Amanda Kyle, MA, CCC-SLP
When you and your child are feeling like you are in a rut on how to offer foods, it can be difficult to pull yourself up and branch out. But, as caregivers, we can make changes to already accepted foods to help encourage kids to try new foods and encourage variety (remember, within the Division of Responsibility, ‘what to eat of what is offered’ and ‘how much’ are the child’s jobs, so our job is only to help offer foods in a way that empowers them to expand on their job when they’re ready). Here are some tips to do just that:
1. Change one thing at a time.
Whenever we are looking at changing up preferred foods, we want to first look at the different properties of the foods. The main properties are taste, texture, appearance, and temperature. If we change too many of these at once, it can be too overwhelming to new eaters, so try to limit the changes. Making changes to these helps to increase flexibility within the realm of trying and accepting foods, but can also make food more fun and less daunting for a child.
2. Communicate the change.
Always let kids know that you have changed up what you are offering. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. In fact, communication can be as simple as initially labeling all the offered foods when you give them their plate (“and we have strawberry yogurt today instead of blueberry”). This helps your child know what to expect. Imagine the surprise you’d feel if you were to lick a pink lollipop that you thought was strawberry and it was actually peppermint. That taste would be a little off-putting simply because it was not what you expected. In the same spirit, communicating small changes helps your child to trust the mealtime experience. Don’t try to trick kids because then they learn to be cautious of what you are offering because it might be a trick.
Here are some ideas to change up presentations or introductions of foods to help expand repertoire.
TASTE: add baking flavors/extracts (make sure these are non-alcoholic), adding flavored syrups (like strawberry syrup or coffee flavorings), adding spices (taco seasoning, cinnamon), adding salad dressing (either powder or liquid).
TEXTURE: add graham cracker crumbs, bread crumbs, toasting or raw, crinkle cut vs straight cut, dip in cinnamon sugar or another coating.
TEMPERATURE: warm vs cold (i.e. offering a food that is typically served warm, cold or vice versa), hot chocolate vs cholate milk, vs a chocolate popsicle, warm vs cold pizza, warm vs cold noodles, a hot ham and cheese sandwich vs a cold deli ham and cheese sandwich.
APPEARANCE: Offer food cut into different shapes with cookie cutters, different shaped pasta noodles, using a crinkle cutter to cut different edges, adding food coloring to pudding, yogurt, etc, offering in a different dish or container (squeezing a pouch into a bowl).
While we try our hardest to only change 1 element at a time, sometimes changes end up changing more than 1 element (i.e. sometimes changing the shape also changes the texture). This is ok. Do your best to minimize these overlaps as much as possible, knowing that sometimes, that’s not possible.
Most importantly, remember that anytime we change a preferred food, it is now a ‘new’ food. Meaning it will likely not be accepted the first offering and that is ok. We continue to offer foods without expectation. Continuing to offer different variations will help develop overall flexibility, and the skills to begin accepting a variety of new foods.
We recognize that children struggle to eat and drink for varying reasons. To support oral eaters we designed our Happy Eaters program to support families as they help their children move towards safe, happy, empowered, and age-appropriate eating.
The Happy Eaters program is designed for families struggling with:
Mealtime battles;
Feelings of stress, fear, and frustration for children and parents;
Lack of a mealtime schedule and routine;
A medicalized view of eating after weaning from a feeding tube;
Introducing new textures and flavors; and
Feeling “stuck” – tied to certain locations, foods, or ways of eating that are unwelcome.