The best way to calm an infant is by modeling the type of behaviour you want from them.  If you’ve ever watched a toddler closely, they copy everything a person does.  And while they might not do it right away, eventually the types of things you do and the ways you handle stress will be reflected directly in your child.

This is why it’s so unfortunate that parents feel so out of control when their toddler throws tantrums.  While it’s true that emotions are new to your toddler and it takes practice to learn to live with our disappointments, now’s the time to knock the emotions in your house down a notch.  Seeing as how it’s such an important skill to learn, one less distraction, namely bad examples by parents, is all that much more valuable.  Show your child how you deal with disappointment, how you have to wait and be patient and how you share with your child.

While how to act might seem obvious to you, your baby needs a great deal of socialization and actions carry far more heft than do words.  You can tell your toddler to calm down all you want, but if you’re screaming it, it’s doing no good whatsoever.  This is why I always recommend lowering and calming your voice in response to crisis – always.  Go from emotionally charged voice to monotone rational voice right away.  Shrink the distance and encourage your toddler to use his words to make his point.  You really want your child to feel able to communicate his concerns.  Now I never did say that you need to obey his wants or needs, but you do need to hear them out.  After he’s said his peace, now is the time to put in your two cents as to why his requests can’t be met.  If you carry enough integrity and can master with consistency meeting any and all reasonable requests, denying unreasonable ones will be easy and expected from your toddler.

Some examples where you might deny requests can be due to needing time to unwind, needing time to prepare dinner, it being time for bed, denying food because it’s too close to lunch or dinner and so forth.  If you set these rules and guidelines and stay consistent, all you’ll need to do is cite the reason and your toddler will know that it’s not the time to ask for something.  If you break your own rules and start denying requests based purely on emotional (random) reasons then your toddler is likely to do the same when he’s upset.

Remember that while some behaviours can appear spontaneously with developmental milestones, many also appear as a mirror of things he sees from his primary role models – his parents.  Just as you’re careful not to curse in front of your talking toddler, you need to be careful not to act-out inappropriately as well.

Why do we add ketchup to fries?  Okay ketchup is the kicker for fries, we a agree.  But what about adding dip to chips.  Worries that your toddler won’t eat the chips with it?

I think we’ve got things a bit mixed up when we improve the foods that are bad for us, and then expect our toddlers to eat foods that are good for them when we leave them undressed.  You add jam and butter to toast, but then leave your veggies naked.  Why not add jam to veggies?  Might not be the best idea, but you never know, it just might work.  Think of your toddlers diet in a 24 hour window and it really doesn’t matter if the jam goes on toast or on another food your toddler will eat.  This leaves the window open for experimentation.  Try mixing things up a bit.

I personally try to focus on the food category which is presenting the biggest problem, and it’s not always consistent by day, week or month.  There are times when meats don’t go down well (time to add sauce), other times starches aren’t appealing (add butter), and more commonly veggies (add spices and butter).  Really though, veggies should be on the list of priorities all the time.  I like to add plenty of butter to all veggies, mix in melted cheese or top them, garlic is a favourite, and then will even sometimes add Cajun spice.  Your toddler might prefer something over another, and his tastes will change all the time so keep playing around with things.  Chances are pretty good that if you can find something appealing to you, he’ll enjoy it too.  As adults, we grow used to veggies tasting horribly, so we just wolf them down.  It’s however, possible to make them taste good!

Try frying brussel sprouts in butter and garlic!  Dice tomatoes and add pepper.  My son loves fresh tomatoes especially from the garden.  If you’re limiting store-bought snacks add some salt to enhance the flavour.  If he’s not eating a tone of chips, crackers and other processed foods, you’re in charge of how much salt your guy gets.  Try cutting up the bad stuff in smaller pieces, really small.  Try mixing or blending them fine into other food items.  If I had the desire, I could mix in veggies into blended fruit drinks.  Your kid will never notice – give it a try, but keep the concentrations low enough!

As parents and the leaders to our children, we sometimes need to think out of the box.  This means we often need to come up with solutions to problems.  What we often fall victim to is mysticism.  That is we often have no idea why our baby and toddler behave the way they do.  Sometimes we think that our kids are “out of control.”  I can say that with certainty that there’s a good reason your child does everything he does- except that you probably aren’t privy to all the variables and information related and so you think that your child’s behavior follows some random pattern.  This isn’t so.  You just need to think about the problem and encode it in such a way as it becomes a challenge free of any personal vendetta in which you are pitted against the issue – and not the person.  If you strip away outside variables, then your challenge will be between something that doesn’t work and your solution to that problem.

