Eva: (00:04)
Hey there, you’re listening to the My Sleeping Baby podcast, which is all about baby and child sleep. I’m so excited to teach you how you can get your little ones sleeping so that you can sleep too and enjoy parenthood to its fullest. I’m Eva Klein, your resident’s sleep expert, mom of three, founder of the Sleep Bible online coaching program, and lover of all things sleep and motherhood. If you’re looking for tangible solutions for your little one sleep woes or you simply want to learn more, this podcast is for you. For more information, check out mysleepingbaby.com and you can follow me on Instagram and Facebook @mysleepingbaby.

Eva: (00:44)
All right, Talia. Thank you so much for coming on the, my sleeping baby podcast today. Don’t you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Thalia: (00:53)
Hi, thanks. Thanks for having me. I’m very excited to be here and answered some of the common questions about feeding kids and babies and you know, all that fun stuff and preventing picky eating and things like that. So I’m Talia prom and I’m a dietician. I live in Australia, but I have lived in the us for the last 10 years, but we just recently moved back last year in 2021. And what I do is I help parents that either have picky eaters and need to increase a variety of food that their child is eating, cuz they’re not eating a variety across all food groups. And often that’s quite extreme. I’ve had clients that start working with me that have only five foods in their repertoire. And, uh, that runs the gamut from I’ve worked with babies as young as 14 months and kids up to 10. But my mostly they cluster around the three to five age range when parents realize that it’s been going on for a number of years and it’s a problem and you can find me on my I’m I’m across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, or family snack nutritionist. And if you are interested coaching or connecting with me, you can always send me a DM.

Eva: (02:06)
Amazing. So the toddlers and preschoolers you would say is they’re your zone of genius?

Thalia: (02:15)
Yes, I would say they’re my, I would say actually they’re all the way up to 10 cuz I have had kids, um, I’ve actually got a 12 and a half year old. That’ll be starting with me. So and so that that’ll be my oldest child, but even, even the ones up to 10 people are always worried, oh, it’s been too long. They’ve been a picky eater since they were two and they’re eight now. And we do, I have had a lot of success with kids that age as well. And the reason is as we will learn through this episode, there’s a lot that you, as the parent can change in your behavior in your language that make a really big difference to your child’s eating mm-hmm so it’s not, I, I want you to get the idea that there’s something wrong with your child out of your head, cuz there’s not mm-hmm and that there’s nothing you can do because there are a lot of things that you can do that are within your control and within your power. So if you’re listening to the episode and you think, oh, I’ve done all those things that I’m not supposed to do. Remember this is not about, you know, blaming shaming or making you feel bad. This is giving you the tools where you can make a pause that have changed.

Eva: (03:19)
I love it. And I literally tell my people the exact same thing regarding sleep. If your kid isn’t sleeping through the night and they’re waking you up all night long and they’re six months, eight months a year or two years, and they’re still not sleeping through, I tell people the exact same thing there is, there’s nothing wrong with your baby. There is good reason. So why this is happening and there is so much that we can do to fix it. So I, I, I literally say the exact same message. Um, so tell me, how did you get into this? You know, were you, you decided to become a dietician first and then be specialize in kids afterwards? How, how did you, what, what’s the story there?

Thalia: (03:58)
Okay. I’ll answer that in a second. I just was thinking that I really wish I had known about you. when my babies were babies, my babies are three and five now and they do sleep quite well, but they didn’t year of their lives, so, okay. How did I get into it? Uh, I studied abroad in the us when I was in my undergrad and I took this class ind diet and exercise and I loved did after my first day I went home and I was just so in love with it. I’m like, okay, I need to find a program where I can do this forever because this is I’m very highly passionate about this mm-hmm and I found this program, uh, it, it was, uh, I, I was living in Australia at that time. I was studying a abroad, but I was coming back to Australia and there was this program, um, that they didn’t take a lot of people and it’s, uh, clinical nutrition and dietetics and it’s a master’s degree.

Thalia: (04:51)
And so after I finished my undergrad, I applied for that and I was fortunate enough to get in. And so I did my, I did my to degree and I absolutely loved it. And then when I finished, I moved back to the us. My husband is American, so that’s why I was moving back and forth and look long. I’ll try to keep the story as short as possible. I fell into teaching as a professor at a college in the us, which I did for about 60 years. Oh cool. And uh, I really enjoyed that as well. I loved teaching, you know, adult students and it was wonderful. And look, there were some political issues that were going on and you know, things happened. I got pregnant and you know, the, you know, stuff hit the fan and mm-hmm . So when my baby was about six months old, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression and anxiety, which is still something I, I take medication for took a long time for me to actually do that. Uh, cause I know your audience is predominantly moms with babies. Yes. So if, if that, you know, I wish someone had said to me like taking medication is not weakness cuz I really resisted it for a long time. Yeah. And I’m so much happier and in a much better head space now. So just as a side note

Eva: (06:08)
Totally. And I love how you’re normalizing it by saying like, oh yeah. And no big deal. And I had postpartum depression and there was medication for it and it, I help me feel better. And there we go. Let’s let’s not always this stuff. Yeah.

Thalia: (06:21)
It took, it took me, uh, it was almost a year after I oh, maybe seven months after I was diagnosed, which by the way, didn’t happen until my baby was five months old. Right. And um, yeah, it took me a long time to actually decide to go on medication. Cuz I did view it as a sign of weakness and I don’t wanna do that, but you know, if, if you are on the same boat, I, I just, I do wanna talk about this because it it’s a really difficult place to be. And if you don’t have the right support, it just makes life so, so hard. Mm-hmm and a complete side note on there. If you’re someone who’s listening and can, um, resonate with one person listening, I would be happy. Okay. So what I did when my BA, well, after I was diagnosed, I had completely lost myself in, in motherhood.

Thalia: (07:08)
I had a, a baby and I had a, a toddler at home and I decided that I would start an Instagram page about, you know, the food that I was giving my baby to help other pay parents and, you know, with feeding their toddlers. And I happened to find that this was a, a, an area that a lot of parents did struggle and it really resonated with people. So I continued to build my page and I, you know, last year it’s been actually just about 12 months we’re at about now that I quit my teaching job to go, I feel a full time in my business. Yeah. I’m not a, I don’t actually work full-time but um, I don’t work anywhere else. I only work for myself now. Amazing. And it was the best decision of my life. I, I have some online courses, which is what I started with because I was the full-time caregiver and I didn’t, I wasn’t able to counsel clients mm-hmm and then when COVID up and my husband was laid off and he was home and we needed an income.

