Feeding Your Baby & Toddler

Annabel Karmel is a leading authority on feeding the under-fives and is a trained Cordon Bleu chef and mother of three. What she does particularly well is encourage a healthy approach to diet while making the recipes truly tasty--in part, by making recipes that are easy for parents to cook, but also, importantly, ones that parents would actually want to eat too--why always make separate food for your children? Feeding your Baby and Toddler: A Complete Guide is also a guide to how to feed your children and what the experience of weaning is like for the children--valuable information that is long overdue in a book like this.

With sections on basic nutrition, suggestions for your store cupboard, equipment, techniques for freezing and reheating, and food hygiene parents will find the book invaluable; for example, the section on introducing solids actually shows how to feed from a spoon--something that isn't taught in parentcraft classes. The book is structured around sections based on age, with each one having its own introduction to that age group's special feeding issues and problems, and is followed by the author's delicious recipes--such as Sweetcorn, Cherry Tomato and Tofu Kebabs and Singapore Noodles--and fun serving and decoration suggestions. There are also recipes for desserts--Banana Muffins or Fresh Fruit Ice Lollipops--there being no reason why sweet food cannot be part of a well-rounded diet. The book ends with a menu planner for each of the age groups, one per page, which suggests a menu for each day of the week. A great idea that could also serve to introduce parents to what constitutes a healthy diet and how to put it together.

The book's approach is one that takes into account the total experience of eating when you are doing it for the very first time; new textures, flavours, holding your own spoon--all these are new experiences for baby. As such, it is much more than just a cookbook; it is a culinary guide to living with under-fives. Highly recommended for parents in general, but especially for first-time parents. --Alison Jardine