Thank you to food expert and Edible Living blogger Sarah Copeland for this guest blog. Keep an eye out for her forthcoming book “The Newlywed Cookbook: Fresh Ideas and Modern Recipes for Cooking With and For Each Other.”
Babies learn to enjoy and prefer nutrient rich foods not just from tasting the foods you eat as parents, but also by interacting with the taste, textures and colors of food at their source. Even before they are ready for solid foods, babies can begin relating positively to healthy foods by picking, touching, and eventually tasting fresh peas, carrots, and greens grown in your own garden. Bring your babe to the garden with you, no matter how young he or she is, and you’ll be planting seeds of love for a lifetime of sustainable, healthful eating. And there’s an added bonus for mamas—gardening with baby is a wonderful gentle weight bearing exercise to help you get back into your pre-baby shape while bonding with your new babe. Here’s how to start:
Schedule Garden Time
Babies and toddlers thrive on schedules and predictability. Schedule a time each day or week to spend in the garden with your baby. Your little one will recognize it as a special bonding time and make a positive association with the garden and the healthy foods you’ll grow together.
Find a Good Wrap
Women all over the world keep their babies close by carrying them while working in the fields. With a sling, Moby wrap or something 
similar you can keep baby wrapped tightly while you squats and reach from row to row. Position newborns facing in where they’ll be lulled to sleep as you work. Babies three months and older will appreciate having arms and hands out where they can reach, touch and interact with the world of green around them.
Soak in the Sun
Most breastfed infants and mothers are vitamin D deficient. Leave a bit of skin exposed for the first ten minutes in the garden to soak up some vitamin D. After your daily dose, cover you and babe with sunscreen and a hat while you continue to plant and play.
Build a Food Vocabulary
Babies love the sound of their mother’s voice. Talk to them while you garden; explain what you are doing and give names to the tools you use and veggies you grow. They’ll be soothed and entertained by your voice, and build their nutrition and food vocabulary season by season.
Designate a Baby Bed In the Garden
Even when baby is small, pick a patch of soil just for them where the rules and rows of gardening don’t apply. Throw caution and conventional gardening wisdom to the wind and let your littles dig and experiment at their whim. Having their own space provides children with a sense of independence and fosters a life-long relationship with healthful eating.
Get Green and Lean
Baby wearing in the garden is light weight bearing exercise. Contract your stomach muscles and keep your core stabilized as you lift and squat in the garden. Use squats and lunges and the added weight of your precious babe to your advantage to get back into shape. Don’t forget to breath like your baby does, filling your belly {not your chest} with fresh, nurturing air.
Sarah Copeland is a food expert and family nutrition educator. As a professional recipe developer and curator of good living, she is committed to inspiring full bellies and full lives through her passion for homegrown ingredients and vibrant, seasonal recipes. Sarah spent over 5 years as a recipe developer for the Food Network and as co-founder and spokesperson for the Food Network and Share Our Strength’s Good Food Gardens initiative, which brings edible education to produce-poor communities. She is also the author of the forthcoming book “The Newlywed Cookbook: Fresh Ideas and Modern Recipes for Cooking With and For Each Other”{Chronicle Books, 2012}, and a new mama to a baby girl name Greta. You can find more of her work on her blog, www.edibleliving.com.
Photos by Robert Jacobs
About
Melanie Mayo-Laakso is the Web Editor for Mothering.com. Mothering is the birthplace of natural family living and attachment parenting. We celebrate the experience of parenthood as worthy of one's best efforts and are at once fierce advocates for children and gentle supporters of parents.
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Thank you so much for this. I was just pondering the other day how I could get back into my gardening with my baby since there’s not a really safe place to put her in the yard while I do the garden work. I’m going to strap her in the backpack and get going on those weeds!
Christine,
I’m so glad this was helpful! I’d love to hear how it goes with your baby girl and the backpack. My daughter Greta will soon be too big and busy for the Moby, but right now she loves being able to reach out and touch everything I do. Whatever I pull out or put into the ground I put into her hands {baby carrots, seeds, safe weeds} and her eyes light up on constant discovery of so many delightful textures! Please stop in on my blog and let me know how its going for you! ~ Sarah
Wonderful post Sarah and we love the pictures of the baby
Best wishes,
your friends at Teich Garden Systems
Hi Jared,
Please give my love and hellos to my friends at Teich. And for all of you mammas out there, this [Teich Garden Systems] is a smart gardening system that is very family friendly for kids of any age, with low beds for toddlers and preschoolers, raised beds with plexy bottoms for older kiddos to see and explore root systems… ~ Sarah
You’ve inspired me to build my backyard garden. I was putting it off until my baby was older, but now I realize how important it is to start now! My two year-old and eight month-old will both benefit from seeing me work in the dirt and growing our own healthy foods. It may take more time with two little ones ‘helping’ but you’ve helped me see that it doesn’t matter, as long as we are doing it! Thank you!
