Tips for Toddler Mealtime – Ep. 102

Laura

Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. This week, we have our weekly check-ins. We have our special segment, Today I Learned, where we learn all about queens, kangaroos, and vaginas. And we close with our BFPs and BFNs for the week. Let's get to it! Hey everyone, welcome to the show. This is episode 102. Hello, Shanna. Hi. You want to tell us how old your toddler is and how you're doing this week?

Shanna

Oh, yes. So Cece is 17 months in one week. And this has been a pretty uneventful week, which is good. I welcome the unevent of life. So I just have a few cute little new things she's doing to report. So the first thing is she's getting pretty assertive, but in a cute way like she has taken to like walking up to me or Steve, grabbing our finger and like leading us to wherever she wants to go. Usually to the kitchen, to the snack cabinet, right? Or whatever. to a book. And yeah, she just we let her take charge and lead the way and shows where she wants to go. So that's really cute. That is adorable. And then along the same lines, like some of her assertive behavior, like we were reading a book. You know how a lot of kids, baby board books have like fuzzy, I don't know, animal tails. Yeah, they're like touch and feel. Yeah, touch and feel books. We have a lot of those.

Laura

I also love this idea like they understand you're separate now, you know, it's like no, you have to feel it too.

Shanna

Yeah, I think that is where it comes from. Although, what she did after she put my finger on it, she turned and found a button on my shirt, like there's like a shirt pocket with a little button. She grabbed that and then rubbed the fuzzy tail with the button. Oh, I see. She knows we're all separate, I guess.

Laura

Yes, the button needs to feel it, too. Yeah, so that's really funny. Really funny. Oh my gosh, so cute.

Shanna

And another thing that she's just randomly picked up, I love paying attention to the things that she picks up randomly without us teaching her, is going, hmm.

Laura

That's so funny. Yes. Picking up mannerisms, it's like the birthing with Alexa.

Shanna

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And this one, I feel like she understands a little bit better that it's connected to questioning and wondering where something is, which, you know, it's just like, okay, our kids are getting older. Our babies are like understanding what questions are instead of just statements. Yeah. And someone's like, What? You're growing up so fast. Oh my God.

Laura

I know. They get so big so fast. Like I keep seeing my guy in like a t-shirt and I'm just like, you're a little boy.

Shanna

Oh my gosh.

Laura

Oh, do you have it on snoring video?

Shanna

Yes.

Laura

They just pick up on stuff. They're little sponges. Everyone tells you that. Oh, they pick up on everything. But once they start repeating things back, you're just like, oh, shit, they really do. You gotta like, I mean, I don't believe in like censoring myself in front of him, but you just have to know they are hearing everything. And the things they repeat back are not what you expect. That's the thing is like a sneeze, you know, like there's no reason for her to repeat that back because if she's tickled by it, right? She thinks it's kind of funny and cute.

Shanna

Yeah, that's what I was going to say is that To me, it's like a little window into what she finds delightful or interesting. So the things that she's pointing out or saying or picking up on by herself are her interests, you know, right now it's sneezing and snoring, but that's really adorable.

Laura

Maybe she'll be a Foley artist when she grows up. Making sound effects.

Shanna

Maybe. I think Elle is on her way to being a voiceover artist with all the cartoons she watches and like making voices and stuff. So the two of them together will just be perfect in their little sound booths making voices and sound effects. You have the mics. Yep. Yep. Got it. So that's pretty much it for us. Just a few cute little things that I'm finding it delightful this week. What about you? How are you guys? And how old's your bebe, toddler?

Laura

I love a happy check-in. We're good. We are also having a happy check-in this week. He's 16 months and one week. And we're kind of having a similar thing going on with the repeating stuff. So I had talked about how he will say turtle hot when he points to like the splash pad outside. Well, one of the new things he's done is he's really into our pepper grinder. And he started, you know, like a week or two ago going like, Peppa, Peppa, what do you point it to it? And he would want it. Like he would want to grab it. And I'd be like, I don't think you're going to want it. You know, the pepper is going to make you sneeze. And he would insist. So I, you know, I ground a little bit of pepper for him. And, you know, he tried to eat it and he didn't like it. And I said, yeah, it's going to make you sneeze. So now he sees the pepper and he goes, Peppa knows. Peppa knows.

Shanna

No.

