What she advised is basically offering the child the food the family eats at the times the family eats, in order to cultivate regular and unpicky eating habits. She advised that healthy children under normal circumstances should be allowed to skip meals if they feel like it (it’s offensive to a child’s dignity to be forced to eat). but they should not be trained to expect to eat until the next scheduled meal or snack (which in any case would never be more than a few hours). Her advice assumes that parental anxiety about children’s eating translates into children’s anxiety about eating and sets food up as a grounds for power struggles in the toddler and preschool stage. The book was called “Your Baby and Child.” I don’t recall that she addressed the situation you’re describing, because that book centered on preschool ages.