Feeding Babies Lumpy Foods Before 9 Months Prevents Picky Eating

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Your baby has made the transition to "solid" food.  She opens her mouth like a little baby bird whenever she sees a spoonful of jarred baby food.

But now you're wondering "When do I start feeding her lumpy food?  When do I put the purees behind and feed her food with some texture?"  Is your baby ready for the next step?  How will you know when she is?

Babies Gag When They Encounter a New Texture

You decide to experiment.  You mash a banana, leaving almost imperceptible lumps.  Your baby opens her mouth, takes the banana, and then...gag...choke...!  As a new parent, you're terrified!  You try frantically to remember the baby Heimlich maneuver.

Your baby spits out the banana.  "Well," you think, "That's an obvious sign.  She just isn't ready."

Babies Need to Learn New Textures

What you may not realize is that many babies gag when they experience a new texture.  They need to learn to swallow new textures, and this learning takes time.

The banana encounter was a first lesson for your baby.  Even though it seemed to end badly, your baby did experience the feeling of slightly lumpy food.  She may spit out lumpy food dozens of times, but each time is a new lesson.  Over time she will feel more comfortable.

If Your Baby Does Not Learn to Eat Lumpy Textures Before 9 Months, She May Be a Picky Eater for Years

Why not avoid all the drama and wait until a baby is developed enough so that she doesn't have to go through dozens of texture lessons?

There is a very good reason not to wait.

Studies like this one have found that parents who wait until their babies are 9 months old before introducing lumpy textures have children who, at seven years old, eat many fewer foods, including fruits and vegetables!  In other words, these children have been made into picky eaters!

It's amazing that just a few months difference in timing can create fussy eaters six years later!

How Our Ancestors' Babies Learned to Eat Solid Food

The original solid food came, not from a jar, but from the mother chewing up food in her mouth and giving it to her baby.  This food was "naturally" textured.

I'm not advocating chewing food for your baby, although many parents do this.  But it's nice to know that for hundreds of thousands of years, babies' first solid food was lumpy, and they did just fine.

Start at 6 Months

You can start serving lumpy food to your baby at 6 months.  Start with tiny, soft lumps and slowly work your way up. 

Your baby may accept lumpy food better if it is mixed in a puree that she loves.  So if she's a carrot fan, mix small lumps into her carrot baby food.

If you have been trying for weeks to give your baby lumpy food and she still gags and chokes, check with your physician.  She may have an oral motor issue that can be helped by a visit to a speech pathologist.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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The One Bite Suggestion - Help for Picky Eaters

Picture from Momables

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

You've probably heard of the One-Bite Rule.  Maybe your mom followed it.  "Eat just one bite!" she may have said as she handed you a plate of strange green glop.

The One-Bite Rule says that a kid should eat just one bite of a new food.

This rule has a lot of merit.  If a child tastes a new food about a dozen times, he will probably like it.  The One-Bite Rule may encourage a fussy eater to take that first step.

Downfalls of the One-Bite Rule

There are a few problems with the One-Bite Rule.

• Your child may feel like he is being forced to eat a food that is repulsive to him.  Being forced to eat a food makes a child less likely to eat it, not more likely.
• You may get angry with your child if he doesn't follow the One-Bite Rule. Your child will then associate the food (and eating in general) with stress.  This will make him like the food less, and possibly become more of a picky eater in general.

Your Child Learns to Like a Food Just By Looking at It

It may seem strange, but your child is learning to like a food just by having it sit on his plate.  How is this possible?

• Eating is more than just taste.  Children may not like the smell or look of a new food.  As the pile of green goop sits there, it becomes more familiar to your child, and therefore less scary.
• Your child is watching you eat the food.  The primitive parts of his brain are taking note of the fact that you don't seem to be falling down dead.  Baby mammals are programmed to eat the same foods as their parents.  Your child is learning to like the food just by watching you eat it.

The One-Bite Suggestion


The One-Bite Rule has its merits.  But it should be delivered with a gentle hand.  I call it the One-Bite Suggestion.

When you give your fussy eater a new food, suggest that he try a forkful.  If he refuses, let it be.  You want the control to be on your child's side, not yours.

You might want to casually explain to him that most people don't like a food the first time they try it.  With repetition, it tastes better.

The One-Bite Suggestion will help your child become less of a picky eater and make mealtime a happier time.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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Family Meals Help Children Like Healthy Foods: Part 2

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Last week I posted an article talking about how family meals reassure children that their food is safe, because children see their parents and siblings eating the same food.  Baby animals, including humans, have the instinct to eat the same food that their parents are eating.

This week I will talk about another way that family meals help children learn to love healthy food.

Food Can Be Scary

It's hard for an adult to imagine, but food can be frightening to children, especially children who are picky eaters.  They don't have the experience that we adults have in knowing the various textures and tastes of food.  It can be scary to bite into a forkful of food, especially a new food, and not know whether it will be repulsive or not.  Children have much a much more acute sense of taste than adults.  What might be mildly unpleasant to an adult may be overwhelmingly repulsive to a child.

Food is Love and Love is Food

Children are reassured by the presence of their family around them.  Your child will be more likely to do scary things, like playing with new children, riding a bike for the first time, or going on a ferris wheel ride, if encouraging, happy parents are around.

Eating dinner with friendly family members makes children braver.  The food doesn't seem as threatening if parents are joking and laughing.

Happiness makes food taste better.