Thalia: (08:02)
So I started to see clients one on one, and I’ve started also a group coaching program, which has been a really wonderful way to reach more people at a more affordable price for them and help them get results with their picky eaters and enjoy their meal times again. That’s what it’s all about is enjoying meal times for, for both you as the parent and also your child, because once you’re both less stressed at meal times, and you’re enjoying yourselves, the picky eating, there are strategies yes. That we put into place to help with that. But once you take the stress out of it really allows for that mm-hmm improvement to happen.

Eva: (08:38)
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing. That’s such a great story. Very, very inspiring. Um, so, so tell me this, what would , what would you say are the, the most common challenges that, you know, parents of these toddlers, preschoolers, even younger school age, kids come to you with, um, and end up, you know, reaching out to you for support for,

Thalia: (09:04)
Okay. The first thing I’m gonna say is that it usually happens the like depending how old your baby is, you, you probably will understand this babies in the beginning, usually eat everything, anything you put in front of them, they will eat. And parents are, you know, they don’t even think that their child is going to ever be a picky eater. Yeah. And then sometime it depends on each kid. Some kids show preferences. I’ve worked with kids that have preferences as early as nine months, strongly towards certain foods and strongly again, other foods and others. I would say that the average time that this happens is between 14 and 18 months, when your child starts to be able to say no to things, they have an opinion, they want to be autonomous. They’re gonna exercise their autonomy. And it’s that transition between baby and toddler. That is very difficult.

Thalia: (09:55)
Yeah. If parents are not, if they don’t know what’s coming, it catches them off guard and they fall into these habits where they start bribing. They get very worried because one, when your child’s a baby, you ha you, you you’re told like they need this much milk. You’ve gotta feed them this often. And if your child, all of a sudden at, at 16 months old is like, I’m not gonna eat that. Oh, the parents are, go make something else. Or mm-hmm, , you know, you give your child 20 different options to eat. And all of those things make the picky eating worse and they make you more stressed. So that’s where I see the problem happening. Oh, and yeah. So the first, the first course that I had was it was actually for toddlers and up, and it was last year that I launched the baby course that I have, that goes from zero to 12 months to get you, it walks you through whether it’s baby led weaning or, or pures, it doesn’t, it really doesn’t matter. As long as you’re doing it safely. Mm-hmm . And can you

Eva: (10:57)
See that once more? Can you say that once more? It doesn’t matter if you do baby led weaning or Pires as long as it’s done safely. So in other words, you know, one is not terrible. And the other one being the only option, just wanna

Thalia: (11:13)
Correct. Clarify

Eva: (11:15)
That

Thalia: (11:16)
Yes. Okay. Amazing. If, if you, you, if you, you know, if you’re listening to the episode, like I said earlier, I had, I do have postpartum depression and anxiety, and I do struggle with those even today. Then my oldest one is five. And so when I designed my courses, it comes from the, the perspective of what would I have wanted to receive. I would have been as a parent, if someone had said to me a dietician or in any area, some expert saying you have to do it that way, because that’s the best way to do it. Yeah. And if you have, if you have major anxiety about doing baby led weaning, don’t do baby led weening. Yeah. You need to do you need to do something that makes you calm and relaxed. And as long as you’re doing it, if you do, pures like in the course, I run you through both pures and baby led weaning for how to do it safely.

Thalia: (12:08)
And if you’re doing pures to make sure that you’re advancing textures, cause I have had clients or people, you know, DMing me on discovery calls saying, oh my child’s 12 months old and I’m still giving them pures okay. That’s that’s not ideal. Uh, your child should be advanced past that, but well, before one year old. So that, that course will walk you through all of doing it safely. And also this concept of responsive feeding, which will set you up for less stress meal times, right from the get go so that you are not forcing food because that can make that can in itself make your child resistant to trying foods. Right? So there are a lot of behavioral strategies that the earlier you implement them, the, the better chance. And I’m not saying that you won’t have a eat, some children. I’ll give you an example.

Thalia: (12:56)
My youngest one inherently is much more selective. I know everything to do with her. She’s still more selective. Yeah. I will tell you though. She very could very well could be at one of my clients’ kids who only eats bread, cheese and fruit. She’s not because I’ve known what to do. And when you know what to do, I’m not saying your kid won’t be selective. I’m saying that you have the best chance to have a child that is not as selective. And the whole point is to prevent it being that your child is only eating five foods, which you might be home and laughing at me, but I’m telling you, I had a, I had a client last year, work with me. Who’s four year old was only eating two foods. So this is very extreme.

Eva: (13:35)
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. And I can you, I can relate to the child’s struggle so much because, um, when I was two, so I think, I guess I was that kid that, you know, until I was, I don’t know, 18 months or two years old feeding me was no problem. And then at a certain point, I think my mom said I was about two. Um, I, I stopped eating, um, chicken or any like poultry, most meat I started, I would just spit it out. And mm-hmm and to this day, how many years later? 33 years later, I’m 35, almost 36. I don’t like the taste of chicken. Like I don’t mm-hmm I feel, find it revolting. I make it for my family cause everybody else will eat it. But the smell, the taste, the texture, I don’t like it. And so I think that this, this to me is a really big struggle because my middle child is, um, selective when it comes to the foods that she eats.

Eva: (14:34)
And on the one hand I can relate to like the struggle as the parent so much, cuz I was that picky kid. I’m still, I wouldn’t call myself a picky adult, but the foods I didn’t like as a kid are still foods. I don’t like today. And so yes, you don’t want your kid eating bread and cheese, the rest of their lives. But at the same time you don’t want to be forcing them to eat something that they inherently hate. Right. So right. How do you, you know, address that conundrum? I guess that, you know, someone like me would, would have being able to relate to, like, I have this memory, I’ll let you just the question a second, but I have this memory cuz my mom kept trying to, she didn’t, she didn’t force me per se. She was, she took the approach of like have two bites to have two bites or three bites of this and then you’re done.

Eva: (15:21)
And so I remember she would make me, you know, meatballs and I was just like, uh, you know, this is so gross me and it still is. It still is. Anyway, I have this memory where I would take a bite and I would chew it and swallow it. But I, I would literally walk around like my entire kitchen, I guess, trying to distract myself while I was eating it. And it was just this normal, regular occurrence where it was like even needs to eat three bites. And that’s what I would do. I would get up from the kitchen and just walk around the main floor of my house, like eating, trying to eat this, you know, piece of food. And I guess I swallowed it. I mean, I wasn’t traumatized from it, you know, I’m I was fun. I just have this funny memory of, um, my mom with the best of intentions, trying to expose me and hoping that I’d realized that it didn’t didn’t taste so bad after all. And um, yeah, didn’t do anything.

