- Hello and welcome to this month's "Maggie Moment".
Today I wanna have a chat about fussy eating,
particularly up to five
because oh my goodness, that whole journey
of being able to transfer our little babas
from bottle and breast into solid food
and then what happens afterwards.
One of things I didn't know,
was that being fed solids isn't just a thing
to get food into their tummy,
it's a massive sensory journey of texture and smell
and warmth and all those things
and that's why they wanna play with food
and smear food and throw food and spit food out at us.
All of it's quite a complex
but intricate sensory exploration of food.
Amazing, I didn't know all that.
Okay so, the first thing we know is that we are trying
to get them to gradually go from very smooth food
to food with bits and pieces in it
and how to chew it and when to worry,
you'll get all those guideline I'm sure,
from all sorts of wonderful sites
but I need to let you know that even the best
of our little toddlers, who have been loving their avocado
and their corn and they all of a sudden won't eat it.
Mm, lockjaw, and I need to let you know the good news,
it's completely normal.
They actually go through different phases
where they will not eat food they like
and then eat other food.
So, basically keep offering it, do not despair,
it's not your lousy cooking, it's just a natural progression
in their development of taste and sensations around food.
What we always know is, little ones tend to respond
to what their body is telling them,
even though they don't know their telling it anything
and there are times that they will actually not eat,
when they're coming down with something
and they're not feeling really well
or when their body just doesn't need as much energy.
So, isn't that interesting?
And you'll notice there are days they eat and they eat
and they eat and you're thinking,
"Wow, we've nailed it, tick,
"got this sorted, got a great eater."
That's probably a growth spurt.
So, at different times some of our little ones
are not hungry when we want them to eat, when we're eating,
which is breakfast time, also completely normal.
So, when you're pulling your hair out
and thinking you're the worst parent on the planet
because your child's not eating,
they're refusing your good cooked food,
there are other reasons underneath it
and one of the paediatric dieticians I've spoken to says,
"Just average what your child eats over a week,
"rather than what they eat per day or per meal."
and the second thing is, just keep an eye on,
are they maintaining their weight and are the gaining weight
'cause if they're loosing weight,
there may be some other problems underneath it.
So, refusing food, being fussy eaters
does not mean you need to then go
and make a different meal for them.
So, you need to respect that that every now and then,
when they're really hungry,
they'll probably eat nearly anything you give them
and also yet the veggie stuff,
oh golly, we do know that there are some children
that just dive in and love it to get-go
and others that you do have to do
some wonderful creative singing of,
here comes the green tree, here comes the green tree,
it's an aeroplane, absolutely.
The only suggestion that that same beautiful,
wise woman said to me is,
"Please try to avoid bribing them to eat their veggies
"by giving them something sweet later."
So again, you can resort to that occasionally
but when it becomes all the time
then you're child is going to be doing it
for the reward and that's often not the most nutritious
thing that you're giving them.
So again, good luck out there
but know that fussy eating
is absolutely developmentally normal,
all the way through for up to four or five
and that it's not just putting food in their mouth
and into their tummy and that sometimes it's okay
for them to know there's a fruit bowl
if ever you're hungry and there's nothing
quite like a good banana, na, na, na, na, na.
I hope that's given you some suggestions
and reassured you if you have a reluctantly,
difficult child around fussy eating,
that you're not alone.
You're probably definitely not alone
and that's all from me today.