t know about all this stuff. And so we need this information, which is why I’m so happy that you came on this podcast. And I hope we can share it with everybody, because you need to be able to advocate it. And I saw families come in and tell me, oh, that other doctor said self-feeding is not possible.

00;28;15;03 – 00;28;32;08
Dr. Mona
Like it is possible. Like it absolutely is. And I give the example, like both of my children, my son was a bottle feeder. Like he could down bottles like no one’s business. So I wasn’t worried that he was going to have any issue with solids. So I’m like, he look at him like he’s ready to eat. He was grabbing my spoon.

00;28;32;10 – 00;28;49;29
Dr. Mona
My daughter was a very but I had some concerns with her newborn feeding, breastfeeding, bottle feeding. I was just a little something was not right. So I was a little more like, I don’t know how feeding is going to go. She didn’t want me to even bring the spoon to her mouth at all. She was like, hey lady, here, I want to grab it.

00;28;49;29 – 00;29;08;26
Dr. Mona
And it goes to show you that even if you have these worries or you’re like, unsure, your baby is going to surprise you and you have to give them more faith. I think we don’t give our baby enough credit of, like you said, their innate mechanism that exist. And I love using analogies like you just did of like if someone were to shove food in your mouth, would you like that?

00;29;08;26 – 00;29;24;29
Dr. Mona
Same thing with you. What you mentioned, to start the episode about your son when he was doing this. Sort of like they’re moving their face. If you are bringing a spoon to your baby’s face because you do not want to do so feeding, and they are telling you moving their head, that tells you that they do not like it.

00;29;24;29 – 00;29;26;18
Dr. Mona
And that is so important.

00;29;26;19 – 00;29;48;19
Jenny Best
And I’m so glad you’re bringing up the issue of trust, because I actually do think it starts in the medical parent kind of relationship. You know, I’ve thought about this deeply, obviously, for a long time because ultimately that’s the barrier to getting folks to leap over, to go, okay. Yeah, actually, I think I can figure out how to modify what I’m eating to make it safe for baby.

00;29;48;19 – 00;30;10;29
Jenny Best
It’s a big leap from where we have been in the last couple of decades, but I think it starts honestly with just the sort of, I think probably particularly a Western approach in medicine, even with pregnancy, like the very first thing when you’re pregnant is you start measuring the baby and weighing your own body first thing after birth, measuring the baby.

00;30;11;06 – 00;30;27;26
Jenny Best
And it’s like, I don’t know about you, but as a obviously of a different situation because you are a doctor. But like me, as a parent, I felt like my entire job was just to grow this baby. Like that was my job. And if I wasn’t growing my baby, I was failing in the eyes of my pediatrician and even my OB, right?

00;30;27;26 – 00;30;51;06
Jenny Best
Like in utero. And so I think it’s it makes sense for why we don’t trust our babies to know how much they want to eat if we don’t even trust that they feel full. Yeah, but that is an innate thing that they are born with from day one, typically developing, you know, healthy infants will let you know when they’re hungry and they will turn their heads when they’re full.

00;30;51;06 – 00;31;12;22
Jenny Best
So why don’t we trust that? Why do we think that you have to scrape that very last bit? Because the baby food company told you that four ounces. Exactly what your babies need, the range of what is normal to eat for any given infant is so wide that we refuse to publish portion sizes. Right? Because what is normal for baby A is totally different for baby.

00;31;12;25 – 00;31;36;06
Jenny Best
And both of those things can be perfectly healthy and normal for them. So but I think back to this thing of trust. I think fundamentally that is what was broken down and I think preyed upon by various corporations over the last 100 years. You know, there were advertisement that I think preyed upon the trust of a mother trusting her body to make enough milk.

00;31;36;06 – 00;32;00;04
Jenny Best
You would see advertisements that said things like, what’s better than breastfeeding, breastfeeding, and this jar of pears? And there are subtle and overt ways that in particular maternal trust was question and an eroded over time. And I’m hoping that this isn’t generation that’s going to kind of claim it back. They’re going to start trusting their babies, trusting their intuition.