Thalia: (16:16)
You, you, you know what you just said, your mom had the best of intentions.

Eva: (16:19)
She did have the a hundred percent have the best of intentions

Thalia: (16:22)
And almost every parent. I mean, you are here listening to a podcast about sleeping babies and feeding babies. So you obviously, to me, you are a parent that cares about your child and you have the best intentions for them,

Eva: (16:35)
Right? Yeah.

Thalia: (16:36)
There’s, there’s a way to carry out your best intentions in a way that’s fear based. Try three more bites. You must have a bite before you leave the table. Yeah. Versus a more respectful approach that will keep you calm. And won’t associate that food or the meal time with something negative. Yeah. And uh, I’m gonna, I’ve done this example on a few of my, uh, live streams and it’s quite confronting. So it makes me, I don’t really like doing the example, but I know it gets the point across. You’re gonna hear my gruffly voice now. Okay. I’m gonna, I’m gonna pretend it’s myself. Okay. I’m gonna see talking to myself and pretend that I’m I’m the parent talking and I’m talking to the child who is Talia mm-hmm Talia. I’ve worked very hard to make this meal. You need to at least try a bite of bit.

Thalia: (17:26)
It’s very disrespectful. How dare you say that? You don’t want it. It’s delicious. Try some. You cannot leave the table until you’ve tried one. Okay. You’re not gonna try a bite. That means I’m not gonna give you dessert. Okay. I, I don’t look. I hope I didn’t trigger anybody. Uh, my, my, I have a member in my family who does, who did talk to his child in that way. And I was at the table and I was not being spoken to it. And it was very confronting and didn’t make me wanna eat. Yeah. Even though I liked the food that was being served. Yeah. That creates a stress response for the child. And you as the parent are not in a good place when you’re saying that you are saying what you’re saying out of fear, out of worry, out of control. And that makes the situation worse for everybody.

Thalia: (18:12)
Yeah. And so when I work with clients, the strategies in my courses, they’re all based on respectful parenting. I call it had a parent at the table, essentially because no one talks about this. No one talks about when your two year old says I wanna snack. Yeah. And yeah, I’m gonna tell you, it’s okay to say, it’s not snack time. You’re gonna GU and say, oh, you’re not feeding your child a snack. When they ask you, it’s really important to have schedules, you know, either, I’m sure you can relate to this in terms of a sleep schedule. Yes. And a nap schedule. It’s important that your child is not just able to have control all the time. Right. And on my, on my YouTube channel, I’ve got a video called mealtime roles, which is like the division of responsibility. If you’ve heard of that. But the mealtime roles, uh, my method, they’re a little different.

Thalia: (18:56)
And it explains that in detail as to what your parental roles are at meal times and what your child’s roles are at meal times. And when you’re very clear on that, you will stop treading on your child’s roles. Right. Of child has the ability to say no. And you can respect that when you work with me and you go in the, and you work through the courses, it gets, it’s more nuanced than that. I’m not saying, well, your child says no. So you’re just like, okay, fine. You don’t have to eat it. And then goodbye forever. No, there’s a lot more that you can do that. Doesn’t encroach that doesn’t move into that bribing. Please try some I’m begging you try some or, oh, you’re not gonna eat it. So I’ll have to make you a grill cheese sandwich instead. Yeah.

Thalia: (19:37)
There are a lot of strategies. I like to use fun and play as the best ways to connect with the child. Because ultimately my goal for anyone who takes a course or works with me is to form strong parent child relationship and not drive a wedge between the two of you, which when you’re bribing and you’re doing things out of fear, you’re not working on the same team as your child. Yeah. I want you to be on the same team as your child. I want your child to trust you. Like another example is hiding vegetables.

Eva: (20:07)
Yeah. I have, I have a funny story about that after, but yeah, go, go. Cuz I, again, I was the kid. So go on. Okay.

Thalia: (20:14)
Well, okay. A lot of people shared this with me on Instagram. When I talked about this, they sent me a lot of stories that had happened to them as adults. If your spouse made you a meal and hid something in there, like snails, they pureed snails and put them into your pasta and didn’t tell you about it. And you found out you would not trust them. And you are an adult with a fully formed brain and you are in a position of power. Your child does not have a fully formed brain. And they are not in a position of power because they’re the child and you’re the parent. And if you lie to them, which is hiding food, you might be like, you can split hair and say, I didn’t lie. They didn’t ask.

Eva: (20:50)
Right. No,

Thalia: (20:51)
sorry. Sorry. I’m just gonna say that’s a no-no. Yeah. It’s different. I’m not saying you have to give a full disclosure of every single thing you’ve added. But you know, as the parent, oh, I’m hiding carrots in here because I know my child won’t eat carrots and I want the, to eat carrots. That’s very different than, yeah. I’m putting carrots in here. Everybody eats carrots. It’s not a big deal. Everybody knows it’s in here. Yeah. So if there’s something, the thing is your child is never gonna learn that they actually like carrots. If you never sh tell them, Hey, there’s carrots graded up. What

Eva: (21:23)
If you tell them afterwards? Like, what if they’re like, Ooh, this is so yummy. And you’re just like, got you. There’s carrots in there. And the kid’s like, really? Like, what about, what about that?

Thalia: (21:34)
Let me pose that back to you. Especially the way you said it. If your, if your spouse said that to you with something like, yeah,

Eva: (21:41)
No, no, no. I wouldn’t be so happy.

Thalia: (21:43)
You wouldn’t be happy. Got it.

Eva: (21:44)
There’s snails. So I guess you like eating snails now? No, I, I probably would not.

Thalia: (21:49)
Yeah, exactly. You, I, I try to encourage parents to put themselves in the position that their child is in. And remember, again, you are an adult, you can tell your spouse don’t ever do that again. I’m disgusted. This is awful. Your child is not in that position of power and doesn’t have that level of thinking yet.

Eva: (22:05)
Right. Right.

Thalia: (22:07)
So really thinking about what is going to it’s, it’s more important that your child trusts you and that you have a strong relationship with your child and your child with you than it is that they eat something that has broccoli in it. I mean, yes, we want them to eat broccoli, but there’s, there’s a, there’s a way about doing that. Like your child taking one bite of broccoli and then having this horrible neck association with it is not gonna help your child like broccoli in the long term. Yeah. But think about the long term goal, your child is not gonna be someone that you can bribe force and pressure when they’re 15 years old.