Laura

Yeah. Nose. Pepper knows.

Shanna

But fresh my memory, I might need to use this too.

Laura

Well, the basic thing is like, Parents are responsible for like preparing and offering the food and children are responsible for like how much in weather they eat. So the parents are responsible for the when and the what and the kids are responsible for the how much and weather, right? So we've been trying to follow this and it's hard to not like try to encourage him to eat more of anything in particular because you're like You're going to go to bed hungry. You know, you don't want them to, you know that they like, you know, do you know that they probably usually eat more? So make, would you just like another stick of cheese? So you don't go to bed hungry, that sort of thing. Right. But we've been trying to stick to it. And then also just like really, really trying very hard not to comment on how much he eats and or give him any kind of like positive feedback about eating more, right?

Shanna

Right.

Laura

And then we would put the other stuff down and usually he'd just plain out ignore it and it felt so futile like like a waste of food, you know, I'd end up eating like little pieces of beef, you know, like at the end of the dinner. But this week he ate mushrooms. Whoa. Tomatoes, squash and beef. That's awesome. Yeah. And I have to say that in addition to it not being very easy to like not comment when he doesn't eat, it's really hard to not comment when he does eat. Corey and I were just kind of like stealing side glances when he started eating the beef. Like, just don't say anything. But I'm encouraged by that. So I just wanted to share because I know there's a lot of people who struggle with toddler meals and it seems like counterintuitive to not force them to eat and not like try to encourage them to eat. But I am now seeing that it's paying off.

Shanna

Yeah, that's so great. We definitely need to review that in our household. For me, not so much was Sissy. I feel like it's easier for me to let her do her things. I've noticed how her appetite goes and comes and goes. And well, she does eat vegetables, at least right now. But it's harder as they get a little bit older, right? Like, Alice, you know, can be very picky of like, I don't want to eat or should just leave the table and be like, I'm done. And I just, you know, we sometimes can't help ourselves, but be like, do you just eat more? Oh, you haven't eaten much today, blah, blah, blah. And I hate that. I hate that it gets commented on. I don't want to micromanage her eating. I don't think it's going to pay off in the long run. And I think she's fine. You know, like, she'll figure it out herself really, as long as we offer the good things like this, like Ellen Satter says.

Laura

The other thing I learned recently from my mommy and me class or my toddler and me class is that with babies, we're so programmed to think about calories in a 24 hour period, right? Like, oh, the newborns have to get X amount of calories or X amount of feeds every 24 hours, right? With toddlers, apparently it's calories per week. Oh, interesting. Which blew my mind because, you know, toddlers one day they eat a ton and you're just like, whoa, you're hungry today. The next day they're like not eating anything. And you're wondering what's going on. And now that I've reframed it, it's like it's the nutrition in a whole week. It's definitely like chilled me out a little bit more. Yeah, there's more leeway there. So I just want to share our food wins this week. Yay, I love it. I can share it to you and then pretend like everything is normal and fine around you. Exactly.

Shanna

That's great. Well, should we take a break and move on to our special segment today I learned? I think we should.

Laura

Okay. So I have learned something about tantrums. which is a very pressing concern, I think, when you have a toddler, you know, this is when tantrums start coming. And I learned about the concept of the upstairs and downstairs brain. Do you know about this? No. So I learned about this in my toddler and me class from my teacher, Gia, and she was talking about how there are basically two types of tantrums. There's the tantrums with your upstairs brain, and the tantrums with your downstairs brain. And obviously, I need to explain this. So this is something that a neuroscientist named Dan Siegel and a parenting expert named Tina Bryson came up with, this concept of the downstairs and upstairs aspects of our brain. So they call the primitive parts of our brain the limbic system and the amygdala.

Shanna

Okay, like that analogy.

Laura

Yeah, so the, so emotion, it's developed first. And then the upstairs is like the higher thinking and impulse control that takes a lot longer to construct. But you can determine which type of tantrum your kid's having, right? By how they're reacting. So like the basic difference is like a downstairs or like lower brain tantrum is like a meltdown tantrum. There's no amount of logic. There's no about of distraction that is going to get them out of that tantrum. They're basically completely like they're all of their frontal cortex is like shut down at this point. And that's really interesting to think about because I think a lot of people, you know, you hear this from people giving advice all the time is like, oh, they're having a tantrum, just distract them with some food or take them outside or whatever. And that can work if they're having an upstairs tantrum.

