[4 months of age on]
Did you realise that eating is one of the most difficult tasks that a child can learn to do?
(Hence, this is a long post but please take the time to understand where your little one is coming from! It is to encourage you to look at WHY your child is struggling at mealtimes. Probably every parent has had a difficult time at some point, so please no one feel bad about how they have handled things! And please share if you know anyone else that might need some help with mealtimes.)
Eating requires posture, physical chewing and swallowing coordination, breathing timing, managing the sensory aspect of eating and attention. It can also require communication and cognitive skills (understanding what is expected of them) and fine motor skills (using fingers and cutlery).
A child’s sensory system is developing as they learn to eat, especially as these days parents are introducing food as early as four months. A child must learn to cope with not only the texture and taste of the food, but the look of it, the smell of it and even the sound of it when prepared or bitten and chewed.
Now to the physical act of eating. If it sounds complicated just reading it, imagine trying to learn to do it! Eating includes not only munching but using the tongue to move food around and also the cheeks to press inwards to avoid the food getting stuck between the gums and cheeks and having the strength to do so. It also involves coordinating a swallow which doesn’t always happen automatically (think trying to swallow a large pill or something you don’t like to eat).
Eating is NOT easy.
Some children’s sensory systems take longer to adjust to eating than others. Some children’s physical skills around eating take longer to become coordinated.
Something to remember – a child under 3 years of age does not CHOOSE to avoid eating but may instead get stressed and thus appear as though they are being ‘naughty’. Adrenalin has been shown to reduce a child’s appetite, which includes any stress around mealtimes. Yes, it can be awfully difficult to stay cool and calm at the dinner table! That’s completely fine. Just remember, as soon as you show any signs of stress (stern words, threats, louder voice), don’t expect your little one to eat! This is the parent’s responsibility.
If you are having difficulties with your child, think about these factors:
Attention span
Depending on the age of your child, you may only have up to 5 minutes before their attention span has really disappeared. It is unfair to expect them to keep their brain ‘together’ for too much longer than their limit. This is when you might need to make the food easier to get into them, such as foods with less chewing or ones they prefer more. You might then give them a new food or one that is more difficult to eat for the last part of the meal once you know they are fairly full.
Sensory system
Does your child struggle with particular flavours? Did they struggle to move onto lumpier foods? Do they struggle with wet/mushy/gooey foods? Do they turn their head, splay their fingers, gag or blow raspberries with new smells or textures coming at them? Every child needs an opportunity to touch their food. Do you/did you let your child play with their food enough? Without first being able to touch it, a child’s sensory system finds it much harder to cope with that texture at their face, where the sensory system is more sensitive. It is normal for a child to want to play with their food when they are first being introduced to it. Also, mixed textures such as casseroles and pasta dishes, can be difficult for a sensory system to cope with, rather than just separated foods. Try to remove the stress and let your child just play with or touch the food with no pressure to eat. It might take awhile, but it’s almost guaranteed your child will eventually bring it to their mouth (still don’t put pressure on them!) and learn to like the food…one day! Slow and steady wins the race.
Negative first reaction
Most children will go through this at some stage, some find it harder to move through. The good old ‘yuck!’ and ‘I don’t want this!!’. Even when they ate it the night before. Sometimes just giving your child time to get their head around the menu for lunch or dinner can be all that is needed. Aim to tell your child what they will be eating BEFORE they sit down at the table, even if you have to talk about it all day. When they decide that the food is really okay, strengthen those neural pathways and get them to acknowledge ‘I like…’.
Sitting at the table
Is your child a fidgeter? Does this affect their concentration on eating? Have a look at where they sit. Do they have an appropriate foot rest if their feet don’t reach the ground? Another note – be sure the table is not too high for your children. Their elbows should be at 90 degrees when they rest their forearms on the table. Do they forget their manners? Remember, eating comes first and then manners. You will most likely have to give many reminders of using manners at the table as a child initially does not have much understanding of why these are used and thus not much motivation to do so. Watch your expectations.
Problem behaviours
Again, remaining calm with problem behaviours is ideal, to avoid the child doing it just for attention. If for example, your child starts throwing food, remind them in clear language (depending what age they are) the appropriate thing to do (‘food in bowl’/’if you don’t want it, put it back in your bowl’) and help their brain to learn the correct action by calmly making them pick the food up and putting it in their bowl. Remember your child’s age. It is not appropriate to expect a two-year-old to understand ‘food in bowl’ expectation straight away but remain persistent in showing them what your family expects and they will learn! Talk about what the rest of the family are doing, that is appropriate – ‘Mummy is sitting on her bottom’, ‘Johnny is using his indoors voice’, ‘Sarah just asked for a washer to wipe her hands’.
Chewing is slow going
This may indicate your child is being worked too hard with the food they are struggling with. Unless it is slow-cooked or fish, meat can be difficult for a child to chew for many years. You can cut it into small pieces but this may just see your child swallowing barely-chewed meat if their jaw is not up to the chewing or their tongue is not able to control keeping it in between their molars. (This also goes for any other small ‘morsels’ such as peas, sultanas, corn. Just watch and see if your child has a good ‘chew’ or not.)
Appetite
Children are supposed to eat quite often in the day due to high energy demands and small stomachs. As long as you are presenting healthy food, let your child decide how much they will eat. Dinner may not be their biggest meal of the day. And yes, trust they will still sleep, even with less food in their tummy! This can take some pressure off you! And as long as they are not falling off a curve on the weight chart, they are okay.
Now to your communication..
Hi Heidi, I’ve just discovered your blog and I’m finding it really helpful. I have a 3.5 year old daughter who has been a very fussy eater since she was about 18 months. I feel like I’ve done just about everything wrong down this long and stressful road and am now trying to untangle everything but it just seems so hard. We were seeing a psychologist who has experience with fussy eaters and he helped us to reduce a lot of the stress around dinner times. We didn’t get anywhere, unfortunately, with getting her to try any new foods, but we did manage to stop dinner time being all-out-war. Unfortunately, since we stopped seeing him, those old behaviours have started creeping back in, we’re becoming frustrated with her not eating more than 2 things for dinner and even then, refusing to eat without a fight. One thing I’ve never been able to get her to eat is meat, she just can’t abide the texture (In my opinion) and she seems to have a problem with some other textures too. Although she will happily eat crunchy things, she can’t bear any textures to be mixed. If she finds a lump in her yogurt or grain in her bread, she flips out. I saw at the bottom of your post that there was a way to see a speech pathologist through the local community health centre. I called to arrange that at the Nundah Centre (QLD) but was told that this was not a service they provide. Do you have any more information about how to access this service?
Hi Sammy
I’m so sorry for the delayed response!
Firstly, it’s really great that you are trying to unravel everything – be proud of that!
I’m sorry to hear that Nundah doesn’t do picky eaters.. The only other option is to go privately L(. If you want, you can go see your GP and ask for an EPC Medicare plan that gives you 5 rebated sessions each year (not much but something).
But I’ll give you a few things to think about to see if that might help.
1. The first aim is to get rid of ALL stress at the table which I know is awfully hard when you’ve had to deal with it for so long and you must be scarred! But stress = adrenalin = flight/fight response = no desire/ability for ‘learning’ and thus trying food.
2. Remember that this is mostly all sensory learning to begin with (plus some habits that may have formed). With each and every food, you will have to go through a series of stages.
– go back to first just expecting your daughter to be able to look at each food/tolerate the smell on the table/plate/plate next to hers/on your plate – then the next goal is interacting with it (not touching), with say a straw, spoon, toothpick, whatever gets her interested (think FUN!)
– then touching it – you could trick her with getting her to pick it up and put it in the bin, squash/poke it, touch with your elbow
– slowly you will get her to put the food on her from fingertips and getting closer to the mouth – maybe draping on your nose, give it a kiss/lick
– then to give it a squish with your teeth (like show bite marks in a piece of cucumber or squash a pea with your teeth) but don’t eat – you can even say ‘don’t eat it, let’s just feel what it’s like to squash with our fingers…and now our teeth’)
– and hopefully after that they will be pretty much ready to eat it!
This will be a slow process – some foods they may just poke (like my nearly 2yo having a go poking his quiche tonight) and that will be it for once or even a month. And she will be at different stages with different foods.
3. Don’t expect your daughter to fill their tummy with ANY new food until they are happily eating it. Before then, it’s just a learning food so you might be giving her just ‘enough’ food that you know she will eat so she won’t go to bed hungry and then a few ‘learning foods’.
4. Don’t go overboard preparing any food as you know you will likely be throwing it out, or as I do eat it as my dinner! (with at least one of those stages ticked off – touched, interacted,licked, had it on the table next to them) – think simple – bits from your dinner, sauces out of the fridge, whatever looks fun – sliced olives can be car wheels or halos on your head, cucumber/cheese/different crackers can be bitten into different shapes/moons etc
5. As you put a few learning foods out, have in your head a few fun things you could show her and think whether you’ll need some ‘tools’ for interacting with. And get in your head, ‘she will not eat this, we are just having fun with it’ so you can relieve your stress.
6. Be consistent, don’t give up, believe in it! I’ve pushed through over and over with my kids for a few years of putting stuff out knowing they won’t eat it. But as long as they at least interact with it (sometimes I’ve had to do the ‘just keep it on the table next to you’ so they are ticking off ‘looking at’), I will then get them something else they will eat if they’re still hungry. Their sensory systems are simply not ready to go any further with the learning foods at this stage. But when I first put the dinner out, I just put out a few things they will eat and a few learning foods – so they can’t fill up on the stuff they like, but they aren’t JUST presented with all learning foods which is a bit overwhelming.
7. What is she like at other mealtimes? Does she have any other sensory issues? (hair brushing, bath time, clothes, teeth brushing) Does she eat any better at daycare/other people’s places? Sometimes it really is the situation/people/where they sit/anything that can also be negative.
Maybe start again – change the table or get a new placemat, bowl or get dad in to do it which can remove a heap of stress. And tag team – if you are getting stressed, have your husband be ready with new play ideas for this food and vice versa. Always back out if you are getting stressed otherwise there is no point. And if you are (which sometimes you still may), then just keep it nice and simple and allow your daughter to have some foods she will eat and try again the next day when you’ve thought where things might have gone wrong.
I always offer avocado (good fats to fill them up), egg, meat, roast sweet potato as fillers that are healthy enough and I know they will eat.
7. PRAISE – be so proud of your daughter and really be excited that she has looked at it, touched it, interacted with it, put it wherever on her body or given it a lick. Even just ‘you picked it up and put it in the bin, good on you!!!!’. Get her trusting that you won’t be doing any more battles. 🙂
It might seem like it will take AGES to go through these stages with each food but it will snowball – the more confidence she gets with a few, the more she will try more and the more she senses no threat at the dinner table, the better it will get again!! i promise!!!!! But in saying that, I have just got my nearly 4 yr old onto ‘happy to try foods’ after that many years of doing the above!! But it’s better to push through for a year or two than have a 10 yr old still struggling 🙂
let me know how you go and if you need any more help/ideas!
Heidi