Eva: (22:41)
Right, right, right, right. No, I can, I can definitely appreciate that. I mean, my problem as a kid, um, it was never the fruits and, and veggies. Like I, you know, any, there was lots of green in my diet. I, I would eat like, yeah, celery peppers, like cucumbers, you know, broccoli. I would eat tons of fruit. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was always the protein. That was my mom. My mom was always worried about protein. And again, this was 30 something years ago where we don’t where we didn’t have access or it wasn’t nearly as accessible all these alternative forms of protein. You know, this, I mean, people like they talk about the vegan lifestyle. That was non-existence 30 something years ago. Um, to my knowledge. Okay. I’m sure it existed in, you know, little tiny pockets here and there. But, um, my mom was only aware of like getting protein into me via, you know, protein via, um, poultry, meat, you know, eggs, like the, the, you know, the traditional stuff.

Eva: (23:42)
And so I remember as a, I mean, at a certain point she gave up, she just recognized, cuz I would say to her, like I don’t like it. This tastes yucky. I’m not eating it. Um, but, and so she, for the most part gave up. But then, you know, when I was growing up, like even as a teenager, I remember, you know, the odd time I’d sit down, you know, to dinner. And again, my mom knows I don’t like chicken, but she’d make, um, I, this one day I remember she made spring rolls and, and I took a bite of a spring roll. I’m eating it. And I’m just like, mom, is there chicken in this? And she’s like, um,

Eva: (24:15)
Maybe there is. And I’m like, mom, I can taste the chicken. Like this doesn’t taste good. You have to give it up. I’m never going to like chicken. It’s my taste buds. And so whatever, it just turned into a joke. I mean, it always was, she was never mean about it, but you know, she was, she wanted me, I don’t blame her. She wanted me to like these foods, um, that to this day, I still don’t like, so yeah. I, I can absolutely appreciate that. If there is a food, you know, the taste, the texture that your kid doesn’t like, and you try hiding it in the food they’re they’re, they’re gonna taste it and then they’re gonna get mad at you for it. It’s not gonna go.

Thalia: (24:56)
I’m gonna give you, I’m gonna give you an example. And uh, one of the big things that I work on, both like both courses have a very comprehensive phrase is guide to help you with responding. Because even when you just said, I don’t like it, I don’t want you to say you don’t like it or ask your child. Do you like it? It’s too easy for them to say no. Don’t ask them a question like that. Ask them to describe the taste, ask them to describe the taste gross.

Eva: (25:20)
That’s what I would’ve said. AKI

Thalia: (25:23)
Yeah. My, my five year old says yucky a lot. You know what my I’ll tell. I’ll give you this for free. What does yucky mean?

Eva: (25:32)
Something. Something that I don’t want in my mouth.

Thalia: (25:35)
oh, okay. Look. And I wanna give you this example. Okay. Yeah. Cause my daughter’s five. She started going, she starts school this year and she’s been at kindie. And so she’s been, you know, she’s picking up things like yucky and gross, whatever. Yeah. Ew. Everything is Ew. Even like a pencil is Ew. But uh, I will ask her like, so here’s her example. She will eat a raw mushroom, but she’s never enjoyed a cooked mushroom. Do you notice how I said enjoyed? Not like, uh,

Thalia: (26:04)
She’s never enjoyed cooked mushrooms and she’s told me flat out, please stop putting mushrooms and the spaghetti sauce. I’m never go. I’m not going to eat them. And I said, well, you know what? We all enjoy the mushrooms in the sauce. And you’re more than welcome to take them out. You don’t have to eat them. Mm-hmm not a problem. And so another example, which is kind of like the hiding example, and this just happened the other day, we went out for lunch and I, I go up for myself. It like a toasted sandwich that had pumpkin in it and it had a grilled onion jam and yum. And my five year old, it was delicious. Yeah. It had better. It was quite yummy. Oh

Eva: (26:40)
My gosh.

Thalia: (26:40)
Actually, no, I’m not gonna say that. I’m not gonna use yummy. Don’t use the word yummy and yucky to describe things. Use the texture. It was, the onion was very sweet. The, the bread was very crunchy and oily because it had butter on, it was buttery and crunchy. Delicious. Okay.

Eva: (26:56)
So delicious is okay. Delicious is a good word.

Thalia: (26:59)
Delicious is okay. But try to stick to the textures and

Eva: (27:02)
What’s the opposite of delicious though.

Thalia: (27:06)
Awful.

Eva: (27:07)
Yeah. Okay. So awful is allow,

Thalia: (27:10)
You know, I wouldn’t go something so negative. I really wouldn’t give you tools. Give your kids the tools that you want them to use. Do you want ’em to say mom, this is awful. No. Or like them to say, you know what, mom, this is not my preferred dish because it is very squishy and there’s a lack of crunch in it. Yeah. That’s much more helpful to you as the parent where you can say, oh, I can add something crunchy.

Eva: (27:32)
Yeah. Yeah. Give

Thalia: (27:33)
You kids the tools you want them to use.

Eva: (27:36)
So 10 year old me should have said like the, I don’t like the, the, the flavor of the chicken, the flavor and the texture is not. Yes. And

Thalia: (27:45)
You know, I would’ve asked you mm-hmm I would’ve, I would’ve said, you know, this is the rest of the chicken, you know, the dark meat of chicken as well. And the dark meat is much juicier. And can, is, it tends to be less, much less dried than a chicken breast. Why don’t you come to the supermarket and help me pick out some chicken thighs and we’ll make the recipe together.

Eva: (28:05)
Yeah,

Thalia: (28:07)
I hear that. Okay. So let me tell you this onion jam example. Mm-hmm okay. This is, this is where you’re dipping a little toe into the, uh, deception pool, which I don’t like to do, but I’m going, I’m telling you my daughter and I have a very open relationship. I don’t lie to her about things. I don’t hide things from her. She’s not restricted from things we, we are, are getting off on, you know, that’s the relationship we have. Mm-hmm when you’re, at that point, you can do something like, I’m gonna explain to you, she, I offered her a bite of the sandwich, cuz she had looked at it and said, oh, I wanna try that. Sure. I gave her, I cut her off a piece and put it on her, her plate. And she tried some of it and she said, oh, this is, we’ve been scoring things out of 10.

Thalia: (28:47)
She said, this is a, this is a really TAs sandwich. I would give it. I would give, I think she said it was the best sandwich she’d ever had or something. And she gave it a 10 or whatever. And I said, oh, do you know, do you wanna see what’s in there? And so she didn’t wanna open it up. And I said that the sweet thing that you can taste in there is the grilled onion jam. And I know that she does not usually prefer onions mm-hmm and she looked at me and she said, well, it is, I, you know, I, I think she said, I like this to which I will. I will say like, you know, I’m not praising her because that’s also a form of pressure. You know, if I say to you like, oh good girl, Eva, you tried the chicken. What a cute girl. You are that’s pressure. Your child is. Especially if they, if they feel that they’re gonna go, well, I’m not gonna do that again. Cause I didn’t enjoy didn’t enjoy what just happened. So I did let her try it and taste it and see what she thought of it before I told her about the onions mm-hmm

Eva: (29:41)


Thalia: (29:42)
But I didn’t say, oh, guess what? They’re on and

Eva: (29:46)
Right, right, right, right.