Shanna

So what's an example of an upstairs tantrum? Like, what would the child be tantrumming about if it's an upstairs?

Laura

Okay, so this positive parenting solutions has this example. So the example that they give, they actually have two examples that are very similar, both about a kid wanting to write a pony and not being able to, right? And the first one is they basically just describe the exact same thing, but the mom says, I don't have any money to you know, pay the pony ride and the kid has a downstairs tantrum where he, it says, when you tell the kid, sorry, there's nothing I can do, suddenly big tears begin to roll down his cheeks as heavy sobs rise up from his chest. He falls to the floor and slams his little fist on the tile. You start to notice people staring, he doesn't. You try to pull him into a hug, but his body goes limp. So like, the more you try to stop the tantrum, nothing works, blah, blah, blah, right? The other one is same exact scenario.

Shanna

Uh-huh.

Laura

And I mean, yeah. It's a little hard. You know, kids are like, obviously not. You know, I think it can be a little mean to call things like that manipulative because it's not like the child is like, yeah.

Shanna

I have a four-year-old. It is. I mean, they don't know they're really doing it. And it's not necessarily coming from a malicious place. But kids are smart a lot younger than we realize. And do use manipulation tactics. They just do.

Laura

Maybe coercion, maybe as a, you know, like.

Shanna

Yeah. If you feel like manipulation is too negative of a word. Yeah. Yeah, you could definitely do that. But I can see the difference, especially in Al, because, you know, CECE is not having too many like tantrums yet, because you said it's a little early for our toddlers. But this morning, Al had a tantrum, and I'm going to explain it to you, and you tell me if it was upstairs or downstairs tantrum. It was 11.30, and I had to go in my room to do a telemedicine appointment. And she couldn't be in my room with me because I needed some privacy to do that appointment. And I said, I'm going to my room now. It's time for me to do my meeting. And she was trying to follow me in, follow me in. I'm like, no, no, no. And this is when I'm going to lock my door, so I don't have any interruptions. And she just pushed her way through.

Laura

Hmm. Well, that's hard. I'm not a I'm not an expert yet because I haven't read this book. I feel like I need more context because it's The falling on the floor and going completely limp thing makes me think it's a downstairs tantrum. But she knows that what she wants is to be in the room with you. And she knows how to get that out of you.

Shanna

Like she's trying to use her big emotions. So I don't know. What happened afterwards? Um, you know, I don't know because because I haven't checked in with Steve on it yet. Went right into recording. Um, I don't know. I just jumped into my appointment and, uh, she quieted down eventually. So yeah, I don't know. I guess maybe it is hard sometimes to tell what type of tantrum it is. I wonder how he dealt with it. I'll have to see.

Laura

And I guess the other question of the context is like, was she extra tired? Was she hungry? You know, right before lunch. So maybe she was really hungry. And if you're really hungry, that tends to be downstairs tantrum, right? Totally. And the need that needs to be met isn't being in the room with mom. The need is hunger, right? That makes so much sense. But anyway, I'd love to know if our listeners know more about this because I'm just scratching the surface, but the concept blew my mind. So I love this idea and I love being able to frame things this way and knowing that when your amygdala takes over, you're not using logic to get at it. You're using comfort or just time. Right. Yeah. Okay, so that was my first today I learned. Shanna, what do you have to share with us? Today I learned about vaginal seeding.

Shanna

Vaginal as in the vagina. Seeding as in like seeds, I guess.

Laura

I have no idea what this is about. Neither did I.

Shanna

When I saw this term, I was like, need to learn about this right away. What could this possibly have to do with? Would you have any guesses just based on hearing that term? Vaginal seeding.

Laura

Oh, goodness. God, I mean, I can go like weird directions. No, just tell me. I don't even want to venture a guess. I don't think it'll be safe. Like even our explicit podcast, it will not be safe. So go for it.

Shanna

I guess for me it conjures ideas of like sperm being put inside of a woman or something. But anyway, it's not that. It is from Wikipedia. Quote, a procedure whereby vaginal fluids are applied to a newborn child delivered by cesarean section.

Laura

Oh, I have heard about this. I had no idea that's what it was called. I know, right? Vaginal seeding, it's such a strange term. But OK, so people do this, why? Because of the microbiome, I'm guessing, right?

