I promised last week that I would expand on each trigger of feeding difficulties. I will start with size – or growth of a child, which next to texture transitioning is one of the biggest causes of feeding difficulties.
First of all, it is important to get your child’s growth assessed on a regular basis. I want to define what is growth, because most people just think of weight, but in fact growth encompasses weight, length/height growth and in a child < 2 years of age head circumference. You can not assess how a child is growing only by looking at their weight, because the length of a child gives you important long term information on growth and so does a head circumference in the young. For example if your child’s weight has dropped a centile but the height is continues to grow well, then this is much less worrying as your child may come from a taller skinnier family and this is genetically normal for your child. So if there is one message that comes out from today’s blog entry, is to get a length/height and head circumference (< 2 years of age) done before you start worrying that your child is not growing.
Now, why is growth a trigger for feeding difficulties? Usually if somebody tells a parent that their child is not growing it hits a very sensitive nerve that goes to the core of parenting. No parent can be blamed for not taking this personally! The knee-jerk reaction is to immediately start correcting this by feeding more food and increasing the frequency of feeding intervals. It makes sense that more food equals more energy and protein intake which means growth. However, your child may not want to have more and eat more frequently, which then leads to them refusing food, the parents becoming more distressed as they worry about their growth and the more distressed they are the harder they try, the more the child refuses……so you can see a cycle of feeding difficulties starting.
I would like to give some simple tips, but this does not replace professional advice.
- Enrich the food that your child is currently eating happily with cheese, cream, pureed lentils and other energy and protein rich foods. Ensure that you give full cream yogurt, provide a spoon of nut butter in the porridge your child is having or make a fruit smoothie with yoghurt and almond butter for example. Gaining weight is not just about energy but protein as well, so adding just oil is not going to do the trick.
- Do not increase sweets and chocolates – these are empty calories and do not contribute hugely to catch up growth. Food increases catch up growth which is more balanced and also for the future better for your child.
- Ensure that your child has sufficient vitamins and minerals which are co-factors for growth. This means, your body needs them to metabolise the energy they are consuming.
- Keep meal times to 30 min and no longer than this!
- Offer a manageable portion – this is psychologically important for parent and child
- If the can self feed – ensure that they have foods that are higher in energy and protein that they can self fed – cheese strips, falafel, home-made chicken strips, bread sticks and hummus, avocado and oat cakes as snack ect. This is often more successful.
- Respect your child’s signals of hunger and satiety – if they signal they are full, stop feeding
- Never force feed or feed when they are unhappy and crying