69: Baby led weaning, avoiding picky eating in children, improving nutritional variety and why the way we were introduced to food as infants may affect our nutrition habits now with Paediatric Dietitian and mother Edwena Kennedy

The PCOS Nutritionist Podcast

Do you have kids that are picky eaters and just don’t want to eat anything you put in front of them? Do you find you’re a similar way about foods? Working on improving your nutrition for your PCOS and want to introduce your child to more variety in their food?

The reason may be the associations you had around food as an infant, toddler and child. If you’re TTC, pregnant or have little ones, you may have heard the hype about baby led weaning (BLW) in the last few years. At the end of last year, the lovely Edwena Kennedy from My Little Eater reached out to me wanting to talk about all things PCOS, postpartum and BLW. Since I’m not a mother, it’s something I wasn’t the expert on, so we ended up chatting!

Edwena is a registered paediatric dietitian from Nova Scotia who founded My Little Eater as a simple, straightforward way for parents to get the information, guidance and support they need to take their child along the entire feeding journey in the healthiest way possible. She’s also a mother herself and also has PCOS - so she knows how it feels to want to help her children avoid potential metabolic issues in the future without falling into disordered patterns.

Not only was chatting with Edwena so interesting but after talking about BLW with her, it really pulls together some of the reasons why we may have trouble with our associations with food, picky eating and comfort foods later in life. In this episode, Edwena and I speak about her PCOS journey, how she got into paediatric nutrition and BLW, hunger and satiety cues, positive exposure and avoiding pressure in food situations, what the research shows on BLW versus traditional feeding, what impact that has on your children’s eating habits going forward - and potentially habits into adulthood.

This episode is not only interesting for those of you with children but also in general to understand where our associations with picky eating and comfort foods come from, so I’d really encourage you to listen!

This episode is for you if:

• You have an infant or young child
• You’re pregnant or TTC
• You’ve found you have pretty picky eating tendencies yourself and want to understand a bit more about one of the potential contributing factors
• You don’t your current / past relationship with food to impact your child’s relationship with food
• You want to expose your children to some of the same foods you’re eating and good habits in a safe, effective way

Some things we cover in this episode:

• Edwena’s background in nutrition, paediatric dietetics and how she got into the work she does today
• Edwena’s own PCOS journey
• What is Baby Led Weaning (BLW)?
• How does BLW differ from traditional weaning?
• Why BLW is so effective in reducing picky eating and improving nutritional outcomes
• Hunger and satiety cues
• How research is starting to show that BLW can improve rates of childhood obesity
• Positive exposure
• Avoiding pressure in their interactions with food
• What to do if your child is a picky eater but older (ie. 5-8+)

Resources and References:

• My Book: Getting Pregnant with PCOS
• Edwena’s website
• Edwena’s Instagram
• Edwena’s Facebook
• My Little Eaters Courses

Links to our programs:

• The PCOS Protocol
• Eggducated