I sometimes suggest to mothers that smart babies may not trust themselves
to choose food wisely.  They want to eat what's on the grownups' plates,
because the grownups know what's poisonous and what isn't.  So I encourage
moms to take appropriate food directly from their own plates to put on the
baby's plate at the table.

But one mother recently told me, shamefaced, that the family doesn't sit
down together.  They eat off tv trays in front of tv.  (Of course!  I could
believe that represents the majority nowadays.  It just never occurred to
me.)

Could this be a source of food refusal for some babies?  If they're being
fed totally separately from the rest of the family, maybe the food just
doesn't seem "safe" to them.  (I suggested that this family eat off a
coffee table and let the solids-wary toddler - this was an issue for mom
and doc - wander from plate to plate, helping himself.)  Just wondering.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY