DoctorOz: Daphne Oz on Motherhood & New Baby Plans

My wife Lisa and I have tried to set a good example for our kids about the importance of family and hard work. And our eldest daughter, Daphne, is making us proud on both accounts. She's a great mom to our 18-month-old granddaughter, Phyllo. There she is, little Phyllo. And she's also one of the co-hosts of The Chew on ABC. I wanna welcome my daughter, Daphne. Thank you. So, you can see from a cursory examination that Daphne is ready. She's pregnant, gonna give birth in about a month to our second grandchild, little boy. I can't ask the name, I guess. We don't know the name, you can ask. I just can't tell you. She won't tell me the name, all right. We're beyond excited. So, I would love to hear you describe to everybody else how this is different from the first pregnancy. Well, I mean, we have a little girl at home, Phyllo, obviously, and this one's a boy. And I feel like, I don't know if the women in here who've had boys and girls, I feel like I've carried so differently with this one. You know, with Phyllo, I was really wide right off the outset. And everything was very compact. Her muscles are still tight, everything's held in there. Whereas with him, it's just been popped out right from the outset. And it's interesting, I'll tell you this. It was kind of devastating. I fit much better in my clothing, but I'm about five pounds heavier now than I was at this time with Phyllo. It's always the boy's fault. It's always his fault. It's good training. But I also know why that's the case, and it's because I've been craving Mexican food all day long. So, chips and salsa for breakfast, chips and salsa for lunch. Well, people do that even without being pregnant. What did you crave, Lisa, when you were pregnant? Oh, gosh, I was worried you would ask me this question. Brownie batter? Brownie batter. Uncooked brownie batter. With no eggs. No eggs, no eggs. Just, you know, the box of brownie batter, you put some water. I mean, it's very bad. You know, all grandparents brag about their grandkids as part of the opportunity we have. But, you know, Phyllo's a little special because not only is she, all the other things all grandkids are, but she loves eating food, especially exotic food. She's one of the best young eaters. Let's go over here. I've got a bunch of things that I've seen her eat. And some of these things are not items that I would have expected normally. For example, we've got olives here. She will munch through these darn olives. She'd finish this much off in one sitting. You better pit them quickly, she'll swallow the pits. Then they come out in her poop, it's not pretty. It has never happened. That's because I'm so diligent getting out the pits. What else do you have here that she eats? Well, you know, here's the thing. I try to feed her a variety of things and I let her try a bunch of different things. And these are some of the ones that she actually really has gravitated towards. She loves grilled salmon. It's one of those things I never anticipated her liking. She loves grilled salmon. It's from her grandfather. Probably. Brown rice and lentils. Again, something that you wouldn't expect a kid to really love, but it's one of the things I exposed her to early and so she seems to have liked it. Hummus, chicken, and then some broccoli. But what you'll see here is it's a very flavorful food. And I think when I was first learning how to feed her, I was afraid of salt and I was afraid of lots of flavor and spice and any of those things. And I think kids' palates are a lot like adults' palates, at least from what I've seen. She wants things that have a lot of flavor in it. She does not want bland food. So you've got a little video that I want to start off with, but I have an ulterior motive. I want to talk about how kids acquire tastes. We're living it in real time, but there's actually pretty much a science around this. So can I show that little video you sent me? Of the broccoli? Yes. Phyllo loves broccoli. Yeah, of course. This is how we get Phyllo to eat broccoli. Take a look. Who's gonna eat delicious broccoli? For her lunchtime, for her lunchtime. Who's gonna eat delicious broccoli? It's a green monster, it's a green monster. So after that song, which Phyllo loves, she actually stopped eating broccoli. I understand. You scared her away. But I want to talk a little bit about why kids acquire the tastes of their mom. And most folks don't know this. You probably don't either. I made a little animation for you. This is very high tech, very science-y. So let's say you're the average woman and you start having cravings when you're pregnant. She looks way too good. Yeah, she looks good. Soda and chips. Now here's the thing. The baby is immersed in the amniotic fluid and actually drinks several ounces of that fluid every day. So when the baby's exposed to chips but not broccoli, doesn't like the broccoli when they're born. But let's turn it around, let's go back in time. Now you're pregnant, maybe for the second child, and now you're eating the greens and the green drink and all the healthy, delicious foods that are good for you and the baby. The baby gets those things in their mouth from that amniotic fluid that they're drinking all day long, so when you expose them to these same healthy foods after they're born, guess what, they eat them. And this is