Shanna

Yeah, I guess it makes the gut of the baby more similar to that of a baby born vaginally. But it can also potentially lower the baby's risk of asthma, hay fever, food allergies. and perhaps even obesity. So I don't know. I guess.

Laura

Those seem like hugely bold claims that I am. I just don't know. I feel like if we got Emily Oster on this, she'd be like, yeah, no.

Shanna

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. I guess it's also called micro birthing. And yeah, so the purpose is to, quote, recreate the natural transfer of bacteria that the baby gets during a vaginal birth. Yeah.

Laura

Which apparently is a thing. There's all these studies that C-section babies have different microbiomes than babies that come out through the vagina. Yes.

Shanna

Yes. And so I think people who want this done are trying to recreate the gut biome that happens from a vaginal birth by wiping vagina fluid on the baby's face after it's born. So I guess what they do is they like 60 minutes before the C-section, take a cotton swab and like roll it up like a tampon and stick it in your vagina. And then right after the baby is taken out of your placenta, take- Out of your uterus? Yeah, taken out of your uterus. Take out the tampon cotton and swab it on like the eyes and face and stuff.

Laura

Interesting.

Shanna

Yeah.

Laura

How do you feel about this?

Shanna

You know, I guess I could be open to this, except what I'm reading is that most doctors are like, don't do it. Oh, really? Yeah, it's it's there's no like solid evidence that this actually does anything beneficial. And what it could actually do is expose the baby to bacteria that might actually harm it in some way. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I wouldn't do it.

Laura

Because this was definitely something I thought about and not the actual act of vaginal seeding. I didn't know about it at the time, but when I knew I was getting a C-section, I was like, oh man, like the one downside is this supposed difference in the microbiome that you get with kids who are born via C-section. But then I figured, you know what? there's only so much you can do.

Shanna

Yeah, exactly. That's what I was thinking. They spent a while in there.

Laura

Interesting.

Shanna

And you know, I wonder if my babies actually were, well, not CECE because it was just a plan C section. But Elle, actually, I wonder if she was exposed to any of that because my water did break. Yeah. I did labor for a long time. You know, I did dialy a little bit. So I wonder if anything, there was any kind of like back and forth of sharing of fluids that maybe CECE didn't get. You know, CECE's got the eczema problems and stuff like that. Like maybe I should have given her a vagina swab. I don't know.

Laura

Well, Here's what I'll say about that. Can't change what you've done in the past. And I really doubt her eczema has anything to do with that.

Shanna

It probably doesn't. And you know, the article is like, it has to be done immediately after birth. So really, there isn't anything I can do about it now. And if I tried, I'd probably just be torturing her. So I won't.

Laura

I don't think it's recommended to do vaginal seeding on a 17 month old. I don't think so.

Shanna

Oh, my goodness.

Shanna

But yeah, if you're a pregnant person looking to learn about vaginal seeding, you know, Google it because you'll learn a lot more than what we're talking about right now. But it is a thing. So I don't know. Check it out, I guess.

Laura

Yeah, I do think that the whole study of the microbiome is super duper fascinating. I've read that, but if people don't know what we're talking about, the microbiome is like your personal gut bacteria. Actually, it's just your whole body's personal bacteria. Unique types of bacteria and combinations and it's a really interesting field that's just kind of getting started. And I read that maybe in the future, like some scientists believe that just like we have blood types now. that in the future, our medical care will be based on what our like biome type is. Oh, that's cool. So they might, you know, some people have different profiles and that means you treat them differently. You know, they've claimed that, you know, they claim that your biome can affect all kinds of like health issues, you know? Right. And that's why people will do like, this has even grown, like the fecal transplants.

Shanna

Oh, yeah. I've I've heard about that on a podcast, like someone with a lot of intestinal problems. I don't know.

Laura

Yeah, like, for example, there's there's a there's a really bad bacteria called C. diff that is really like really, really bad can be deadly. It's like an overgrowth of this bad bacteria that, you know, causes all kinds of problems. And people with really like persistent cases of that, you know, they get like antibiotic resistant, all that stuff. will resort to, they call them fecal transplants. You skip ahead if this grosses you out, people, where they take stool samples essentially from healthy individuals and transplant it into your own gut. The idea is that then your body will end up being populated with the good bacteria, and it'll help fight the bad bacteria. But, you know, C. diff is often a thing that happens after people take antibiotics.

