This page belongs to collection of short articles and videos in plain language, called Little people + food. The Possums approach aims to make introducing solids and toddler foods a lot easier than you might hear!

Always have an adult watching your toddler when they eat. Here are other things to avoid.

• Your toddler lying back or lying down to eat. Your child needs to be sitting or standing upright.

• Hard foods cut in circles that are difficult to chew and swallow and which could be inhaled, such as whole nuts, chopped raw carrot, grapes, or cherries.

• Honey is not suitable for infants until they are older than 12 months of age. This is because raw honey can contain spores of Clostridium botulinun, a bacteria which releases toxins and causes botulism.

• Soft drinks, fruit juices, flavoured milk or water, sports drinks, energy drinks. These are high in sugars and offer little nutritional value.

• It's best not to add salt to your baby's or toddler's food. (It's also best not to add salt to your own food!) As well as creating a preference for salty foods, too much salt can impact upon a small child's kidneys. However, it's important to keep this in perspective - sodium is a necessary part of your little one's diet, and it's not that you need to eliminate all salt. Just keeping to the principle of mostly providing home cooked food and not adding salt to food is enough - but some purchased foods that contain salt and some mildly salted food off your own plate is ok at times.

• Toddler formulas. Because toddler formulas contain twice the carbohydrates and sugars of cow's milk, they're not good for your little one's health. You can find out more here. After 12 months, your child is ready for full-fat cow’s milk (unless they have a true dairy allergy. Please talk to your GP if you have concerns.)

• More than about 500 mls of milk daily. This is because too much milk interferes with your child’s appetite for other foods.

• Eating in front of screens. This is because we want eating to be an enjoyable and relaxed time together as a family. Your toddler will watch you and experiment with different foods if you are all interacting together and having a good time over food. They do this less so when either of you are distracted.

Acknowledgements

I'm grateful to Professor Sophie Havighurst, Ros June, and Caroline Ma at Mindful, The University of Melbourne, for their feedback on the articles and videos in Little people + food (brief & simple). They helped me keep the language plain and the concepts as accessible as possible.

Recommended resources

https://theconversation.com/why-is-toddler-milk-so-popular-follow-the-money-225668

Selected references

McCann J, Woods J, Mohebbi M, Russell C. Regulated nutrition claims increase perceived healthiness of an ultra-processed, discretionary toddler snack food and ultra-processed toddler milks: a discrete choice experiment. Appetite. 2022;106044:106044.