🎧 Introducing the Naranja Amarga podcast (Juan Llorca and Nutrikids), supported by Feroz 👣

In this episode we close the season of Naranja Amarga 🍊 with a conversation that won’t leave you indifferent 💬. We talk to Armando Bastida about his career, his years as a paediatric nurse 💙, his experience as a father 👨 and his big project, Criar con Sentido Común (Parenting with Common Sense).
An honest 🤍, warm 🤝 conversation full of reflections 💭 on how to accompany and care for children 👶… and beyond ✨.

In this episode of Naranja Amarga we sit down with Armando Bastida (paediatric nurse and science communicator) to talk about parenting and children’s nutrition from a very Feroz place: no dogma, plenty of evidence and lots of humanity.

Armando explains how he started sharing knowledge almost without realising it, when his first child was born and he found that many recommendations he had learned were already out of date. From there, his social media “megaphone” became a way of planting little seeds: helping families reflect, accompany better and treat little ones as what they are: whole people, not “second-class citizens”.

One of the big issues of our time comes up in the conversation: information overload (and misinformation). That is where his community “Criar con Sentido Común” was born: a tribe with courses, a private social network and professionals on board (paediatrics, breastfeeding, nutrition, etc.) to answer questions with sound judgement and cut through commercial noise and dangerous viral advice.

They also explore the balance that is so hard to find: neither old-school authoritarianism nor a permissiveness that leaves a child carrying decisions that aren’t theirs to make. Armando sums it up with a lovely idea: your children show you the way. Not with speeches, but with behaviour. And here is something key: when we get it wrong (because we will), what makes the difference is being able to say: “I got it wrong, I’m sorry”.

And when it comes to food, his approach is clear: less chasing and more trust. Pieces, mashed, puréed… what matters is that it works for that family, that the little one progresses and that the adult has the tools to act (especially when it comes to the fear of choking). Because parenting isn’t about doing it perfectly: it’s about doing it with intention, with clear limits and real affection.

10 useful tips:

• Don’t aim for perfect parenting: you will slip up. What matters is to repair and keep learning.
• Apologise without fear: saying “I got it wrong” doesn’t take away your authority, it makes you more trustworthy.
• Limits are also respect: a child needs boundaries to be free to just be a child.
• Permissiveness isn’t freedom: if the little one runs the family schedule, they probably lack limits that give them security.
• When a child “is a problem”, it is usually because they “have a problem”: ask what they need, what is going on, what we can adjust.
• In a tantrum, containment and safety first: if there is chaos (at the supermarket, for example), step outside, calm down and then repair (go back, tidy up, take responsibility).
• Food: don’t chase or force: offering without pressure usually works better than turning every meal into a battle.
• Pieces/mashed rather than endless purées, if you can: chewing helps orofacial development; but if fear holds you back, start where you can and move forward.
• Learn first aid and what to do if they choke: a calm adult completely changes the experience of eating.
• What isn’t in the house doesn’t get eaten: “flexibility” (pizza, fizzy drinks) works better when there is a stable, consistent everyday base.

👉 Don’t miss the other episodes 🎙️

Recorded at Ferozland