Episode 160: How babies and children learn to suppress their feelings with food

The Aware Parenting Podcast

In this episode, I talk about how babies and children learn to suppress their feelings with food and how we can prevent that or lessen those effects. I share about: The importance of self-compassion; Reassurance that this is one of the most common ways that babies and children suppress feelings; Whatever age your baby or child is, it's possible to help them relearn how to distinguish between hunger and upset feelings; Inviting you to connect in with yourself to see if this resonates; How eating to suppress feelings is often passed down in families; Understanding the two types of feelings - needs-feelings and healing-feelings; Why being able to differentiate true relaxation from dissociation is vital here; The spectrum of stress and trauma for babies; How common it is to feed a baby when we think they're hungry when they actually have healing-feelings; How they learn to interpret that the sensation of upset is hunger; Seeing things from the perspective of the baby; How and why control patterns develop early on; How babies learn to interpret healing-feelings as hunger; How we can tell if a baby is suppressing feelings through feeding; How to differentiate between hunger and healing-feelings; How we might distract children with food when they are toddlers or children; How can we tell that a child may be eating to suppress feelings; How we can prevent or lessen the likelihood a baby learns to suppress their feelings with food. In the next episode, I'll talk about what we can do to help a child who has already learnt to suppress their feelings with food. If you want to learn more, I recommend 'The Aware Baby' by Aletha Solter and 'The Emotional Life of Babies' by me! In my upcoming book,' I'm Here and I'm Listening', which is for parents of 1-8 year olds, I also talk a lot about this! You can find out about my work here: www.marionrose.net The Aware Parenting Virtual Village 2.0 is opening soon too! Keep an eye out on my socials or sign up for information about the early bird and my new books here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD