POCKET GUIDE - Bright Futures - American Academy of Pediatrics

Anticipatory Guidance
discuss with Parents
parent-Child Feeding relationship
■ Purchasing and preparing nutritious food.
■ offering developmentally appropriate, healthy meals and
snacks at scheduled times in a pleasant environment.
■ helping their child develop eating and self-serving skills
(progressing from using hands for eating to using utensils).
■ helping their child learn to self-regulate food intake by
responding to internal cues of hunger and fullness.
■ Allowing their child to decide whether to eat and how
much.
Meals and snacks
■ offering healthy food choices at meals and snacks served
at about the same time each day.
■ offering nutritious foods (whole-grain crackers, milk
and milk products, fruits, vegetables, meat or poultry)
as snacks because children often eat small amounts of
food at one time.
■ sharing meals and snacks with their child. (Children eat
better when an adult is nearby.)
■ Being positive role models by eating new foods.
■ Making family mealtimes a priority, and getting rid of
distractions (television).
■ Being patient and understanding as their child learns to
feed or serve herself.
■ offering small portions (1 or 2 tablespoons) of new foods.
■ Not using foods to reward, bribe, or punish their child or
to calm, comfort, or entertain her.
■ offering dessert (custard, pudding, fruits, yogurt) as part
of a meal.
eating
■ Weaning their child from the bottle by age 12 to
14 months.
■ Modifying foods to make them easier for their child to eat.
■ helping children ages 2 to 5 gradually decrease their
fat intake.
■ serving children ages 1 to 2 whole milk (serving reducedfat
[2%] milk if obesity is of concern or if there is a family
history of obesity, dyslipidemia, or cardiovascular disease).
■ serving children older than age 2 low-fat (1%) or fat-free
(skim) milk.
■ serving children ages 2 and older 2 servings of milk
(two 8-oz cups) per day.
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Bright FUTURES
Early Childhood