Stop thinking that the meal is over once The Baby has eaten whatever arbitrary amount of food that you decided is dinner and start thinking the meal is over when The Baby doesn’t want to eat anymore. Of course, this assumes that you’re already following the ideology that you don’t feed The Baby anything that you wouldn’t eat (this eliminates the “that’s yucky” conundrum. If you aren’t, and their food tastes like shit, well, you may have just solved the problem.) But, assuming the food tastes good and the stuff you eat hot is hot and the stuff you eat cold is cold, if The Baby doesn’t want to eat—then the meal is over. The Baby won’t starve—they’ll eat when they are hungry, just like you. And you’ll be spared the manufactured frustration with them Not Finishing Their Food.

Imagine if someone got mad at you for not finishing an amount of food that you didn’t decide on, food that you didn’t choose. Better yet, imagine if they forced you to eat it.

Dispatches From The Baby’s Room are paragraph-long tips on how to maybe make the act of raising a child easier. Or maybe just slightly less insane. Or, in twenty years from now, a guide on how to mess a kid up real good. DFTBR are easily digestible, hand-held, and best of all, free. They are the things Joe Stracci thinks about while putting all of the Mega Bloks back in the bag, making the sound the duck makes, and changing diapers in the dark.