Katie Ferraro is the founder of Fortified Family. She’s also the mother of seven kids. Specifically, she has a singlet child, quadruplets, and twins. The jaw-dropping details is that she gave birth to all seven kids within the span of only three years! Ferraro is also the host of the incredibly successful podcast, “Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy.” She is an infant-specialized dietician who has aided tens of thousands of parents with the introduction of solid foods to their babies. In a nutshell, this entrepreneur and is a tour de force.
Consider this sentence, “Seven kids in three years makes you …?” Asked to fill-in-the-blank, most people end this sentence with words like “exhausted,” “crazy,” and “overwhelmed.” As you would expect, these replies pop up pretty frequently. Across her massive Instagram following, parents talk about the great advice they receive regarding how to wean their babies. Parents are also grateful for tips on how to introduce their kids to the foods that picky eaters typically dislike.
A balancing act
Grit Daily News caught up with the super mom to learn a bit more about how Ferraro balances it all with seven kids, a thriving business, and a popular podcast. Beyond balance, our entrepreneurial listeners are most interested in her advice. Prompted with questions in our Like a Boss podcast regarding differences between Millennials and Gen Z, she offers some interesting insights.
I launched my business online before my quadruplets were born which allowed me to be really efficient. There’s no expectations to be working around the clock. Yet the window for 9-5 is done. We live in a global community – work when you can. My team, all in their 20s and 30s, loves the flexibility of working from home. I have noticed that this next generation is much better about setting boundaries. ~Katie Ferraro
There are many parallels between motherhood and entrepreneurship. Seven kids under the age of three requires uber efficiency – and the ability to ask for help. “Being pregnant when you have a toddler is so hard, and being pregnant with twins when I had quadruplets as toddlers was insanity. Being willing to ask for help is something that I’ve learned to do to become resilient, and learning to say no.”
What is baby-led weaning?
Here, credibility counts. Ferraro stays current as a licensed dietician. She also teaches at the University of California San Diego. In her words, misinformation is one of the big challenges of social media where content is omnipresent. “There is so much misinformation out there, and a lot of it can be unsafe and quite dangerous.”
Ferraro holds the patent on a 5-step framework to introduce babies to solid foods. Traditionally, parents blend solid foods and force-feed their babies. Baby-led weaning gives the child the choice in which you present five new finger-foods each week. Note that there are recommended foods (do and not not feed lists) to keep your baby safe. In this way, a baby tastes 100 foods by the time they celebrate their first birthday. It’s a messy process so be prepared!
Surprisingly, babies safely weaned eat “exotic” foods like anchovies, beets, and so on. “Introduce these foods to your baby early so that they do not grow into picky eaters.” Want to learn more? Tune into the Grit Daily Like a Boss podcast with guest Katie Ferraro. And be sure to subscribe!