Content
Sometimes children over 1 or 2 years old, despite being able to eat almost any type of food, seem to be lazy to chew and refuse to eat more solid foods like rice, beans, meat, bread or potatoes.
To solve this problem, it is important to create strategies to make the child want to chew the food, such as leaving small solid pieces in the baby food or kneading only half of the baby food, besides having a lot of patience at mealtime.
Having this type of problem with feeding their children is not uncommon, and usually this is because the child has gone through some difficult period in early childhood, such as being frequently choked or having diseases that made feeding difficult, causing parents they used milk or porridge very often, not allowing adequate stimulation of chewing.
The following are 5 good strategies to try at home and encourage your child to eat solid foods:
1. Start with foods that your child likes
Starting with foods that your child likes is an important strategy to facilitate acceptance of a solid meal. Thus, if the child loves mashed bananas, for example, one should try to offer half a whole banana and let him hold the food himself to feel its texture and smell. In some cases, repeating this strategy for a few days is enough for the child to start to spontaneously put the food in his mouth.
2. Leave small pieces in the baby food
Leaving small pieces in the baby food is another way to make the child feel the solid food little by little, without forcing him to eat all the food in the solid form at once.
You can also use the strategy of kneading only half of the baby food, leaving the other half made up of whole foods, and try to alternate the texture of each food between spoonfuls.
3. Create rewards to encourage
Creating small rewards encourages the child to progress in feeding, and it is possible to use incentives such as clapping and smiling with every spoonful he can chew, or allowing the child to get out of the chair to sit at the table with the other family members, which it will make her feel a sense of importance and maturity.
4. Let the child pick up the food
Letting the child pick up the food and give it a spoon to hold, even if it makes a mess, is a way to encourage them to feed themselves and to feel a sense of power in front of the food. This is a good strategy especially when there is another adult eating next to her, as the child tends to imitate the actions of family members, including the gestures of bringing food to the mouth and chewing itself.
In addition, letting the child participate in the preparation of the meal also increases the child's intimacy with food and makes him more likely to try the food he helped produce.
5. Restart the food introduction process
Even if your child is over two years old, starting the whole food introduction process again may be the most effective way to get them to eat solid foods. To start over, one should try to start only with fruit porridge or shaved fruit in snacks, leaving the milk, porridge and mashed soup still as the main meals of the little one.
As the child is accepting to consume fruit porridge, try to introduce the fruit into small pieces and savory porridge, using purees, mashed eggs and ground meat, for example, always remembering never to force or threaten the child during the meal .
Check out these and other tips in the following video:
Consequences for child development
Children who do not chew feed them solids, and eat only purees, baby food, porridges and liquid or creamy soups, may develop problems such as delayed speech and difficulty in reproducing sounds correctly, due to lack of chewing and stimulation of the facial muscles . As a consequence of speaking little or badly, the child may feel inferior or excluded when he starts to live with other children at school, for example.
These children need the support of the pediatrician and nutritionist so that they do not lack nutrients in the diet, compromising their immunity and so that there is no deficit in their growth and intellectual development.
Gradually she gets used to it and within a few months it may be possible to notice a good difference in her diet and also in her growth and development.