Tips For Leaving Shredded Food Behind
Now, over time, the baby at home gets his teeth and more than porridge or puree, he needs to include chewing as one of his skills, for this, he needs to receive solid foods that stimulate him.
The whole family must contribute to their learning, just as they do with multiple teachings, how can they do it?
Go from mashing to mashing food with a fork
Mom, if you suddenly stop giving him whipped food and offer something more solid to your son, he will probably reject it.
You should bear in mind that when you started offering him food with a spoon, you only gave him porridge. So you can’t expect him to just accept the solids you give him.
To pave the way and prevent the tantrums of a hungry child who does not want to eat (a difficult time to cope with), we give you this advice:
Go from puree to mashing food with a fork.
We invite you to do it gradually. At the beginning, give the food you put in the blender less and less time to grind and choose to leave it with more lumps.
Even if you go little by little it is likely that your child will continue to reject what you offer him, but we assure you that this way it will be more affordable and very soon he will begin to accept the food you offer him.
No sudden change is good for babies. Remember that.
Do not worry if your child does not want to eat
It is likely that when you put the spoon in his mouth, he spits out the food, stays with the bite on the palate without chewing or doing anything, starts coughing so that you are alarmed and think he is choking, or simply start crying and grab one tantrum.
If that’s the stage and the show every night, don’t despair. You will have to take a lot of patience to continue insisting on cleaning it, take the spoon to mouth as many times as necessary, sing to it, give it another spoon to stimulate it to eat and all the tricks you need to feed it.
For no reason do you get upset and let your child notice your anxiety. Parental behavior is essential for the child to learn to eat properly.
He needs to get used to the fact that it is time to eat and you, firmly, will continue to offer him the new foods just as you do. Calmly, smiling, letting him know that this is a pleasant moment that you like to share with him.
Offer him solids that he can already eat
If your pediatrician indicates that you can now give him bread, pancakes or soft cookies to eat, serve them in a fresh plastic so that he can take them and put them in his mouth. This is how you will learn and practice chewing.
Give it from your plate
Children love to eat from adults’ plates. Even if your child does not know what you are eating, because he does not know that food, if you stop next to him to chew you will see how drooling increases.
Therefore, if you want your child to eat, for example, rice with beans (typical food of many Latin countries), we invite you to eat together from the same plate, with different cutlery, of course.
The important thing is that the child sees how you chew, that you eat the same as him and that you like it.
Once you make the switch don’t back down
Whenever you start giving the child solid food, do not give him porridge again for reasons such as: “today he did not want to eat the food.”
Even if it hurts, it is important for your child to get used to the idea that “that’s the food there is and I have to eat it.”
In a study published in Maternal & Child Nutrition , long-term eating problems and low consumption of fruits and vegetables have been described in children in whom lumpy textures were introduced late, after 9 months.
Offer various menus
The recipes that you can prepare for your child to vary the diet are dissimilar.
Remember that you are in the assimilation of new flavors, different dishes, and you need to adapt to the fact that not every day there is the same thing to eat as there was with puree.
In this way it will better assimilate the variations and it will not reject food.
