Learning to eat: from milk to complementary food
With the introduction of complementary food, babies have to learn how to eat from scratch. Because it is a long way from exclusive sucking to problem-free eating from the spoon. Here you can find out how you can support your baby in learning to eat and why shared meals are so important.
If your baby is no longer full and sufficiently supplied with nutrients from breast or infant milk alone, it is time to expand his diet. The Research Institute for Child Nutrition in Dortmund (FKE) therefore recommends introducing complementary foods between the 5th and 7th month of life. But this new form of food does not only pose many questions for you. The first porridge is also a big challenge for your baby.
Learning to eat complementary food: Every beginning is difficult
Babies are born with the so-called tongue stretching reflex, which is intended to ensure that the baby does not swallow dirt, small stones or flies. Since the reflex persists for about the first six months of life, it can happen at the beginning of the complementary feeding period that your baby pushes the porridge out of the mouth with his tongue.
But even if the reflex has already completely subsided when the first porridge is introduced, your baby must first learn how to eat from the spoon. The tongue has to perform completely different processes than when sucking on the breast or on the vial, which were the only sources of food for your little one so far. Until this change to complementary food works, it may take some time.
Learning to eat: What does that actually mean?
Learning to eat isn’t just about learning the right technique to eat food. At the same time, eating also has a large social component. Because a healthy eating behavior is not self-evident. Although babies usually have a very well-functioning feeling of hunger or satiety. However, if the meals are always taken “on the side” or under time pressure, it is difficult to get a feeling for healthy and conscious nutrition, which can later lead to weight problems or deficiency symptoms. Therefore, it is important to consciously deal with food together with your baby from the beginning and to perceive it as a holistic experience.
How can you support your baby in learning to eat?
- Role model function: Children learn by imitation – and this also applies to food. Therefore, it is important that your baby gets the opportunity as often as possible to watch the rest of the family eat at meals together. Even if it does not participate in these meals itself, it can already copy and memorize a lot that it can then use later, when it begins to eat independently. You can also convey to him early on that eating together is a social experience that everyone has fun with.
- Independence: Even if dealing with the new food for your baby is still difficult: let him do as much as possible himself. Of course, you have to feed it with the spoon at the beginning, as it can’t hold it itself yet. For example, you can give your offspring a second spoon to play with so that they can familiarize themselves with the new “tool” on their own.
Surely, it will often happen over time that your baby wants to explore food with his little hands. You should allow that. Because palpation is an important sensory experience through which your baby gets an accurate picture of the new food. Discovering food with all your senses helps to take away his fear of it. At the same time, gripping trains the child’s fine motor skills. You can also support this by offering your child, as soon as it can chew properly, food that is easy to handle, such as soft-boiled vegetable sticks or some noodles. - Patience: Children learn at their own pace. Some quickly get out of eating porridge from the spoon, others have some teething troubles until they get used to the new consistency. It is important that you adapt to your baby’s pace when learning to eat and do not try to turn the tables. If your baby refuses a food or completely refuses to eat from the spoon, don’t force him to do so. Just try again at another time. For more information on why your baby refuses complementary food, see our article “8 tips if your baby doesn’t want to eat”.
- Atmosphere: The right atmosphere is very important when learning to eat. Because only if your baby gets to know food as a relaxed, exciting and happy event, it will also develop a healthy eating behavior. Compulsion, pressure and hustle and bustle are therefore out of place when feeding and learning to eat. Take a lot of time and do not deal with other things during the meal, but only with your baby. And also for your baby, the food itself should be the focus. Toys, TV and radio only distract his attention unnecessarily.
Learning to eat: Practice makes perfect
Learning to eat requires a lot of practice and skill from your baby – and a lot of patience from you. Your child will probably need many attempts until eating from the spoon works without problems and even more to eat independently. Give your child the time it needs and always follow his personal abilities. So your child will get to know the fun of eating and develop into a confident and healthy eater.