Thalia: (29:49)
Your language, your words matter a lot. And your behavior matters a lot and your intention matters a lot.

Eva: (29:56)
Yeah, no, I hear that. I hear that. That’s that’s it almost makes me, you know, it makes me wonder what sorts of foods. I might have been more open to eating as a kid. Um, because I will tell you, um, now as an adult, as I said, there really I, there really is not much meat or poultry in my diet because it’s just, what’s the maybe, and I’m gonna change. I’m gonna change the language that I use. other than saying

Thalia: (30:25)
It’s, it’s not something you prefer. It’s not your

Eva: (30:28)
Favorite. It’s not something that I prefer, but you know, I have a lot of tofu in my diet. Um, tofu was not a food that I was introduced to, you know, as a kid, it was, um, maybe because it just wasn’t as, um, popular. It wasn’t as widespread, you know, it wasn’t in like a normal, regular grocery store the way it is now. Um, I don’t, at least according to my mom, you know, the normal, regular grocery stores, maybe it was in a, a corner somewhere, but it wasn’t next to the vegetables, you know, the way that it is now. Um, and, uh, and there’s so many other sources of protein that I, that I eat that I, that I was, that it really was not introduced to, um, when I was younger. And so, um, yeah, it almost makes me wonder, like if those techniques had been used on, let’s say something like tofu, would I have, would I have had that, um, negative reaction to it and not been, not been so interested in eating it?

Eva: (31:20)
It’s it’s interesting. I mean, I will say just for the record that the taste and the flavor of chicken is something. I have tried it as an adult and I objectively don’t like it, like I a hundred percent, it’s like a taste bud thing. I don’t. And then when I’m pregnant and I smell it, it’s even more gross to me because, you know, your senses are heightened and everything just smells, you know, but better if you love it and then worse if you don’t like it. So there is definitely that truth to it, but I can totally see, um, this much more sensible approach to introducing foods and dealing with picky eating, um, can really set kids up for success in the grand scheme of things so that they don’t turn into picky teenagers. Right. Who only eat, you know, those, those few foods. And that’s it,

Thalia: (32:11)
You brought up two things that I wanted to talk about. One was a client and the other one was about, I love, I, I appreciate very much that you brought up tofu. Tofu is, is, and, and it also leads back into protein. We, especially in the, the us and Western countries or protein, protein, protein. Okay. Yeah. Here’s if you’ve got a baby or really, I would say any child, iron is an important thing that a lot of children don’t have enough of mm-hmm and this, I go through this in much more detail. There’s lists about it in the first free first foods course, which is the baby course, every meal opportunity that your baby or toddler or child has, especially baby toddler, up to two and beyond, I would say still needs to have a high iron in food. Not all sources of per protein have ion all ion sources, contain protein and a really great one, which is what you just said, Eva was tofu.

Thalia: (33:09)
All right. So I tell this to parents and I go through this in the course as well that every meal opportunity give something that has high ion there’s a list you can print to that, put it on your fridge so that you don’t, you’re not repeatedly giving the same thing over and over again. Mm-hmm because if you’re only giving your child ion at one or two meals, a high ion food, there’s a good chance that they could become anemic, which is not great. Mm-hmm . And so the other thing I wanted to say, when you mentioned about being open to trying new things, I wanted to give you an example that if you’re, if you’re listening and you have an, all the child, this client of mine he’s four. And when we started, he had maybe seven foods like chips, Pringles, but only very specific ones. Uh, he would eat popcorn and one particular type of sausage, like a, a, a pretty you call it like a wow. A hot dog,

Eva: (33:58)
A hot dog. Yeah.

Thalia: (34:00)
Yeah. Hot dog and no, no fruits or vegetables. And we’ve been working together for about four, five months. And he has in the he’s really turned to corner. Cuz what, in the beginning, the first few months of what we were working on, he was a tough cookie and this is a single mom who’s working. So she’s not able to be with him all the time. So where we focused at the beginning about giving him language tools and removing all the pressure because they were pressuring, eat this, try this. Why aren’t you having this? And they were doing a lot of catering. Like he has his own separate meal. He was also taking a supplement, which we stock now, which is fabulous. And we’ve been able to help him increase his appetite because he was drinking this, uh, like ensure not yeah. Short.

Eva: (34:43)
Yeah, yeah. We have here. Yeah. Yeah.

Thalia: (34:46)
Pedia, pedia kids. I forget what it’s called off the,

Eva: (34:50)
I know what you’re talking about. So like a, a pediatric version of ensure. Yeah. Right. Which a lot of like, like the elderly, a lot of people who are elderly, they drink ensure to, you know, make sure they get their calories in. So yeah. I, and I know what you’re talking about.

Thalia: (35:03)
Exactly. And so for the first few months we were really focused on that and he was still very, he also would never go in the kitchen and help his mom. Mm-hmm which within the first couple of months, he was very interested in doing that. And then in the last two months, so he actually did try a broccoli recently and he described what it was that he liked about the base of the broccoli, the stem versus the top part, which is like the, you know, the florets on the top. Mm-hmm he gave a very detailed description that he liked at being crunchy. And what he, what he didn’t prefer about the top was that it felt like lots of little pieces in his mouth and it was too soft and whatever. And he gave that description at four years old. And that’s because his mom’s been using all those words and all those descriptions for, for that time beforehand.

Thalia: (35:54)
Okay. Skipping ahead now. So that was about two months ago in the last, since then he’s tried, I don’t have the list in front of me, but I just had a call with her yesterday. He’s tried lettuce. He’s now eating carrots. He’s eating celery. He’s he tried steak and ate some, he used Maples syrup as a dip, which normally he won’t, he doesn’t like things mixing. That’s why he likes, he wouldn’t eat. There were two things cause he, he started to eat popcorn. But if you put the popcorn with the, uh, Pringles, he wouldn’t eat them. Mm-hmm . And if you put the, he, he eats rice, but if you put the rice with the hot dog, he won’t eat it. Mm-hmm . So he’s, he’s been able to increase his flexibility with foods and try lots more new foods. I don’t have the complete list.