00;32;00;04 – 00;32;32;09
Jenny Best
It doesn’t feel right this particular way I’m going about this isn’t feel like whatever method or approach that is just because the way grandma did it, or grandma’s grandma or the pediatrician doesn’t necessarily mean that’s right for you. So I’m glad you brought that up, because I think that’s fundamentally at the root of many feeding challenges, from picky eating to prolonged spoon feeding, that we don’t quite feel it’s okay to trust our babies to say they’re full or or to let them grab the piece of food flora.

00;32;32;11 – 00;33;00;18
Jenny Best
But it turns out that the risk of choking is absolutely no different. And this was proven no different with letting a baby sell feed versus, you know, starting with spoon feeding and purees. And the more we as parents intervene and control the feeding experience, the more likely we are setting up those kids to struggle with food later on.

00;33;00;20 – 00;33;22;16
Jenny Best
Someone once asked me, you know, at the end of a podcast or something, if you had a billboard, what would it say? And I would say, get out of the way. Yeah, trust your baby. Trust your child. Honor their cues. Get out of the way. It is a natural thing to eat. They’re born to eat. They are born knowing how to do it.

00;33;22;16 – 00;33;48;01
Jenny Best
Knowing when they’re hungry. Knowing when they’re full. Our job as parents is to create the conditions, choose the choices because we know more about food than they do at that moment, and their life offers them choices. Serve at the same time, back up and let them explore and create a safe environment for them to explore and hopefully create a joyful relationship with food.

00;33;48;04 – 00;34;09;14
Jenny Best
Yeah, and one that they trust their own internal cues to know I feel for. I’m going to stop when I feel full and not take another bite just to please mom and also not eat just to avoid some sort of consequence. Yeah. Older child right? Shoes. I think we bring a lot of baggage as parents to the table.

00;34;09;16 – 00;34;15;23
Jenny Best
I think this generation is the one that’s going to strip it away and correct the course. I really I really believe that.

00;34;15;24 – 00;34;42;08
Dr. Mona
I think, you know, in my platform, like I want every human being and child to have a good relationship with food, a good relationship with their body, like good body image, like they love who they are. You know, a good relationship with sleep. What I mean by that is understanding the months of sleep and also understanding a connection of their emotions like that is, to me, the trifecta, because that is what can prevent a lot of medical issues down the line that we can’t control.

00;34;42;08 – 00;34;59;09
Dr. Mona
Right? Like you talk about like how we relate to food and it is about a trust thing. And, you know, you talk about all this when we start college, but it really goes down, like you said, to that newborn who is feeling like they’re not getting enough weight. That parent is concerned. It goes down to how we create feeding volumes for bottle fed babies.

00;34;59;09 – 00;35;16;23
Dr. Mona
I mean, that’s a reality and it’s still as a pediatrician and I see I get frustrated. I’m like, why are we saying that a baby should be drinking this amount when we wouldn’t do that for food? I mean, we’re creating from the beginning a metric based value of a child. You should weigh this. We should be getting this much.

00;35;16;23 – 00;35;38;13
Dr. Mona
And it’s a whole thing about all parenting. Everything is metrics. And I get so all about metrics like feeding logs. And this is how much I want to like when we talk about food off. But like you said, the routine don’t worry about volume. If I’m looking at a growth curve and seeing something obviously trending down or trending up in an awful way, I will have those conversations.

00;35;38;13 – 00;35;57;05
Dr. Mona
But that is also the medical community who is at fault because we end up being so laser focused and, you drop like 10%, okay, something’s terribly wrong. We need to do a whole failure to Thrive workout. Well, what’s going on with the feeding dynamic? Like what is going on in the home like there? And that’s a medical.

00;35;57;05 – 00;36;18;19
Jenny Best
And is there space for fluctuation, right. You know, as a parent of a child who was failing to thrive for all the reasons I said earlier and, you know, kind of got that verdict from the doctor of wanting to install a feeding system on his body, a tube feeding system. So, you know, truly feeling like I had failed, like I got the F report card, right.

00;36;18;21 – 00;36;44;19
Jenny Best
The thing in our sort of healing and recovery path that helps me the most as a parent, I’m gonna just share that because I think it might help other anxious parents out there was hearing this. Try to focus on what your baby or child is eating during the whole week versus that moment or day. Because it’s okay for fluctuation there’s space for fluctuation.

