Welcome to the follow-up. I'm Dr. Mona, pediatrician, mom, and someone who's absolutely not making five different dinners tonight, okay?

On these episodes, we revisit some of the most talked about conversations from the show. Today, we're going back to one of my favorites, feeding.

Because believe it or not, picky eating isn't just about picky kids. It starts way earlier than most of us think.

I'm joined by Jenny Best, founder of Solid Starts, one of my dearest friends that I've made online, who's helping

parents feel more confident about starting solids and preventing picky eating before it begins

in so many situations. We talk about how feeding is deeply behavioral, how it ties into our parenting

style, and why it's a

relationship, not a transaction. So before you serve another beige meal or panic over a gag,

take a breath and press play. And while you're here, hit that follow button and subscribe

so you never miss a dose of perspective or a chance to stop blaming the broccoli for why your kid

doesn't eat anything.

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 behavior. And that includes

forcing, right? That includes forcing. 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. 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. 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

...