actually pretty cool information and absolutely validated over and over again. So that's one of the big challenges. So come have a seat. Here's one of the big questions. If it's too late because you already had the baby and they're 25 years old and they're not eating good food, or. And all they'll eat is chips and salsa. Brownie batter, have you been craving that? Or if whatever reason the child doesn't cooperate, how do you convince a child to eat the right foods? Well, you know, I really look at it like, with every parent's nightmare you make, you go through the process of making a delicious meal for your family and your kids won't eat it. And it's just, you know, you can fight them and you can try to bribe them and cajole them into eating what you want them to eat. And my grandma, my mother's mother, Brownie, who won't come on the show, we know. Please, if she sees this, she will not. I called to try to get her, I tried to con her. And I just said, come hair and makeup ready just in case. And she was scared away, won't come. Well, one of the things that she said to me with Filo, because it's, you do get nervous. I mean, it's your responsibility to make sure that they're getting the best nutrition, that they're eating the things that are gonna make them grow and thrive. And so there'll be nights where she would just decide she wouldn't eat broccoli anymore. She wouldn't eat the things that she used to love. And I would get nervous and scared and that she wasn't gonna get enough food and she wasn't gonna have enough of the nutrients she needed. And so I would fight with her on it. And Brownie would say, you know, don't make it an emotional battle. The last thing you want is your kids to see withholding food or withholding eating as a way to control you, as a way to get your attention, as a way to have that emotional strife. Because food should be about pleasure and joy and abundance and not about a conflict of wills, basically. So, and she said, look, she'll eat when she's hungry. So don't worry about it. And my pediatrician actually said that over the course of a week is what you really want to pay attention to. You know, some days they're just not that hungry. We go through, as adults, you go through this. Some days you're just not that into certain foods. And then the next day you might be fully ready for it. That said, I do have a couple of recipes that I've developed that I try to, you know, it's not sneaking food in. It's just adding additional- Yes it is, she's sneaking food in. It's adding additional ingredients that I think make them a little more nutritious. And that I also, they just give me a little peace of mind as a parent. So one of the first things that I developed was this little smoothie that's just avocado, banana, some yogurt, and then I'll throw in a big handful of spinach. And kids don't know, at Philo's age, she's only 18 months, that green is supposed to be gross. She's actually kind of into it. And it's a little sweet from the banana and creamy from the avocado. And so having her eat that right off the bat in the morning gives me insurance policy over the rest of the day, if all she'll eat for me at dinnertime is pasta with red sauce. I make meatballs and I'll put the broccoli, actually, because she did love broccoli, and now she'll eat it with the meatballs. I'll put broccoli and cheddar cheese right in the meatball so that she's getting everything all at once. And you know, you experiment with your kids. But I think the single most important thing I did, and I learned it from you guys, was we grew up eating at a dinner table together as a family. And I saw what you guys ate, and I saw how much joy you took in your food and how much pleasure we got out of cooking together. And I- Are you looking at me too? I cooked the food too. No, no, no. How much pleasure we got out of cooking together. How much pleasure you got out of eating the food we cooked together. And I think kids want to emulate their parents. They will, and they love their parents and they respect you so much. Seeing you eat well and seeing you eat foods that are good for you and enjoy that process is the most important thing. All right, so the big question I'm wondering, because I like conflicts, are how Filo's going to deal with her little baby brother. Let's go back a stick. Why do you like conflict so much? Because you can really get deeper into someone's soul. You just puncture through the external little crusty shell we all keep around ourselves. So I watch Filo play with her cousins, and I'm wondering how well she's going to take to having someone else in her life that she didn't invite, like a brother. Well, I will say this, again, she's young, so I don't know if she fully comprehends what's about to happen in her life. Sometimes she'll come and she'll kiss my belly. Sometimes she'll come and she'll headbutt my stomach. So there's definitely a conflict going on internally. I think she will have some difficulty, as I did when my second sister, who I love dearly now, came along. That you're replaced and your perfect existence as the only child has been uprooted. But she loves being with people. She loves hanging out with our family and just being around people and being part of the mix. And I have no doubt that at the end of the day, she'll have the best friends with this. They will eventually, they always are.