Trouble Transitioning to table foods...

Who ever thought that getting off those mushy baby foods and onto table foods would be so hard....hmmm...Well for some of our children making that transition is a big challenge.

Think about though...take a bite of applesauce and pay attention to the movements your tongue makes...what your teeth are doing...what your lips do as you take the bolus off of the spoon..etc..then, take a bite off of a cracker..feel what your lips do..your tongue, your teeth and your jaw...

Shocklingly different huh! Its amazing how many more movements our mouths need to make in order to simply eat a cracker.

Now...I know this sounds crazy..but break off a piece of that same cracker, put it on a spoon and take it into your mouth using the same movements as you did with the applesauce...once in your mouth use limited jaw/teeth movements...try to mash the cracker with your tongue against the roof of your mouth and let it dissolve some with your saliva. What happened? Did your tongue have to work overtime?

Its hard to do huh...its crazy to think that we can just hand our baby when they reach a certain age a harder substance and expect them to know what to do with that...when they are used to using the oral motor patterns needed for purees (applesauce consistency foods)...However, for most children this transition actually occurs without the child needing to be taught..God designed us this way...in some ways learning feeding is innate.

Side Note: Think about this...think about the sensory properties of the applesauce you ate...how did it feel...did it feel slimy, slippery, wet, chunky,etc...was it cold, warm, hot? Every food that we eat has sensory properties...now think about the cracker...what were its sensory properties...was it hard, crunchy...after you chewed the cracker did those properties stay the same? Or did they change..to softer, thick, or even goey? Thats another detail that table foods add for our kids to handle...not only do table foods need different oral motor patterns but they also shock our senses...because when you eat pureed Baby foods the sensory properties stay the same...applesauce doesn't become hard when we add saliva..however..table foods do change...a cracker doesn't stay hard once it becomes wet with saliva...it changes...and as it changes our senses have to adapt. WOW! No wonder transitioning is soooo difficult..and kids become "Picky" during this time.

Ex: The other day I worked with a little one who is having this problem...except "child B" was past the point of introducing table foods and is now to point where "child B" has decided eating table foods is hard...and "child B" would just like to stick to eating pureed Stage 2 baby foods...Typically, when presented with table foods "Child B" will throw the food, gag, or spit it out once in "child B's" mouth.

Here's a quick tidbit about making that transition....TAKE OFF THE PRESSURE...forcing him to eat the table foods would only make his "Behavior" worse...so we have taken a step back...and are giving him his preferred foods while making strategic steps that appear to be "just fun" for "child B" to getting those table foods to not cause an aversive reaction just by touching his lips.

more details to come later.....