I have taught similar information, but you take it further with the 1-2-3 fist illustration. It's so perfect I can visualize a photo-poster with baby, mom and dad and 1-2-3 fists PhotoShopped over the abdomen area.

Now as my brain runs with this, we could do volume displacement test with a fist in water and compare that to the size of a bottle commonly used at whatever age of baby - or mom or dad for that matter. Talk about motivation to eat better and more conservatively!

Does this sound reasonable to anyone?

Phyllis

---- gonneke van veldhuizen <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 

No studies to back you up, but I can share how I teach my share of health care persons. Ansd remember they are the ones to teach the mothers about normal serving sizes.
I use the ''fist rule'' (in Dutch this is the equivalent of the ''rule of thumb''). Each persons stomack in rest is the size of his/her closed fist (or it is meant to be that size before it was stretched through a life time of oversized meals). A normal meal can be the size of 2 fists, just imagine to put ypour 2 closed fists on a dinner plate and it will show a nice portion of food. Feasts may have 3 fists and that gives the  Christmas Dinner feeling (or Thanksgivings dinner in the US).
I give them time to look at their fists and place one on their stomach and imagine 2 on their palte. And then I remind them of the size of a baby fist and a standard babybottle without saying anuthing more ...
It is grat to see the look on their faces changes as they get the picture.
As for feeding frequency I need not do more than to remind them of the frequency of our breaks (every 2 hours) and the bottles of water, the apples and yoghurt cartons on their tables. 

Warmly,

Gonneke, IBCLC, LLLL, MOM and teacher in southern Netherlands, looking forward to a symposium on ethics next tuesday with Rachel


          
--
Phyllis Adamson, IBCLC, RLC
Glendale, AZ.
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