Shanna

Yep. Yep. Same. Same with mine. He seems to be doing okay.

Shanna

All right.

Laura

Do you have another one for us? I do. Shanna, did you know that kangaroos have three vaginas? Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? They have a middle vagina. What? And two side vaginas. And are there openings to all of the vaginas? So they have a, I'm looking at a graphic of, you know, what a kangaroo reproductive system looks like. And it, you know what it almost looks like? It almost looks like a tennis racket. with like one, like, there was like the common connection for the three vaginas at the bottom. This is the handle. And then you go around the side. Those are the side vaginas. And that's where the sperm travels up. So the sperm travels up the side vaginas. And then down the middle, there's the middle vagina. And that's where the Joey travels down. So like the sperm goes up the sides and the baby goes down the center.

Shanna

Well, is that kind of like Flopian tubes then?

Laura

No, because they have two, they have two uteruses that are attached to two ovaries, like one over each with fallopian tubes. So no, it's like an actual vagina. That's wild.

Shanna

Yeah, kangaroos are weird. They are so weird. Did they give birth into that pouch or did they put a baby in the pouch?

Laura

I think they give birth and then put the baby in. I might be wrong though. Should we Google this? Yeah.

Shanna

OK. And doesn't the dad pouch the baby? Dude, I don't know anything about kangaroos. No, you're thinking of seahorses. I am because Ellen and I watched a video of seahorses the other day.

Laura

That is totally what I'm thinking of. That's so funny. Okay, let's oh here we go. National Geographic has a video on YouTube or no on NationalGeographic.com. Let's see here. I'm gonna. Oh here you know what? I'm gonna put it on my phone so you can hear it. It's called the world's weirdest colon kangaroo birth. The description is, it's one of nature's weirdest journeys. A newborn kangaroo barely bigger than a jelly bean. A jelly bean. What? Oh my God. Must crawl from one of its mother's two uterine and climb up her body to reach the safety of her pouch. OK, we're going to watch this. Oh, I should. Here, in the meantime, I'm going to send you this picture of the. OK. OK. I'm sending you the picture of the kangaroo reproductive system. Right? What is happening? I'm actually pretty proud of my description of like a tennis racket. I feel like that's pretty good.

Shanna

It's kind of like a ping pong paddle with like two semi circles taken out of the paddle. Yeah.

Laura

Yeah. Okay, let's let's let's watch this video. Let's listen to how kangaroos get birth.

Speaker 1

A baby roux will call its mother's pouch home for almost a year.

Laura

Oh, the teats are in the pouch. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, as much as freaking kangaroos make sense.

Speaker 1

That's enough travel to suit the young roof for a long while.

Laura

OK, so at the beginning, they're not that cute. I have to, they look like little, I guess, jelly bean sized little naked rats.

Shanna

Yeah.

Laura

By the time they get out of the pouch, they're pretty darn cute. Aw. Last time I went to the zoo, there was a little Joey inside the kangaroo pouch. I saw his little head stick out.

Shanna

That's so cute. I have to say, I think it'd be pretty cool to give birth to something the size of a jelly bean and then continue growing it on an external pouch. Then you never have to push out something big. Your body doesn't all have to get all stretched and squished from the inside. No surgery involved. No surgery like kangaroos kind of haven't made. They do.

Laura

They got it made in the shade.

Shanna

Today I learned that for centuries, royal women gave birth in front of huge crowds. What? Of people. Yeah. Oh my God. I mean, as if it's not bad enough for those poor women back in the day. No freaking upadurals. Like, had to have those sons. There's so much pressure, right? And then, like, when her- Oh my God. Yeah, she wouldn't know. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, as soon as the labor starts, I don't know, I guess someone rings a bell and all the townspeople come. People crowd into the hallways and stuff. I guess Marie Antoinette, when she was pregnant, she went into labor. There was so much commotion that she basically passed out. And she was out for like 12 hours. It was like so stuffy and hot in there. Like they had to rush to open the windows and she had to be like on bed rest for a really long time because it was just all too much it.

Laura

How dare she? We're talking like Western European royalty, France and England, that sort of thing. Yeah.

