How to set your baby up for feeding success when introducing solid food; 4 tips when your baby isn’t responding to solid food
Today is the day!! You are so excited to give your baby their FIRST spoonful of mashed banana or rice cereal and your little one is 100% uninterested. “No big deal”…you think and just try again tomorrow. But, the following days are not much better. They completely refuse it, turn their head the other direction, gag, or make unpleasant faces. You even get desperate and start forcing the spoon in their tiny mouth and all of a sudden dinnertime has turned into a battle. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Focus on teaching them to love eating & let him watch you - Let’s look at the facts. If you are breastfeeding, your baby only needs milk for all of their nutrition until 12 months (make sure to supplement with Vitamin D drops & Iron). So any solid food they are getting is teaching them how to masticate, manipulate a food bolus, and LOVE eating! One of the amazing moms I work with reframed the situation for me; instead of focusing on nutrition at this age…focus on teaching them to love eating. After all, your child will be eating for their entire life! They need to be watching YOU love food, enjoy eating, and build relationships at the dinner table. Introduce varieties of fruit and veggie purees and eat them with your child. Let them hold the spoon for you, let them smear pea puree on your face and giggle (not like this has happened), and let them play! I promise you that if your child experiences joy during mealtimes they will not refuse food for long. Your babies can read you better than you think…when you are stressed trying to get food down their throat, they pick up on it. Never force your baby to eat.
Introduce the spoon early on- Giving your baby a spoon around the time that they can sit up is so beneficial to them! We want to make sure that your baby can sit up independently before attempting spoon feeding because we want his/her head and neck to have the correct upright positioning for safe swallowing. Giving your child a spoon will make him comfortable with it, promote fine motor skills, and even help with teething! I love these soft silicone spoons from amazon. Melanie Potock, pediatric feeding expert and author says, spoons “can boost the development of oral motor skills like moving food around with their tongue and teeth, sensory development such as exploring textures, and even a relationship with speech development.” Bust out those spoons during mealtimes! My little guy likes to use his spoon as a drumstick most of the time, which I am okay with!
GET MESSY- Not the advice you were looking to hear, right? In fact, most parents are trying not to get messy! Allow your baby to self-feed and explore their food with their hands. Did you know that the fingertips, lips, & tongue have more sensory receptors than any other region in the human body? By allowing your little one to get messy, explore their food, and self feed, they are not only having the BEST tactile experience, but developing a healthy relationship with food.
After a traumatic gagging experience for my little guy (around 6.5 months) he completely gave up solid foods for 2 weeks straight. I was a mess; I was wondering if he would ever eat again (ummm hello super dramatic first time Mom??) I hopped into my pediatric feeding therapist Mommy hat and decided that even if he pursed his lips together and turned his head away, I was going to make him jealous of all the messy fun I was having. Of course that day I made some green concoction, but decided to smear it on my face and make silly faces. My little one LOVED this and of course wanted to join in on the fun! Before long he was tasting some of the food and didn’t even know it.
Provide your baby with a variety of food experiences- Introduce them to EVERYTHING in a variety of settings and ways! This includes foods that are pureed, tender-cooked, finely minced, mashed, and soft finger foods. Remember…you are setting up your baby for food success for the rest of their life. Let them try to take a bite of your piece of bubbling, gooey, cheesy pizza. Let them reach their sticky hands in your mouth and try to feed you (my baby LOVES doing this and just giggles away), let them touch the different consistencies of toast, pasta, rice, beans, etc. Remember, for babies and toddlers, almost EVERYTHING is a sensory experience and they explore their world by touching and tasting. If they are refusing purees maybe you can try another method like baby led weaning, which involves allowing infants to control what and how much they eat.
Try dipping teething biscuits into purees and letting them lick off the puree. We did that for probably a week straight…no judgment. Place yogis, cheerios, or puffs in a muffin tin during snack time and let them practice their pincer grasp. If your child appears sensitive to textures or doesn’t like getting messy, take note of what foods they are sensitive to.
The key is PERSEVERANCE and fun! Keep trying new foods, have a BLAST during mealtimes, and take note of what your little one likes/dislikes.
Resources:
Mymunchbug.com
Food Chaining: The Kid-Tested Solution for Stress-Free Mealtimes
