A couple of months ago we explained that nutrition experts were alerting that parents took a long time to give babies uncrushed food. In large part it happens because it's what we have seen since childhood: homemade porridge and potitos in stores, all always with a texture so fine that it can be passed from the spoon to the throat without making a single jaw movement.
But it also happens, in large part, because many parents are afraid that their children will choke with food and not knowing how to react. Thus, there are babies who arrive annually with crushed ones, and some at an even older age. And then there comes a time when not only do they not eat chunks, but they refuse to put them in their mouths: Too accustomed to crushing? Feel it to eat with you.
But it seems that he will die!
So is. Many babies put the pieces in, try to swallow a piece too large and end up arching to throw it (or parents have to put their finger). There many parents say that "one and no more, Saint Thomas", that that scare will not take him again and that crushed and we will see later.
And yet the baby was learning to eat. From that experience, from doing so to the beast that they choke, they learn the size of what they have to eat, how far they have to put it, how they have to chew or manage it in the mouth, etc.
In Babies and more Nutrition experts warn that parents take a long time to offer uncrushed food to babiesCome on, that way they are learning to eat alone with their own hands, in which it is a very valuable learning because they are eating our food right away and because every exercise that is done by chewing is positive for the development of the jaw muscles, of the mouth, and consequently, beneficial for speech (Children who chew before tend to have better pronunciation).
But if, as we say, he does not get to eat alone, or does not get to chew and get used to crushing, it can happen that the child grows and then costs much more than eating pieces.
They lose their curiosity and get used to the texture
When at four months a baby begins to eat his hand like a madman he is not suffering because in 4 or 5 months his first teeth will come out, but he is starting to train to eat. Repeat the gesture of bringing his hand to his mouth over and over again, he does it with everything he catches along the way and once he has it in his mouth, he chews it. Hasn't he ever bit you with the gums?
It is a time of curiosity in which he is preparing to, later, start eating ... so, at six months, when we start offering them food, they are very capable of taking them (better or worse, but they take them) and take them away to the mouth. And there begins true learning. They already had the theory and finally they start the practice.
However, if we only give them crushed, porridge and baby food, they end up getting used to that texture and there comes a time when they no longer have the need to take something and bring it to their mouths, nor the curiosity to try new things.
In Babies and more How do I start Baby Led Weaning with my baby: 11 keys to get started in the methodTo see how others eat
Then, in that situation, it may cost more than usual to start eating the pieces. So instead of feeding them their food first and then sitting down to eat while they do something else (playing on the floor, for example), the ideal is that be by our side, or even sitting in our skirt, in front of our plate.
In this way they will see how the elders eat, picking up large pieces, putting them in their mouths and chewing. Chewing for a while until swallowing and then taking another piece, in a process much slower than its "cadence of spoon" which, when swallowing quickly, next comes the next.
In Babies and more Baby-led weaning: everything you need to know explained by expertsTo steal your food
And the other reason is for take food and try. To steal. So that he feels free to catch, he recovers a little curiosity and brings food to his mouth by himself. And it seems that if you put the food to them, they feel you want to do some weird experiment and they say no, that those pieces that are for them you eat them. And yet if they know it belongs to others, they seem to want it.
Come on, as I usually say to the mothers in the nursing office: "Approach the loot as much as you can; let it steal from you. They learn more from what they take away from you than from what you put on them."
Photos | Cody, Simon Wheatley, Gall on Flickr
In Babies and more | Complementary feeding: What would happen if we let them eat them ?, Carlos González talks about a food free of porridge in the TEDx of Valencia, Errors in the pediatrician's complementary feeding sheets: placing the food during the day in an immovable way
