Does the Sight of the Spoon Upset Your Child?

Introduce Foods Slowly and in a Playful Fashion
Let your child play with strained or pureed food spread all over the high-chair tray. Your child accidentally may get a taste. It really helps to have the child take the taste independently, rather than having someone else push it in. Put tastes on favorite toys, rattles, baby key sets. These may get a more-pleasant reaction than the spoon.

When you start to offer strained foods again, present them on a toy, nipple, finger, cup, or NUK massage brush, not on a spoon. Be playful. Make it a game. Turn the toy into an airplane, or offer the food to the mouth, as part of the rhythm of a children's song.

Distraction
Distract, distract! Clap your hands, cheer, sing a song, swing the child in a baby swing, do anything to distract your child's attention from the old reaction to the presentation of food.

Some children just do not like spoons or anything you want to give them from a spoon! Why? Perhaps they started out with a touch sensitivity problem, or have muscle imbalances, or a neurological issue that caused them to have trouble with food that was presented on a spoon. Maybe they remember a bad or scary experience they had with spooned foods.

Or maybe you were told by the doctor to feed your child more because of poor weight gain. The more you encouraged, the more you pushed, the more your child began to refuse to eat. A power struggle developed, with a spoon smack in the middle of it.

Or maybe you were told by the doctor to feed your child more because of poor weight gain. The more you encouraged, the more you pushed, the more your child began to refuse to eat. A power struggle developed, with a spoon smack in the middle of it.

Whatever the cause, the cycle of hating the spoon must be stopped. Once the spoon is accepted, it will greatly influence the variety of foods you can feed your child and allow more options in balancing your child's diet. In addition, eating from a spoon helps develop your child's oral skills, important not only for eating but for speech and making distinct facial expressions.

Put the Spoon Away
Give the spoon a vacation for a week or two! Concentrate on having more pleasant mealtime experiences without it. Look at what your child is taking by mouth. Probably your child is nursing or taking formula from a bottle and is refusing strained foods. For a couple of weeks, give your child nutrition through the food texture which is most enjoyed-nothing new. Make mealtime pleasant again. Let the spoon be forgotten.

Pleasant Touch
During this time, help your child remember that the face and mouth are fun places for touch. Kisses from you, a puppet, or a stuffed toy, face-washing games, and tickles on the cheeks during bathtime all are fun touches.

If touch around the face is very unpleasant for your child, you may need to discuss a more thorough program to lessen your child's oversensitivity. Talk to a feeding specialist or an occupational or physical therapist.

A feeding specialist also can give suggestions for switching your child from liquids to strained foods, or from strained foods to lumpy foods. Liquids, strained foods, and lumpy foods all are different textures that feel different in the mouth. A child having problems with touch will react to these changes. The feeding specialist can give you ideas for helping your child adjust.

Nutrition Help
While you arc working with a feeding specialist on spoon acceptance, you also should be in contact with a dietitian. Your child's refusal to take foods by spoon can significantly restrict the foods you can serve. This in turn can interfere with the balanced diet needed for proper growth and health. Discuss creative food options with a dietitian to ensure that your child receives all the necessary nutrients and calories while working on the spoon.