About diversification and letting the child play with food
published by Ioana Serea on 29 March 2022
Have you ever wondered if letting your baby play with food, in the context of diversification, is of any importance or not… what's more, does it have long-term repercussions?! …
There is such a close connection between the two, you can't even imagine!!
We invited Maria Lupu, Pediatric Neurologist, to explain to us at length what is the connection between the two, and how they go hand in hand with each other.
We answer questions such as:
- When we talk about playing with food, we are talking about classic diversification or the blw type one? What's the difference between the two?
- At what age do we start diversifying?
- Do we let the child play with the food or not?! How do we parents make this choice?! Are we born with a conviction? Do we hug her by seeing her in others? Do we cultivate it in any way? How are things with us parents?
- However, we fight with all the beliefs rooted in our parents, and we let the child experience everything related to food. We drastically get out of our comfort zone, for the sake of the child, or we set some limits: we let him play with the food, but everything until the walls are dirty!!
- Do we let the children eat only what they want and how much they want? Or do we force them to eat from all food groups, regardless of the situation?
- How do we treat "birds", by eating only bananas for example?
- At the table, do we swarm around the child or do we behave normally and he imitates what he sees?
- Do we expect a child to feed / take the nutritional intake from food once the diversification begins? Or solid foods are an addition in the first phase, breast milk or powder remaining the base, and then the transition is done slowly, reaching the milk only a comfort?
- We resort to "fools" like "plane" or "helicopter", just for our child to eat?!
- If we put a screen in front of him for example, we will surely be able to put in his mouth some good teaspoons of food … But your brain has been processing that it's gotten food, and it's transmitting stimuli to the organs to process it, or it's busy with… Screen?!
- What happens when we give 2 options to the child of the menu to prepare, we make the menu chosen by him, and we have not even finished, that he cries that he wanted the other one …
- How do we manage the child's regression in feeding himself, when a new member, a baby, comes into the family?
- We keep our child away from certain foods at home, and we go to a party where all the forbidden things are plenty. How do we proceed?
- What is the long-term difference between a child who has been left to play with food, to explore for himself, and one who has been deprived of these things?! After all, I've never seen children at 18 who are given food in their mouths…
All this and many other valuable information you find out directly from Maria, who shared with us everything in detail, in the video below!
Let it be useful!
With love,
Joan