> > Lately I am having a small problem with my 15 month old son.
> >
> > He snatches cookies (with milk ingredients) werever he finds them (my 3
> > year old has the bad habbit of eating 1/2 cookies and leaving the rest
> > around....

My response to relatives and friends and food for my daughter at this age,
was "don't feed her.  Anything. Period."  This worked surprisingly well,
I guess I was quite convincingly super-paranoid!

For other kids, and snacks - my strategy was (and is) to provide cookies
that everyone can eat.  If your older daughter has a favorite cookie that
contains dairy, and she won't give it up, then restricting it to certain
places & times seems quite reasonable.  Perhaps during the younger one's
nap?

Alyssa is 2.5 now, and she's learned to ask about food, although others seldom
offer her anything (see above).  She'll ask me "Is that for me?  Does it have
any eggs in it?  Or whey or milk or cheese or peanuts...?"  I still don't
trust others to give her food freely, but I do trust that she'll ask someone
(me or her teachers) before eating something.  I've often seen her refuse food
from her friends at daycare, even though those are safe foods.  Eventually, I
know she'll have to take over the questioning herself.  And she's heading in
the right direction!

A couple of weeks ago, she was talking about how she can't eat cheese,
and I said that maybe when she's older she'll be able to eat it (still hoping
for the outgrowing thing).  She said to me:  Someday, when I'm bigger, I'll
learn how to eat cheese.  I thought, perhaps that's right - her body will "learn"
how.  Amazing insight in these kids, sometimes.

Laurie