Embrace the messiness of eating

Embrace The Messiness of eating

For infants and children, one of the main ways of learning and making sense of the world is through the sense of touch. As parents, we often want to say “don’t play in your food.” We may push our child’s hand away as they reach for the spoon or bowl. At the end of the meal, it is easier for clean up if our child is not covered in food. However, these opportunities for sensory exploration are essential to help infants and children learn about food. The seeing, smelling, feeling, touching, licking, and nibbling are the first experiences for the child that help encourage the next step of transitioning to eating. They need to touch, feel, smell, see, and take small tastes to learn about foods. As an 8 month old reaches for the spoonful of puree, they are learning how to self-feed and control the spoon. They are developing grasping skills in preparation for picking up food and bring it to their mouth. Puree gets on their finger and they then lick the puree off or move their finger side to side in their mouth. This helps the development of their mouth skills. The 9 or 10 month old who is constantly reaching for the bowl or for the food on their tray is learning about the shape of the food, the smell of the food, is it hard or soft, does it squish between my fingers and drip off my fingers or stay in one piece? As they bring the food to their mouth, they begin to move the food side to side in their mouth. This helps develop the mouth skills that are important for biting, chewing, and tongue movements to control the food in the mouth. They are working on eye hand coordination to pick up smaller pieces of foods and move the smaller pieces around in their mouth. During this time, your child is going to miss their mouth and the food will land on their nose or cheek. It will get in their hair. 

Now- think about all of the packaged foods that are available for infants and children: Every time a pouch of puree food is offered- the child only sees the outside package. They do not see the color of the food and there is really no opportunity to smell the food. There is no variation as to how they get the food out of the pouch if given to them- they use sucking only (which does not help to progress their mouth skills). If you squeeze the puree from the pouch onto the spoon, this also limits the opportunity to get messy and explore the food. Packaged foods never change in shape, texture, smell, looks, or taste. Packaged foods are also very predictable. Real, fresh food is not as predictable. It is essential for children to learn about the sensory variations of foods by exploring and tasting. It is the messiness and exploration of foods that lays the groundwork for a love of eating a wide variety of foods. These are important, wonderful learning moments- embrace the messiness! 

If you ever wonder about how to progress your child’s eating please free to reach out to ProActive with any questions.