Many Facets of Feeding Part 2

In the last post, I had emphasized on why it is important for a young child to self-feed. Eating independently provides ample opportunities for touching, feeling, and exploring various food textures. Consequently, tactile sensory input is received, processed in the nervous system, and leads to learning about the texture and other characteristics of the food.

Self-feeding is important for development of hand-mouth coordination in the first 2 years of life. When a child touches food with their fingers, they also look at it. There forms the foundation of neural connections between the hand, eyes, and mouth; which is so much needed throughout life. In India, we are used to eating with our fingers. We are adept at breaking pieces of roti or dosa using only one hand, and picking up morsels of mushy foods like daal-chawal and khichdi without making a mess. But all of this requires ample practice in early childhood.

Some guidelines that will lead to improvements in your child’s feeding habits. 

Everyone understands the importance of eating meals as a family. This seems difficult in our busy life where parents are working and multitasking. There is a need to sit together as a family and eat, which can be done at least on weekends.

Dinner is a time when everyone is at home. However, the key to dinner time is around sunset which is quite early for urban families. Plan dinner for children around 700 pm. Early dinner will also lead to better sleep patterns. 

Instead of showing a screen during meal times, talk animatedly or narrate a story to your child, as young as when they first start solid foods. Perceive this as an opportunity to form an emotional connection with your child. 

Allow children to feed themselves in early childhood, as soon as they start on solid foods and then progress to table foods.  If you do so at home, they will not have difficulty with eating independently later in preschool. 

A young child will be messy during meals, it is acceptable, and will lead to many benefits such as tactile learning, development of hand-eye-mouth coordination, and more importantly satisfaction (as my grandmother used to say). It is hard for parents to clean up after every meal where a child is messy. However, look at it as a good trade-off. You spend time and effort in cleaning, but gain many benefits when your child eats independently, leading to learning about foods in near future. 

Watch the following video --

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfJVDbG6AxY

A preschooler who self-feeds will quickly learn the names of vegetables, fruit, and various dishes that we consume as a part of our daily meals. Have you ever thought as to why children know the names of junk foods so well?  Not only these are heavily advertised; children being fond of pizza, burger, namkeen, know their names because they pick up these items to self-feed.

As they grow, involve the child in small kitchen jobs such as peeling boiled potatoes, mashing boiled potatoes, plucking on leaves of mint, and shelling peas. There are many tasks in the kitchen where children as young as 3 to 4 years can participate. This becomes a way of spending time together with your child in addition to what your child is learning.

Take your child to the Indian market or street bazaar. Looking at heaps of vegetables, fruit, and flowers is a visual treat. There are sarees and fabric hanging in front of the stores, steel utensils visible in the store window, and the smell of fried items sold on the curb side. This is a sensory rich environment. It can be chaotic, but a child needs this experience. Learning is all about experiences. Provide a shoulder bag to your child and let them carry light loads with which they can walk home with you. Indian markets are in close proximity to many of us. Hence walk, buy the needed items, and return with comfortable loads. Such experiences not only provide learning in the short -term, but also prepare the child for lifelong skills.

Children are highly likely to choose and eat healthy foods if they are involved in food preparation. This includes food shopping too. 

Children with special needs

When it comes to children with special needs, foods and feeding pose certain challenges. Children with autism and other diagnosis commonly present with oral sensitivities, as well as difficulties with chewing and swallowing. Picky eating is another challenge that many children demonstrate. Tactile issues become a barrier in touching, feeling, and exploring food textures with use of fingers. Hence a child with sensory difficulties must play and mess with material that is similar to foods. Many children with autism demonstrate touch aversion to mushy foods.

When it comes to self-feeding, most parents of children with special needs report that their child picks up and feeds on pieces of biscuit, chips, namkeen, and papad. To me as a mother and a therapist, these are not ‘real’ foods and hence do not matter. I want to know whether the child is touching, picking up, and feeding on table foods that are a part of our daily meals while providing appropriate nutrition.

Chewing and swallowing difficulties with certain food textures are highly likely in children with special needs. Be careful in trying out new foods so that the child does not gag or choke.

1.         Communicate with the occupational therapist, or sensory integration therapist, or speech therapist, about feeding habits or issues that you are facing with your child.
2.       . Professionals will help you with ‘what’ and ‘how’ to introduce new foods to your child. Your child may also require stimulation of the oral area or special interventions such as oral placement therapy.
3.       To improve processing ability in the oral area, activities / exercises that address the trunk are crucial. Also important is the role of the ‘movement’ system or the ‘vestibular’ system. There is a scientific rationale for the same, which is beyond the scope of this post.
4.        Provide opportunities for tactile exploration with a wide range of material in the form of play. This material can be finger paint, edible items such as curd, or rough textures such as raw beans or rice.
5.        Let your child sort raw vegetables and fruit that every kitchen seems to have – potatoes, onions, tomatoes, brinjal, garlic. This kind of sorting activity will not only lead to improved tactile processing, but becomes a cognitive task as well.
6.        One way to introduce touching a new texture is to expose the child to the same. For example, if a child is averse to touching mushy food, it is fine to let them use a spoon.
7.       . Make small balls of rice-daal or rice-ghee. Initially it will just be a visual exposure. After days or weeks, it is likely that the child will start touching these rice balls.
8.      .  Tangy and sharp foods stimulate the oral receptors. These can range from soup, rasam, sucking on citrus fruit, and small gratings of vegetables such as radish, cucumber, carrot.

In summary, feeding is neither a single system or approach, nor is only accomplished with fingers. There are many facets to feeding that need to occur as a part of the child’s developmental journey.