Dinner is a Happy Time

Meals should be a time of happiness and fun.  Save the lectures, lessons, and scolding for another time.  Let the happiness of the meal encourage your child to like his healthy food.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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Cure Your Junk Food Kid in 6 Weeks

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Many parents are in a bind. They really want to feed their children healthy food, but their children refuse everything but junk food. Parents serve piles of vegetables next to the hot dogs and potato chips, and those same piles of vegetables end up in the garbage can.

Children, cute as they are, are the same as rats.  Scientists have found that rats that are used to eating junk food will refuse to eat if they're given healthy food! They actually have to go through a withdrawal period before they start enjoying the taste of real food.

This makes sense in evolutionary terms. Starvation is a constant threat for wild animals. If an animal finds a cache of high-calorie, sweet, fatty food, it fills up on it. If it also ate low calorie vegetables during this time, it would not have room for the high calorie food.

Don't despair! You can wean your child off of junk food with these steps:

Before You Begin:

• Make a list of the relatively healthy foods that your child likes. Make sure they are no sweeter than fruit, and not extremely high in fat. These foods will sustain your child during the weaning period.
• Rid your house completely of junk food. Absolutely no sweets, chips, and other sweet or overly fatty foods. Your whole family needs to cooperate. Your child shouldn't even be able to see these foods, or see someone else eating them, or your child will start craving them.
• Buy foods that you want your child to learn to like,  (e.g., fruits, vegetables, and whole grains).

Weeks 1 - 3:

• Make tasty dishes with the foods that you want your child to eat. Use ingredients that your child already likes (but are still healthy). For example, if you are trying to get your child to eat broccoli and she likes cheddar cheese, sprinkle cheddar cheese on the broccoli.
• Give your child only the healthy new foods, except for dinner. Dinner should consist of the relatively healthy foods that your child already likes.
• Give your child a new food every two or three days. If you give it to her too often, she will get tired of it. If you give it to her too infrequently, she won't learn to like it.

During Weeks 1 - 3, your child will be hungry during the day because she is eating less of the new foods. She may even refuse to eat some meals. However, Nature has provided a great tool for learning to like foods -- HUNGER! Think about how tasty food tastes when you're hungry. The few forkfuls that your child eats will taste especially good, and will help your child learn to like that food.

The evening meal of familiar foods prevents your child from getting too hungry. But, as a parent, you do need to stay strong if your child seems to be eating too little during this time. It won't hurt your child to eat a little less for a few weeks. Remember, the long term benefits are worth it!

Weeks 4 - 6:

• During these weeks, slowly replace the evening meals with new, healthy foods. At this point, your child has probably learned to like a few of the new foods.
• The whole family should be eating these same healthy foods. Eat together as a family in order to give your child role model examples.

Week 6 and Beyond:

Congratulations! Your child has taken the first steps to being a healthy eater!

From now on, sweets and junk food should be an occasional treat only. Each time she has junk food, she will probably regress for a day or two -- refusing to eat healthy food and whining for junk food.

You can make a bigger list of food that you want your son or daughter to like. For each food, make sure it's in a tasty recipe, and give it to your child a few times a week. It usually takes a month or two before your child likes a new food.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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Kids Like Vegetables Better With Dip

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Plopping a bunch of raw broccoli on your child's plate will rarely work. Plain vegetables aren't usually very interesting. Cultures that eat a lot of vegetables, like Chinese and French, know ways of transforming the vegetables into delicious multi-ingredient dishes.

Don't feel like you have to feed your child plain vegetables. Make them as interesting as you can.

One way to do this is to make tasty homemade dips and let your child dip her vegetables into the dip. Toddlers and preschoolers especially love to dip. It makes a meal into a fun art project!

Researchers have found that providing dips with vegetables encourages children to eat them, especially those who are genetically sensitive to bitter tastes.

Once you have found a few dips that your child loves (and fed them to her enough times to overcome her natural initial resistance), you can use the dips to introduce new vegetables. Anything will taste good if it's plunged into your child's favorite dip.

Don't worry about the fat content of dips. Young children -- and possibly even up to teenagers -- need good fatty acids to build their brains.

Here are some quick recipes and ideas for dips:

• sour cream (add chopped herbs or salsa)
• olive oil and balsamic vinegar with finely diced herbs and garlic
• hummus
• black bean dip
• peanut butter (broccoli and peanut butter? Whatever works!)
• ketchup (also weird, but whatever works!)

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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Family Meals Help Children Like Healthy Foods: Part 1

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Most young animals have to learn what to eat. A young fawn nuzzles her mother's nose aside and eats the very plant that her mother was eating. If the fawn went off and foraged for herself, it wouldn't be long before a sad incident with a deadly nightshade plant would mean the end of her short life.

Your child has the same instincts. Sitting with Mom and Dad at the dinner table gives him reassurance that the food is not poisonous. Not consciously, of course. But new food to a young child is frightening (although we adults are too old to remember this) and if Dad and Mom are enjoying it, it triggers the unconscious mind to accept the food.

This is one of the reasons why a family meal is so important. You've probably read magazine articles or online news articles that praise the family meal. Recently, yet another study has found that family meals are beneficial -- this time in helping picky eaters become less picky.

One reason family meals help picky eaters is by reassuring them that the food is safe, Next week I'll talk about other ways that a family meal can help your picky eater learn to enjoy many healthy foods.

More Tips on the Family Meal

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.