Amelia,
Hooray, and congratulations for making the commitment to start now! Your little ones are so lucky! You’re right, it’s a little slower going with tiny helpers {I call them dirt experts–kids love to dig and toss dirt around}, but so worth it. Just imagine your blood pressure dropping as you take it nice and slow with them planting and cultivating a special place together. Let me know how it goes. Drop in on my blog and send or post pics to my Edible Living facebook page! Thanks for your comment! ~ Sarah
Wonderful article!! I love gardening with my daughter and she seems to enjoy it as well. She is usually lulled to sleep by my movement, but while awake, she loves to grab at the weeds or plants I am working with. I look forward to teaching her more about gardening as she grows. Sarah, your daughter is beautiful by the way. How old is she?
Karyn,
Thank you! Greta is just over 5 months old, in fact these pictures were shot on her five-month birthday and one of our first sunny days this spring. How old is your daughter? Fresh air and mamma’s movements are the best for nap time, right? I’d love to know what carrier you use to garden with her! Please keep in touch; I’d love to share and learn more about what you two grow together. ~ Sarah
Sarah, I use the ergo carrier. This allows me to have Annalyce on my back, which seems to be better when I am doing yard work.
Sarah- thank you for this fresh reminder of how to nurture little nature lovers! It reminds me how much I enjoyed spending time in the garden with my mom and grandmother and I will continue the tradition with my little ones.
Hi Merrie,
I’m so glad the article brought back good memories. My grandmother was a great gardener {and farmer!}, but I didn’t have the pleasure of gardening with her because I’m one of the youngest in our brood. I love that you’re passing on that great tradition. Post pics so I can see you and your littles in all your garden glory. ~ Sarah
Thank you for sharing this! It has inspired me to get out more often with my little guy, as well as my two older kids!
~Lisa
Lisa,
I’m so glad to hear that! Tomorrow’s Earth Day, a perfect day to get started. I’d love to hear more, so keep me posted!
Sarah
Thank you for the idea of a space just for my son. He is 3 and I have been trying to figure out how to get my gardening done since he needs to be in the middle of everything I am doing. I am excited to show him his own spot in the garden now…I will also be carring my 8 month old daughter in my much loved ergo!!!
Yah Susan! You three will have a blast, especially your little guy who I’m sure will really appreciate having his own space to dig. Little boys are very good at that! I’ve said it before but I’d LOVE to see pics of all the mammas and their babes in the garden, so please stop by and post on my edible living facebook page here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Edible-Living/192620959202
Be well!
Sarah
Any tips on how to make a patio garden? We live in an apartment and don’t have the backyard space, but I’d like my son to get a little experience watering and watching the plants. We have western facing balcony that gets lots of afternoon sun.
Thanks!
Ellen,
You are so lucky to have afternoon sun, and there’s lots you can do! We live in New York City, in a busy neighborhood in Queens where many of the neighboring families have immigrated from Greece, Bangladesh and other agricultural countries, and are all so creative with growing their own food without land. One family has created a patio oasis with dozens of lovely terra cotta pots, big and small, where they grow everything from beans to greens. Things that grow well in pots are herbs, small tomato plants {be sure to stake them}, lettuces and greens of every kind and even strawberry plants. Container gardening has the benefit of being just about the right size for toddlers to peek in and get their hands on something green. Let me know how it goes and watch for more tips on my blog. http://www.edibleliving.com
Sarah
What a great article, I’m inspired! I always thought babywearing in the garden would be a difficult task but you make it sound so manageable. We live in an urban area so we are renting a plot in a nearby community garden! I’m really looking forward to walking to the garden and spending that time with my babe. And then probably blogging about it! Haha.
Thanks for sharing.
Farren,
Hooray for community gardens! We live in New York City and almost all of my gardening has been done in our local community garden, first on 48th street in the city {when I was a single city gal}, and now at the Two Coves Garden in Long Island City/Astoria with my hubby and Greta. I’m a huge fan of community gardens because you can share equipment, swap seeds and tips. With kids, it also become a really great community space for family time. What city are you in? Enjoy your plot of urban soil; I’ll look forward to pictures and stories on your blog.
Sarah