00;36;44;21 – 00;37;00;24
Jenny Best
And when you look at the whole week you go oh actually yeah that was enough. That was, that was kind of fine. But if you’re, you know kind of sleep deprived and just looking at that one morning, that bottle refusal and then didn’t eat solid. You don’t know what’s going on that day might be teething, might be lack of sleep.

00;37;00;24 – 00;37;29;08
Jenny Best
It might be separation anxiety, might be a developmental leap forward. There are so many reasons for why an infant might not be interested. Give yourself some space for fluctuation. And unless your doctor is concerned about the curve, like try to put that burden on the doctor right like that. Don’t carry that day to day. We’ve got enough doctor appointments, and as long as you’re keeping to them and showing up, you know they will flag if something’s not quite right.

00;37;29;08 – 00;37;53;19
Jenny Best
But I just wish our medical system and our kind of parenting culture had some space for fluctuation, because that is that’s the thing I didn’t realize was okay, was like, there’s going to be days in which your baby is just like, I’m just too tired to learn the skill. Today, you’re asking me to sit up, first of all, which is a new skill you’re asking me to grab something with fingers that I can barely move me, you know?

00;37;53;24 – 00;38;18;12
Jenny Best
Yeah, without any articulation to accurately bring it to my mouth and not, like, poke myself in the eye like this is a lot to ask of me. And sometimes they’re just not going to want to do it, you know? And so let’s make some space for fluctuation and for flexibility and not think that, you know, just because this one meal was refused, that we’re on like this path that in a spiral down.

00;38;18;14 – 00;38;41;21
Dr. Mona
You talked about our generation being the one that breaks the cycle of, okay, how we approach feeding. And I love that. I think we are. And at the same time, our generation and I speak a lot about this, our generation’s fault is that we forget to look at that big picture. A lot of the times we end up looking more at checkboxes than we do the big picture because of, again, what society tells us about what you need to do and all.

00;38;41;21 – 00;38;43;05
Jenny Best
That information pushed to.

00;38;43;05 – 00;38;58;14
Dr. Mona
Us. And then so then you’re in a meal and you’re like, well, okay, well, they said that I have to eat this much and okay, but she only did one ounce. And then that’s what leads to that anxiety of pushing. And we want to be, oh gosh, if I could like again throw things from up of like fire.

00;38;58;15 – 00;39;05;28
Jenny Best
Second billboard. Yeah. Second billboard. The more you pressure your baby to eat, the less they are going to eat.

00;39;05;28 – 00;39;06;12
Dr. Mona
Exactly.

00;39;06;12 – 00;39;20;10
Jenny Best
And that’s the same for children too. The more a child feels pressured to eat, whether it’s a bottle, breast or solid food, the less they are likely to eat. So if you want your child to eat more, you’ve got to back off. You got to stop pressuring them.

00;39;20;17 – 00;39;26;25
Dr. Mona
But Jenny, if I don’t pressure them, they don’t eat. It’s such like a twisted thing, right? Like that’s what parents will tell me. I’m like, no, no, no, trust. Trust us.

00;39;26;28 – 00;39;50;27
Jenny Best
It’s a short game thing, though they might eat more that one moment because of whatever tactic you’re using to pressure them or to interest them, whether it’s overt pressure or not. But in the long run, that’ll likely backfire, especially if it’s done frequently. So we have to keep our sights on the long run. Is your goal just to fatten up this child by age one?

00;39;50;29 – 00;40;18;25
Jenny Best
Or is your goal to raise a child who wants to come to the table easily and enjoy the meal with you, and feel that food is nourishing and fun and joyful? Those two things can be in conflict sometimes, and I think giving ourselves the flexibility not to focus on that immediate milestone of this baby needs to gain ounces or, you know, pounds by this day.

00;40;18;25 – 00;40;27;05
Jenny Best
And really focusing on the long game can be freeing, for a lot of people. But it’s not how our medical system is set up, right?

00;40;27;08 – 00;40;28;24
Dr. Mona
It’s such a I mean, there’s so much.

00;40;28;25 – 00;40;36;12
Jenny Best
Operating in a context of milestones and growth charts and, and all of those things. But maybe doctors like you will help.