Obviously I’m an analytical person and an inherent problem solver and bring this into parenting.  It helps me a lot because it makes my life more enjoyable and simpler.  When I’m faced with a parenting issue I begin by observing and studying to decide on what the real issue is, rather than the perceived issue.  Eating vegetables – or not – is a common problem.  However, from my studies of animal biology, I know that even animals will eat choice foods first and will reject substandard foods as long as they’re given a choice.  When famine is near, all foods, even bad foods can taste great.

Take mammals introduced onto islands with few predators.  Since the native animals are not accustomed to these new predators they become easy prey.  They are also highly abundant giving the new mammal his choice of prey.  Because he never goes hungry, he also can pick and choose which parts of the animal he’ll consume first.  When it comes to the lesser parts, he’ll skip and move to the next whole animal.  An animal without such choice and luxury will return when hungry to the previously consumed animal in part and will eat the less desirable parts but with renewed hunger to his pleasure.

How in the world does this apply to kids you ask! An overfed kid is not going to eat disgusting vegetables when he knows by waiting 10 minutes he’ll get tasty dessert.  Your toddler gets this, but for whatever reason, you don’t!  A simple solution to this complex problem is to offer vegetables when your toddler is hungry and your toddler will never be hungry if he snacks all day.  A hungry toddler will eat exactly what is in front of him and it’s your choice as to which foods you offer your child, no matter how “strong” he is and no matter how much he nags you for cookies and sugary drinks.  Keep your child’s blood sugar low before a meal and offer veggies first can often get a child to eat.

While all children are different and no solution is perfect for each, this isn’t the point.  For all “complex” problems exist an equally simple solution.  Play around with the variables and see just what kind of solution you can come up with.

Unfortunately my parents didn’t offer many spicy foods to me when I was young.  In my late twenties I got bored with food and thought that foods were just meant to get us through the day.  I was fed a cultural norm.  Meat, veggies, potato and that’s about it.

Even our granparents thought baby colic was because mom ate too many spicy foods.  Grandma questioned our ethics when she found out mom was going to eat what the other adults were at dinner time thinking she’s make baby upset come breastfeeding time.  It was pretty comical to see her try to sooth baby Holden by rocking him.  From his body language it was pretty clear that he was over stimulated – rather than under-stimulated and so the rocking to sooth his “colic” from having fed him “spicy breast milk” was just because he was worked up.  Trying to explain this to her was a bit of a nightmare, but taking our son to a quieter place on his own did the trick.  Was the lesson learned?  Either way, it probably doesn’t matter.

This brings me to other baby myths.  Spicy foods!  My son loves them.  We use copious amounts of spice in our house now that we understand the power it has to make meals interesting if not just tolerable.  Garlic, cajun, jerk spice, chilli beans, jalapenos, curry, lemon spice, cinnamon, and on and on sure make meals more interesting!  As it turns out, spice is a highly cultural thing.  Babies all across the world eat much varied diets from ours and don’t suffer colic any more so than we do.  So as a rule, just introduce spice as you would any other foods, one at a time, just to make sure your baby isn’t allergic.

Try to mix things up and introduce other cultural foods.  Try humous, another one of my boy’s favourites.  How about baba ghanoush?  Never tried it, but I certainly would.  Why not, life is short, why make it boring!  I always took the stance that including more varied foods into my wife’s diet as she breast fed would help my son grow accustomed to varied foods later on.  This would, in turn, avoid issues we might have with having him accept our meals.  I certainly didn’t want to have to prepare special meals for my son just because he was a picky eater.

When you do decide to give it a try, have milk ready and keep an open mind.  Yeah your baby might get a bit red in the face, but this is normal!  Comical too!  Just remember that it’s not cruel and your baby is free to quit at anytime he wants.  Start off with just a bit (or even milder versions) and let your baby ask for more – mine does!

For more information about introducing spicy foods read this article: “Experts seek to debunk baby food myths – Little evidence supports ‘any particular way of doing things’

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/.