Hi Everybody:
   I loved Dr. Jack's piece on how babies need to feed themselves.  It all
boils down to TRUST THE BABY. How could a baby fed the perfect food and
nurtured lovingly make a mistake about the next step in maturation? The baby
knows when it needs to eat, it has been doing that for 6-12 months already. So
the grabbing food off the parent's plate is a logical extension of foundation
behaviours. Of course there does have to be a bit of protection from the
parents, in terms of things like peanuts; and that is the parent's job anyway.
The children that don't get interested in eating anything other than human
milk until later most likely have an allergic tendency and need stronger
immune systems before venturing out into the world of table food. The babies
that really need the help are those that have been artificially fed for the
first part of their lives; they haven't got a clue, or the musculature or the
immune system to deal in the same way. Warmly, Nikki