00;40;36;12 – 00;40;52;29
Dr. Mona
So I, you know, I one of the things that when I saw your platform, I was like, man, I should have been part of this platform because of just the philosophy of feeding and holistic approach to feeding. It’s not just feeding, it’s now. It never has been. And yet we do that in all aspects of health and parenting.

00;40;52;29 – 00;41;09;21
Dr. Mona
And you mentioned it a lot of the times. And I understand you do this, but as a pediatrician, I’m going to be very frank that, you know, you said, okay, if you’re pediatricians concerned, our system needs to change because some of my colleagues are like concerned about things that I’m like, why are we creating anxiety for a family when it doesn’t need to be there?

00;41;09;21 – 00;41;25;02
Dr. Mona
Like, and there’s an art of how we approach those anxiety provoking conversations, like, if I am worried about a child not gaining weight, I’m not going to say, mom, what are you doing? The kid’s not gaining weight. I’m going to be like, hey, look, I want to talk about the weight here. So, you know, I’m looking at that.

00;41;25;02 – 00;41;45;29
Dr. Mona
It was on the 90th and we’re seeing a little bit of a turn down here. And so I think we should spend some time talking about how is feeding going. How are you feeling about this? Like we’ve lost that because we don’t have time. And I, I want to so much, you know, I want and it’s important that we bring that back because then families feel supported and they’re not going home googling unsafe.

00;41;45;29 – 00;41;48;02
Jenny Best
Methods and spiraling down.

00;41;48;02 – 00;42;05;27
Dr. Mona
And your platform is my go to, you know, I there’s so many great resources, but I want to kind of say the fact that you all have that first food database, but you also are helping clinicians. You know, I know you’ve grown with that. You know, the obviously the brand has grown to really help so many people around the world, like you mentioned, is the future.

00;42;06;00 – 00;42;18;23
Dr. Mona
And what would be that final message for everyone listening, you know, about picky eating, selective eating, feeding their kids? I know you’ve brought so many pearls already. But what would you say?

00;42;18;26 – 00;42;34;27
Jenny Best
The one thing I would have done differently. And it’s hard to go back 2020 hindsight and and I would have done this differently with all three of my kids. You know, we did exclusive spoon feeding for a very long time with our first. And then with the twins, we did infant self feeding early finger foods and all of that.

00;42;34;27 – 00;42;59;13
Jenny Best
But the thing I would have done differently with all three is I would have introduced the integrated family meal, like whatever my husband and I were eating that night earlier, because I think we’re in this, you know, mentality of like, baby need quote unquote baby food. And then toddlers need quote unquote kid food. Yeah. And there’s a time and a place for all of that.

00;42;59;13 – 00;43;22;19
Jenny Best
Look, convenience is a beautiful thing. And I love me a good yogurt pouch on the way to swim class or, you know, whatever bar on the way to school when we’re in a crunch for breakfast, whatever it is. But there’s no reason after you’ve introduced the common allergens, I would say. And if you’ve figured out how to modify the food to make sure it’s a choking risk.

00;43;22;19 – 00;43;46;25
Jenny Best
So flattening round foods like a chickpea or things like that, which, you know, our free database teaches you how to do but get to the family meal, whatever that looks like for you as soon as possible. Yeah, maybe turn down the salt a notch. The choking risks that are around get the allergens other way. But there’s no special category of food needed for our children.

00;43;46;27 – 00;43;54;19
Jenny Best
That is a a marketing construct and a corporate construct because it is so flipping profitable.

00;43;54;19 – 00;43;55;27
Dr. Mona
Yeah, yeah.

00;43;55;27 – 00;43;58;07
Jenny Best
It’s like a $90 billion industry.

00;43;58;12 – 00;43;59;08
Dr. Mona
Yeah.

00;43;59;10 – 00;44;28;29
Jenny Best
It’s I mean it’s insane. Yeah. So, you know, I think that there’s a time and a place for all of, those foods in our lives, they make life easier. They make kids happy. Sometimes you just need to take, you know, nugget, you know, like, there’s nothing bad about it. But if we can get to the family meal sooner, that baby is more likely to embrace foods with different textures, more likely to eat things like vegetables, and just a wider variety of food.

