Riverside Cares Staff answered 4 years ago
How can I encourage my baby to eat lots of different foods without putting pressure on them?
Emma: Thanks for getting in touch with this question. Exposure to a range of foods is really important for helping babies and children to eat a wide variety, so keep offering your little one lots of different foods and don’t worry if they turn their head away or won’t eat it. This is common and many children take time to learn to like new tastes and flavours, so just move on to another food and offer the refused food again at another time. Gentle encouragement for your baby to try the food is fine, but it’s best not to force or coerce a child to eat something that they don’t want to. Children also learn from copying, so seeing you and others eating can be really helpful too.
For more information, visit the Child Feeding Guide: https://www.childfeedingguide.co.uk/tips/common-feeding-pitfalls/role-modelling/
Jill: A useful way to help expose your baby to different food groups and encourage them to try different flavours and textures is to eat together with your baby. There are so many good reasons to do this including your baby seeing you eating and enjoying the same food signals to them this is a good thing to try. It also happens to be a really nice experience.
Riverside Cares can be contacted at info@riversidecares.co.uk.
Jill Wheatcroft is available for one-to-one consultations (for now via Zoom/phone)
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