Shanna

Yeah. So I found this information on history.com. And of course, my question is like, OK, well, why, aside from just the spectacle? And so apparently, it was to assure that a living baby was not substituted for a dead child.

Laura

Oh.

Shanna

And that a royal baby girl was not switched for a desired boy. Oh, so it's all like trust and verification purposes. That's what it seems like, yeah. Although there is a bit of like a carnival-like atmosphere, there is like that celebration we want to view and witness at all. But I guess deep down, it's really to be like, did she give birth to a

Laura

Girl or no wonder Queen Elizabeth never wanted to have kids. Yeah, Mary. She was like, fuck this, man. Uh-huh. I'm the fucking queen. I'm not going to have some people gather around and watch me pass out as I'm pushing a baby out. Oh my God. Could you imagine?

Shanna

It's like nowadays we're like, ugh, I don't know if I want my mother-in-law in the delivery room. Back then it was like, no choice. Her and the whole entire village, you're going to bear witness. Yeah, it just, it sounds terrible. I mean, everything about giving birth back in that day just sounds miserable.

Laura

I feel like everything about giving birth before, like, I want to say like 1975, you know, because then there was that whole Twilight sleep thing in the 60s. That's what have you watched The Crown? You know, I started. I haven't finished. Well, there is a scene like there's an episode about Queen Elizabeth II having one of her kids. I don't remember who. And she went into the Twilight sleep. They like just knock her out and then she wakes up and There's a baby.

Shanna

Wow. Yeah. Wow. So you can like, your body can labor even though you're in a twilight state?

Laura

I don't know so much about the twilight sleep. I've read about it. I think what it is, is it's like an amnesiac kind of. So you forget everything that happened. I'm 100% sure if you're past, I think some people were passed out and they like used a lot of forceps. It basically, it was awful. Yeah. That does sound awful. And, yeah, obviously that's why the natural birth movement was so important in like the 70s. You can understand why all these people were really pushing for home birth and natural birth after, you know, this decades of being put to sleep for birth.

Shanna

Wow. Yeah, that adds a lot more context to that argument, for sure.

Laura

But yeah, it's so interesting to me, too, because you'd think that queens would be regarded in some kind of like, they need to be pristine and pure, and you could never see something so low as childbirth. But I guess, God forbid, they swap a baby.

Shanna

Yes, oh no, because really what they're there for is to produce male children. Like that's the more important thing than the queen status, don't you think?

Laura

Yeah, you're right. It's very true. Or at least it was. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and like how much pressure it would have been to not know if you were having a boy and then like if you had a girl like thinking you're going to get like beheaded. Yeah. Right? Oh my God, it's just it's too much. I wonder what like Henry the eighths wives would think about gender reveal parties.

Shanna

Anne Boleyn. Yes, I believe so. One of them.

Laura

I mean, there's a lot of them. There's Anne Boleyn. There's Catherine of Aragon. Oh, goodness. Oh, there's the one that has the same name as the actress. Oh, what's her name? Kate Blanchett.

Laura

OK, I'm googling this because it's going to drive me crazy.

Shanna

I don't know. My knowledge of royalty is slim at best.

Laura

Okay. Wives of Henry VIII. Catherine Parr. Okay. This is in backwards order. Here we go. Catherine of Aragon was first. I knew that. Anne Boleyn. Jane Seymour. That's the one. Jane Seymour. Yeah. And then Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. He was really into Catherine's.

Shanna

Well, everyone named their kid Catherine back then, and Elizabeth.

Laura

Oh, my God. Anne of Cleves was the queen consort from January to July 1540. What? That's it?

Shanna

Oh, man. Oh, King Henry. What was that show about him with Jonathan Reese Myers? That's where I get all of my royal knowledge is from television series.

Laura

I don't know. I never watched any of those like, you know, middle ages to Renaissance. There was like a big boom of those for a while. Yeah. They were like the Medici student. They have a show. Oh, the tutors, the tutors.

Shanna

Oh, the tutors. And I'm not going to lie, it's not that I have a passion for this topic. I just have a massive crush on that man. I think he's extremely gorgeous and he sucked me in with his acting.

Laura

He's good looking. He is. I'm not going to lie about that.

Shanna

Anyway, so that's today I learned. So should we move on to our BFPs and BFNs? Yes, let's do it.

