How to teach a child to eat solid foods: useful tips

Parents are doing their best to teach the child various skills as early as possible. But, despite all their pedagogical abilities, patience and perseverance, kids can stubbornly refuse to perform certain actions. It is especially offensive to watch when a child does not want or cannot eat solid food. Instead of slices of food, he enjoys eating mashed foods. What to do about it? How to teach a child to chew?

When can I switch to solid food?

From the first months of feeding a child, he should receive only mashed and uniform purees. This is due to the immaturity of the digestive system, as well as a banal lack of teeth. Up to six months, children have developed an ejection reflex, which saves the child from getting solid objects in his mouth. It is not worth introducing complementary foods before six months of age, it just pushes food out, it can even reach the point of vomiting.

Over time, the baby begins to try harder pieces. This is due to teething and the desire to scratch the gums. It is very important to be careful and attentive. Giving a child a crust of bread or cookies is dangerous - the baby may choke on a hard piece.

How to understand that a child is ready to chew solid food? Here are some good examples.

1. If you notice that the baby is looking at your plate with interest, trying to take pieces from it, he is interested in “adult” food.
2. If a child puts a spoon in his mouth and this does not cause him a gag reflex.
3. The baby is ready for the "pieces", if during feeding he does not suck the mashed potatoes, but as if removes his upper lip.

These simple signals indicate that the child is ready for solid food. Usually, learning to eat in slices starts at 8-9 months. Giving your child solid food is dangerous before. When feeding solid food, someone must be near, you can not leave the child even in the next room.

How to teach a child to eat solid foods

There are many tips and rules to help you quickly and safely teach your baby to eat in pieces.

1. If a child eats mashed food, try to slowly move away from it. At 6 months, you need to use a blender to grind soups and vegetables, and then carefully pass the food through a strainer. This will allow you to exclude the presence of lumps in food. Over time, after a couple of months, the food should not be strictly homogenized. Now instead of a blender, try to use twice passing food through a meat grinder. When the baby gets used to this, rub the food on a grater - first fine, and then large. After a year, the baby can be accustomed to more solid foods - do not use a blender, just mash the vegetables with a fork. Thus, the baby will receive small pieces that can be chewed at his age.
2. While the child is not ready to eat whole fruits and vegetables, you can use a modern gadget called Nibler. It is a small mesh bag mounted on a handle. The kid, even with all the work, will not be able to open this bag - security is guaranteed. Using special manipulations, parents place pieces of fruits and vegetables in this bag and tightly close the structure. This is a great fixture. First, the child learns to bite whole pieces of fruit through a strainer. Secondly, a piece no longer gets into the mouth than the cell of this strainer, which means that the child will not choke. Thirdly, the baby receives a fresh product - namely, juice and microscopic pieces of fresh fruit. As a rule, kids love to eat their favorite goodies through Nibler.
3. For young children, there is a special cookie on sale that immediately dissolves when the slightest moisture gets on it. This is done so that the baby does not choke when a piece of such a cookie gets into his mouth. It instantly becomes soft and very easy to eat.
4. Semolina can be given to a child without additional grinding. But buckwheat, rice and oatmeal need to be processed with a blender. Over time, try to do this as little as possible so that small pieces remain in the child’s plate. You can initially use crushed small rice for cooking - its pieces are so small that they can be chewed with success by your child.
5. Start accustoming your child to solid foods with very soft foods that melt when they get into your mouth. It can be boiled carrots, banana, pear, peach, soft pasta. These products need to be cut into small cubes and simply put on a plate in front of the baby. He himself will take what he needs.
6. So that your child has an incentive to chew, offer him those foods that he likes the most. We noticed that the baby eats pumpkin puree with pleasure - cut the boiled pumpkin on a plate. This will cause your child pleasant emotions associated with the process of chewing.

Remember, the transition to solid food should be phased. After all, the child’s stomach is not ready for a sharp change in diet. Offer your baby boiled carrots for afternoon tea today and, if he likes, offer tomorrow as well. Patience and consistency are the main conditions for a successful transition to solid food.

What to do if the child does not want to eat solid food

It often happens that the baby agrees to use only mashed food. It becomes especially alarming when the child is already one and a half years old, and he is not going to change his habits.

Often this is accompanied by such a picture - the child eats banana, apple, cookies and bread with pleasure, but does not want soup and porridge in any way. If this is a portrait of your child, pay attention to the number of teeth of your baby. Sometimes a child’s teeth grow late and the baby has nothing to chew on. Eating solid foods is only possible with a minimum of eight teeth.

If the child refuses hard pieces, try treating him with viscous and thick foods. This can be jelly, cottage cheese diluted with kefir, yogurt, cream cheese.

Sometimes a categorical rejection of solid food can be pedagogical in nature. Our mothers did not have such a problem as the inability to accustom the child to solid food. The fact is that at that time there were no blenders available in every family. Therefore, young mothers chopped cooked food on their own. This, of course, explained the presence of small pieces in the child’s food. Modern conditions of comfortable life allow us to turn soup, porridge and other products into minute mashed potatoes in a second, without a hint of a single piece of solid food

Sometimes mothers say “If only they ate, in any form” and continue to feed the baby with mashed food. Over time, the child does not recognize the pieces, his body repels everything except the puree-shaped form of food. In this case, you need to creak the heart away, throw the blender away and grind the child’s food with a fork. But only if the baby by the age of one and a half years has not got a desire to eat hard pieces. And nothing, if the baby refuses such food - do not sow panic. After a couple of hours, hunger will force the child to take any food, you only need patience.

For the baby to eat cooked food in pieces, you need to provide him with variety. Offer different fruits and vegetables, use vegetable and butter in cooking, do not forget about greens. And then you will have no problems with feeding and eating solid pieces.

Video: how to teach a child to chew solid food