Thalia: (36:35)
There were, there were about 12 things that he had tried was a new kind of pancake he had had that had cinnamon in it versus the other one, which is the only one that he’s eaten since he was a baby. So I just kind of wanted to take you on this journey of this is a four year old and the, the most important thing I want to get across to you. And because most of you probably have children that are much younger is getting started early. Makes all the difference. Yeah. This mom had been struggling with her, with her son since he was 18 months old. That’s that’s well over half of his life. Yeah. And that’s a lot of habits to undo both for the mother and for the child.

Eva: (37:11)
Yeah. Right, right.

Thalia: (37:13)
So the earlier you, yeah, the earlier you can get started with knowing and being confident in what to say, because a lot of parents tell me, I second, guess myself, I know I shouldn’t be bribing, but I dunno what else to do.

Eva: (37:23)
Yeah. Yeah. And then you don’t want them going to bed hungry. And then you’re afraid that they’re gonna wake up in the middle of the night and say that they’re hungry. Mm-hmm and, and then what are you supposed to do? Right. And then it makes them do well, the totally helpless

Thalia: (37:35)
Or the child who doesn’t eat dinner and then cries food. Right before bed. I had a few clients that have had that problem. Yes. And we’ve been able to alleviate that situation by putting in some different, you know, and it, it’s not an easy fix. I’m not trying to present this to you as an easy fix, you know, like this four year old, this four year old wouldn’t have gotten like the mom wouldn’t have gotten what she needed just from my course alone. She really did need like these strategies because the kid not going to bed hungry, if he’s saying, or she is saying that she’s hungry right before bed, you’ve gotta change quite a few things. You’re not just changing dinner, but you’re also changing things that are happening earlier in the day. When are you presenting them with challenges? Mm-hmm, , you know, you’re also changing all your language, but when are you presenting new foods to them and how are you making a dinner that they will eat without catering to them? Yeah. So enough that they will eat something. And that’s one of the problems that we’re having right now with a, a different client whose kid is four and a half years old. And we’ve been really tackling that in the last month. And mum’s told me, look, you know, she’s, I think she’s only in, in a week she was asking originally like six days a week crying for food, like really crying, like having a meltdown before bed saying she’s hungry and now she’s doing it once a week or less.

Eva: (38:46)
Good. That’s amazing. So, and that’s a game, that’s a game changer in terms of the stress that your average parent is going to take with them day in and day out. Because you know, when, when someone is struggling with meal times with their kids, I mean, it, it’s kind of like, oh my God, dinner again. every day is dinner. Whether you like it or not, it’s every single day your kid has to eat dinner and maybe breakfast like dinner seems to be the most, you know, the most stressful because you know, breakfast might be easy. It might be, you know, toast, cereal, you know, you can find a food that, and it’s okay if they’re eating the same thing, you know, for breakfast every day and then lunch, they eat with their friends, they eat their sandwich, you know, whatever it is. But then dinner is when I feel like for a lot of parents, that’s when the stress, their stress levels go up because they don’t wanna be giving their kid Cheerios.

Eva: (39:45)
Uh, they don’t wanna be giving their kid another cheese sandwich, you know, if they had a cheese sandwich for lunch and, um, being able to alleviate all that. And then of course, you know, will work with me. It’s like, not only so you can, you can get the food, all taken care of with someone like you and then be able to alleviate the stress that comes from sleep challenges. I mean, it’s a, it’s a game changer to be able to just sort of, not even so much sail through that time of day. Um, because obviously like kids are kids and you know, it’s not gonna look like a picture. Perfect. You know, Pinterest, Instagram looking picture that’s that’s for the holy park falls, even on a good day. Um, I mean guys, like my three year old still says, like, I don’t wanna go to bed, mommy. No, not yet five more minutes. Like, and, and I do this for a living and he still, he doesn’t know I do that for a living , which is why he tries pull these things. But at the same time, to be able to, you know, reduce your stress levels by what, 90% so that you can actually enjoy that time of day with your kids to game changer. Right.

Thalia: (40:52)
Let me tell you, I just pulled up the calendar, not the calendar, the calculator, if you feed most, most toddlers have five meals, a day meals slash snack. And I, I wanna give you a couple as we’re like wrapping up. I wanted to give you a couple of actionable things that you can start doing. Yeah. You’ve already got, you’ve already got the, some of the phrases down, uh, but if you are feeding your child five meals and mini snacks, like mini meal snacks to the day, 365 days a week, that’s 1,825 times that you’re feeding your child. If you are stressed out and, and you said sometimes breakfast is okay, but I can tell you I’ve had a of time.

Eva: (41:32)
It’s not

Thalia: (41:33)
A lot, have

Eva: (41:34)
A lot. You probably do have a lot of clients where breakfast is not okay,

Thalia: (41:37)
Where breakfast is not okay. And sending kids to lunch to, to, to school with lunch, they don’t eat it or they complain. They don’t like it, or it gets thrown away. Lunch is a very stressful too, depending on the, the age of the kid, whether school or not. And if the kid is going somewhere where they ride the lunch, I can’t tell you I’ve got a client. Who’s got four kids right now between the ages of 10 and three, that they won’t eat their lunches at school. They come home starving, they’re hangry. Then they don’t want to eat. You know, there’s a lot of challenges there. So what I’m saying to you is if you are a parent that has, uh, you know, a baby and an older kid, here are some of, of the, the warning signs that this is, that the, the pickiness or the selectiveness is a problem. I want you to think about how long it’s been going on for, because so like doctors, and I’m really sorry to say this doctors, am I allowed to say the S H I T word? Yep. no shit about feeding. Yeah. And nutrition. Most of the

Eva: (42:35)
That’s okay. They know shit about sleep as well. That’s fine.

Thalia: (42:38)
Yeah, that’s fine. They, they, I cannot tell you how many parents have told me in DMS or on a discovery call or when, when we’re working together. Oh, the doctor said it was just a phase and come back if he’s losing weight. No, that is terrible advice. Yeah. That’s terrible advice. Yeah. Anytime we dismiss it as a is basically saying, well, I know there’s a problem here, but I’m not actually gonna do anything about it.

Eva: (43:00)
Cause I don’t know what to do.

Thalia: (43:02)
And the doctor doesn’t know what to do. The doctor that’s crazy advice. Yeah. From just, don’t feed your kid for a three hours until they’re hungry and then giving me egg and they’ll eat it cuz they’re hungry. Terrible advice. Absolutely terrible advice. Mm-hmm uh, the that’s gonna make you really stressed and it’s gonna make your child really stressed. No, one’s gonna win in that situation. You both

Eva: (43:19)
Lose. I agree. I agree. I mean, listen, I have, I have pediatricians as clients. Like I have pediatricians who hire me. You probably also have medical professionals who hire you. Um, and it’s not, I wanna just make this very, very clear. Does any, you know, healthcare professionals listening in, listening in, I love doctors. I love nurses. I love, I mean, healthcare professionals are wonderful and they’re so knowledgeable about their areas that they’re trained in, you know, doctors specifically, you know, to their defense. Like they can’t possibly be experts on everything. Um, because not school is only for, I mean here, here in Canada, anyways, medical school is only four years long and pediatric residency is I believe another three years. Um, so yes, it’s seven years of schooling, but they’re learn. There’s a lot to know about

Thalia: (44:14)
Pediatrician.