00;44;28;29 – 00;44;33;25
Jenny Best
The earlier you can kind of jump to what we would call adult food, the better.

00;44;33;27 – 00;44;41;02
Dr. Mona
And if you think about time before marketing, right, like, let’s go back to the Stone age when people had children, they weren’t pureeing down before.

00;44;41;07 – 00;44;44;00
Jenny Best
Yeah, Vitamix blenders or whatever.

00;44;44;02 – 00;44;57;23
Dr. Mona
They were pulling down food. They were literally probably breastfeeding or what the power was before formula. Okay. So they were probably like feeding their baby and then giving them the food that they eat and just make it modified, like it’s kind of going back to the. But yeah.

00;44;57;25 – 00;45;16;02
Jenny Best
It’s it’s a really interesting the history of baby food is really interesting. But it was invented baby food as we know it, you know, perfectly thin watery purees, whether in a pouch or a jar. That was it. That’s an invention, and requires a lot of machines to make it that kind of texture. But yeah, that’s that’s a whole.

00;45;16;02 – 00;45;20;00
Jenny Best
Yeah, weather forecast. But we should do it. It’s a fun one. Yeah.

00;45;20;00 – 00;45;36;15
Dr. Mona
I’ve, I’ve obviously learned from you know, obviously your, when you, when you first started the platform, I remember seeing a lot of posts about that. I’m like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Jenny, this was a pleasure. I think we’ve already created three other ideas for episodes. Or yes, let’s do it together and have our own show.

00;45;36;17 – 00;45;42;21
Dr. Mona
But thank you. Where can everyone stay connected? I’m going to be adding all of this to our show notes, but if you can, just let me know.

00;45;42;21 – 00;45;59;29
Jenny Best
Q yeah, the easiest place is solid starts on Instagram. That’s where our largest community is and the most daily effort, I think, from our team. But our website houses our free food database, all sorts.com, the app you can get from the App Store or Google Play, whatever, wherever you go for apps and yeah, we’ll see you there.

00;45;59;29 – 00;46;07;16
Jenny Best
It’s growing fast, and you’ll be joining a community of parents from every single country in the world now, which.

00;46;07;16 – 00;46;14;25
Dr. Mona
Is and that database and everyone, please go and check it out. I mean, like she said, it had every country, like every food you can imagine.

00;46;14;25 – 00;46;38;25
Jenny Best
Not there yet. So I want to manage expectations. Is 350 foods there when we are done and every food is evaluated, you know, the whole medical team. But when we’re done, the free database will have every food in the world. And so we have some gaps in Southeast Asia. And I would say, certainly foods in West Africa like not quite there yet and some South America, but we’re, we’re chugging along.

00;46;38;25 – 00;46;39;23
Jenny Best
We’re chugging along. Yeah.

00;46;39;23 – 00;46;53;06
Dr. Mona
It grows every day. And again, thank you for all that. You do things for starting this platform. It came from inspiration from your own story. And look where it is now. And I love that story. So thank you for taking the time to join us today. This was awesome.

00;46;53;08 – 00;46;55;12
Jenny Best
Thank you. So nice to see you.

00;46;55;14 – 00;47;01;28
Dr. Mona
That’s absolutely I’m going to be having Jenny on again if our schedules allow. Because as you can hear, she’s growing this amazing.

00;47;01;28 – 00;47;03;05
Jenny Best
We’ll make it happen.

00;47;03;07 – 00;47;21;24
Dr. Mona
Yeah. And, if you love this episode, make sure you leave a review, call out Jenny and all the amazing things that you heard today, and make sure to share this episode with everyone that you know, including people from other generations. People who may think that babies cannot. So maybe we need to get this information out there so that we can start the feeding revolution.

00;47;21;24 – 00;47;28;20
Dr. Mona
That solid starts is, is doing and continues to do so. Thank you. And I cannot wait to chat with another guest next time.

00;47;28;20 – 00;47;43;08
Dr. Mona
Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. As always, please leave a review. Share this episode with a friend, share it on your social media. Make sure to follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel, PedsDocTalk TV.

00;47;43;10 – 00;47;44;11
Dr. Mona
We’ll talk to you soon.