Laura

Okay, so every week we close with our big fat positives or big fat negatives of the week. Shanna, do you have a BFP or a BFN for us? I have a BFP. Yay.

Shanna

Yay. My BFP is Hello Magazine. Okay. And it's a branch of highlights. Do you remember highlights from

Laura

Yes, I loved highlights in the doctor's office.

Shanna

Always in the doctor's and dentist's office. Love it, like the search for the pictures. Well, they've branched out since then, and they have a toddler magazine called High Five, which my mom bought a prescription on Gordy. bought a subscription for Elle when she was like two, two and a half. And that's really cute. It's a more simplified version of highlights. And then when Cece was about six months old, my mom got her a subscription to their other branch of magazine, which is for babies. And it's called Hello. Oh, I've never heard of this. So cute. It's a small magazine. It's smaller than the other ones. It's like maybe the size of like I don't know, little readers digest, you know, magazine, but it's really thin. It maybe has like eight pages, maybe 10. And the paper is like thick and kind of has a coating on it. So it's not anything they can tear or chew through. Okay. It's dirty.

Laura

That's so cool. Yeah, we love it. So what age do you think this is like appropriate up to?

Shanna

Um, I'd say that she'll probably be ready to move to the high five magazine around two and a half, maybe. Okay. Is when Elle really started to get more into the high five. Yeah, maybe, yeah, two and a half, two, two and a half. So there's still time for us. I was just asking for me, really. Oh, yeah. Selfish questions. And it's a fun thing to get in the mail, you know? It's like, it's addressed to her, you know? It's like, special mail for CeCe. And it's like, oh my God, that's adorable. Ugh. I love it. That's really cute. I'm going to check it out. Yeah, check it out. OK, what about you? You have a BFP or BFN? I also have a BFP.

Laura

So mine is an Instagram account called feeding littles. Are you familiar with feeding littles? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they have 780,000 followers. So a lot of people have feeding littles. But I love them because they just give really realistic and helpful tips on how to feed your babies and toddlers. And it's really refreshing because there's like no talk about weight or value of food. Like if a food is like good or bad, right? It's got a really great philosophy, you know, how some days your kid eats a lot. Some days your kid doesn't eat a lot. Some days they only eat fish sticks, you know, like whatever it is. And it's just a really, really like information packed Instagram feed that I've always like every time I've seen a new post, I'm just like super into it and get a lot of good tips and it's very reassuring. So

Shanna

Do they give tips for specific foods and snacks, like recipes? Or what do you mean specifically?

Laura

Yeah, so they'll give you tips on ways to serve food. They'll give you different ways to eat the same food. So here's one that is how to serve avocado to babies. leave a little bit of skin on so they have something to hold on to. You can use a crinkle cutter. You can add a coating. You can make avocado toast. So they'll give you all these different ways. There's also sort of philosophical things. So here's one about keeping language positive when talking about your child's eating. So like they'll say, there's a column that's instead of this, consider this. So instead of he's so picky, he only eats a few foods, consider saying, we're learning about new foods together. Oh, I love that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Or like, don't bother giving it to her. She'll never eat that. Instead say, let's put a little on her plate and she could eat it if she wants to try some.

Shanna

I'm definitely going to follow them because I just like yesterday was like I am out of ideas for snacks for these kids. So many snacks. It's like, what? And Cici is not eating dairy right now. So I can't just like, hand her some string cheese. It's like, what do I feed these kids? So maybe I can get some inspiration from that account.

Laura

Oh, yeah, for sure. She has lots of stuff on it. It's actually two women, Megan and Judy, and they have a ton of great ideas and suggestions. And yeah, it's great. Cool. So it's at feeding littles. All one word, feeding littles. So. You should be able to find them on social media.

Shanna

Cool. And if our listeners want to find us on social media to drop us a line or join our community group, Laura, where can they find us?

Laura

We are on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at BFPpodcast. We also have a Facebook community group. Just search Big Fat Positive Community. Request to join. It's a closed group, but I will add you and you can join in on all the amazing private conversations we're having in there. You can also send us an email or voice memo to contact at bigfatpositivepodcast.com or visit our website, bigfatpositivepodcast.com.

Shanna

If you love our show, please rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts and spread the word. Let your friends know about our show. Big Fat Positive is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye. Bye.