Eva: (44:15)
So this isn’t a disrespect to anyone who’s in that field. Um, but it’s just more along the lines of, you know, being honest, like if this isn’t someone’s area of expertise, then they’re, they can’t possibly be in a position to advise on it. That’s all. And so, yeah. I mean, I get people telling me like, oh, well, you know, my, my pediatrician told me that my four month old shouldn’t be napping past five o’clock and I was just, and, and I’m literally just like, oh boy, that’s really not very good advice cuz that’s literally a recipe for your four month old being over tired, you know, just giving an ex, this was literally a phone call today. So it was fresh off the top of my head and, and I’m sure that yeah, the same thing, the same thing happens with you and it’s not a disrespect to them. It’s just a fact that, um, they can’t possibly learn anything and everything in detail. Exactly. Um, in their training. Yeah.

Thalia: (45:07)
They have, uh, my kids go to pediatricians. Well in the us, in Australia, they just go to a doctor. Yeah. Uh, it’s not a, a, not a, pediatrician’s just a doctor mm-hmm and doctors are they diagnose disease. That’s what, you know, that’s what they do. They treat that’s what they

Eva: (45:22)
Do. Diagnosed

Thalia: (45:22)
Disease. Yes. I’ve had, I’ve had a lot of doctors reach out to me and I’ve also, I actually had a dietician in one of my group coaching programs and the thing is even within dietetics, we have specialties. Yes.

Eva: (45:35)
And

Thalia: (45:36)
This lady was a specialty in renal, which is kidneys, kidney

Eva: (45:40)
Cells,

Thalia: (45:41)
And there’s oncology for, you know, people that have had cancers. And even then there’s specific there’s head and neck cancer. There’s bowel cancer. There’s bowel cancer. There’s there’s your specialty. You have your specialty in a specific area.

Eva: (45:54)
If someone’s working with type two diabetics, then how are they gonna know how to deal with picky eating with their five year old? Yeah,

Thalia: (46:01)
Exactly. And that’s not to say that, uh, you know, if I could have a conversation with this, renals like the renal dietician, I could I’d have to go and get thread up some no, and I know where to find the information should I need it, but it’s not my area of expertise. I wouldn’t take on a client that has renal issues. Cause that’s not my area. Yeah. And I think most doctors have the self awareness to agree. You’re right. I don’t know that that, or like that’s not, I don’t have training in that area. I know a little bit and I can dispense the advice of, don’t worry about it, but that’s not the,

Eva: (46:33)
I agree. I agree. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. I mean, and I get, I get clients that get the same advice. Um, oh your, your two year old is waking up, you know, three times a night. They might just be going through a phase. Um, more likely they’re not, more, more than likely there there’s something that’s causing them to wake up, you know, three times a night that can almost always be resolved. Um, you know, with a proper plan in place and simply waiting it out might not only not resolve the problem, but it might just reinforce it and allow it to become a new habit. Right. Which see

Thalia: (47:07)
Which I need, you don’t

Eva: (47:08)
Want. And you probably see that with eating as well because it just, cause then they’re told this advice and then they think, oh, so I’ll just continue doing what I’m doing. Not recognizing that when a child does something day in and day out, like that’s precisely how behaviors become habits, right. And habits, the

Thalia: (47:26)
Habits become problem.

Eva: (47:26)
They just, they drill it. They just get drilled into their routine and then it becomes even harder to undo.

Thalia: (47:32)
Right. You know, I, I do have a YouTube video that specifically goes through when Peaky eating is a problem. But if your child has been selective and dropping foods off their list of their like reliable foods list, notice how I say reliable and not safe. We don’t wanna try to think something is unsafe food. So are you say for months or years, but honestly, somebody asked me this question in alive recently. Oh my child for the last two weeks has only wanted to drink milk. I can tell you that if one of my daughters decided that they only wanted to drink milk, they even in one day I’d be worried because that’s very abnormal, but behavior mm-hmm if your child starts not eating 30 foods that they were eating in the space of three weeks or four weeks, that’s such a problem. That’s absolutely a problem.

Thalia: (48:19)
So I want you to like focus on how long has it been going on and getting worse. And if your answer is weeks, months or years, you are in the pro you’re in the problem category. Mm-hmm if your child, another red flag is less than 20 foods that they eat reliably. And that goes along with, you know, the other red flags of how longs it been going on. Uh, and if it’s impacting your mental health in Sofar as your stress at meal times, oh, I don’t know. They’re not gonna eat this meal or okay. I need to have a backup meal or feel like you’re fighting with your child. If you’re arguing and fighting over food, that’s a problem. Yeah. That’s not good for either of you. So, you know, those are a couple of the red flags and one of the things that you can do right now is if you, if you think, oh, well, my, my kid might fit into that category.

Thalia: (49:11)
Write down a list of all the foods that they reliably eat and count them up and see how many of them are they eating a variety from all five food groups? Mm-hmm fruit, vegetables, grains, preferably whole grains, as much as possible meat and meat alternatives and dairy mm-hmm if your child is not on, unless they have an allergy, of course, that don’t even like some people will put on a post. Well, my child has a dairy allergy, so they don’t eat on that food group. Obviously, if your child has an allergy, don’t give them that food. Mm-hmm . But I’m saying just across the board as general advice, is your child eating a variety from all the different food groups saying that your child eats one kind of meat cooked in one kind way is not variety. If your child is not eating across all five food groups with variety within each one.

Thalia: (49:59)
That’s something to be concerned about as well. And the reason is just like the less than 20 foods, they’re not gonna be getting enough variety to meet their nutrient needs. Yeah. And this is something that pisses me off so much with doctors, his parents will come to me and say, oh my kid’s growing fine. And the doctor’s not worried because they’re growing fine. Mm-hmm oh, you can’t see my face, but I’m like, yeah. Okay guys, you need to look at your child’s growth chart and are they tracking along their same percentile for weight, if they are great. But if you are, if you’ve answered to my previous questions, they’re only eating 20 foods. I mean, if you are even getting close to 20 foods, that’s a problem too. But if your child’s not eating a variety across all the food groups, they’re not getting all their nutrients. If they’re growing fine, great. They’re enough calories. I can go to McDonald’s and eat a McDonald’s burger every day and meet my calories.

Eva: (50:50)
And you’ll still be, yeah. Or you’re a kid and they’ll still grow eating

Thalia: (50:54)
McDonald’s yeah. Your kid will still grow. There are children that grow up without hardly any food and they still manage some of them still manage to grow. That’s not ideal.

Eva: (51:03)
Yeah.

Thalia: (51:03)
You know, going to McDonald’s and meeting my, my calorie require for the day will mean I’m not gonna gain all lose weight, but I’m not gonna get all the fiber I need. I’m not gonna get all the vitamin C that I need. I’m not gonna get the iron that I need. I’m not gonna get all the, these nutrients I’m gonna be missing out on. Yeah. So that’s the, that’s the other side of things that I want you to think about. Like, if someone’s told you, don’t worry about your child’s growing, come back. If they’re losing weight that’s advice.

Eva: (51:29)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because then it, it implies that, um, the only priority is that your kid not be sick. Right. Right. Where when yes, of course, you know, nobody wants their kid to be sick, but just because they’re not sick, it doesn’t mean that that’s now, you know, ideal. Right. Like there is, um, something that I, something that I learned, um, just, you know, through my own experiences, like working with doctors as well as naturopath is that there’s a very big difference between something that’s normal, um, or in like a normal range versus an ideal range to, to very, very different things. So I, I would say it’s probably the same. Mm

Thalia: (52:09)
Yeah. And people will say, oh, it’s normal for kids to be picky just because every child, or, you know, you can talk to it’s confirmation bias, you can talk to your 30 friends. And 25 of their kids were picky. Yeah. Yes. Children do go through an autonomous phase where they want to, it’s not even a phase. They go through a, a, a point in their life where they become autonomous and they realize that they can say things and say, no, that’s normal. Yes. However, just because it happens to the majority of people doesn’t mean that it’s not a problem. Yeah. The child should not be only eating. You know, I had one parent say, I don’t want my kid to eat anything crazy, like a fish sandwich or anything. And I’m like, that’s not a crazy thing. Why is fish a crazy thing?

Eva: (52:50)
Yeah. What’s wrong with fish

Thalia: (52:52)
Kids. There’s nothing wrong with children eating fish.

Eva: (52:54)
Why are you hating on fish?

Thalia: (52:55)
Absolutely.

Eva: (52:56)
Don’t hate on fish.

Thalia: (52:58)
Well, like, like people have these, these preconceived notions of what a child should and shouldn’t eat and I’m like a child should most likely unless they have an allergy or some medical condition should be able to eat everything that an adult.

Eva: (53:11)
Yeah.

Thalia: (53:12)
Yeah. Maybe with the, like with textural modifications and maybe not with spicy food, but honestly, um,

Eva: (53:19)
So you don’t like kids’ menus at restaurants.

Thalia: (53:23)
I do not. I’ve never ordered off a child’s menu. I always, we, now that my daughter’s getting older, she gets a stay in what we order and we usually share it and we, we divide, you know, I’m getting this, like the sandwich that I told you about earlier.

Eva: (53:34)
Yeah, yeah. You

Thalia: (53:35)
Know, but when they were little, we, my husband and I would order a meal each and we would give them part of our meals.

Eva: (53:42)
Yeah. I think that’s, I think that’s so smart and it’s a very different way. It’s very different way as like, from when I grew up. That’s for sure. I think a lot of us, um, you know, eighties, nineties kids grew up with kids’ venues. Right. And kids’ food. Yeah. Kids’ food and adult food. And I think that for a lot of us now doing the child rearing there is that shift that, um, can be tricky to do when you’re not used to it. But I think it’s a very sensical one because you’re absolutely right. Like why does Caesar salad have to be something that only in adult eat Caesar salads? Yummy. Why, why can’t sorry. Not yummy. Yummy is not a good word. Um, it tastes, I was gonna say delicious, which I know you said was a little bit, little bit better. I’m gonna go with delicious. I, I find Caesar salad delicious. And why can’t my three year old enjoy Caesar salad as well.

Thalia: (54:36)
I like how you caught yourself there. See, being aware of this. Yeah. Is, is the first step to, oh, okay. I can come up with a bit of word there. Okay.

Eva: (54:44)
Yeah. Look, See, I’m not just the one doing the coaching. I can be coached. I can

Eva: (54:52)
Too. Yeah. I’m, I’m very, very, very coachable. Listen, my son is in speech therapy right now. You know, we’re like with pronunciation and, you know, expanding his sentences. And so, I mean, half the speech therapy with a three year old is coaching the para on how to coach him. Exactly. You know, that’s, that’s what we have to do, but I think that this is all gold and I’m so happy that I was able to have you on, you know, talking about all this. Because as I said, I think that it’s such a game changer, um, for the child, as well as for the parents, for being able to decrease stress levels, which is like, what I’m all about is, you know, making parenting as enjoyable as possible. Um, mm-hmm and taking away all those sources, you know, addressing all those constant sources of stress so that you can enjoy mealtime or bedtime for that matter instead of dreading it. So where can people find more of you? Um, if they want more of you in your life. I know you mentioned at the beginning, but just remind us all again, where we can find you.

Thalia: (55:54)
Yes, I am on all the PLA all the platforms, YouTube. I’ve got like 70 long form video tutorials on there. So YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, all, uh, family snack nutritionist. There’s a, a period. So family dot snack dot nutritionist. But if you just type family snack nutritionist, it’ll come up and you can on all those social websites, you’ll be able to find the link to my website. The courses that I mentioned the baby course is bus free. First foods, the toddler course, which is two and up is meal times without meltdowns. And I do have a course about sweets and forming a healthy relationship with food. We can address that in another episode. Um, and that’s called stress free sweets and eats. I’m going to send Eva, uh, code, uh, 10% off code for either buying a bundle or buying one of the courses. If you amazing, whichever one fits you best.

Eva: (56:50)
Fantastic. And this will all be posted in the show notes, everyone. So, um,

Thalia: (56:56)
You can always reach out to me.

Eva: (56:57)
Amazing.

Thalia: (56:58)
You can always send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook.

Eva: (57:01)
Okay. Amazing. All right. Thank you so much, everyone for listening. Thank you Talia for being here. You guys all have a wonderful day. Thanks again.

Eva: (57:13)
Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share this episode with a friend who can benefit from it. I also love hearing from my listeners. So feel free to DM me on Instagram @mysleepingbaby, or send me an email at eva@mysleepingbaby.com until next time have a wonderful restful nights.