Weaning your baby is one of the most exciting milestones, and one of the messiest! But don’t worry, mess is all part of the fun of weaning and most importantly part of the learning experience.
Our friends at Tidy Tot help protect your baby, highchair and floor from food and spills during weaning with their brilliant Bib & Tray Kits. Here our friends at Tidy Tot explain why encouraging messy weaning can help your little one learn new skills.
Top sensory weaning tips from Tidy Tot
Learning to eat is one of the hardest things to do. A large part of this process involves letting your little one get stuck in and get messy. Whether smearing themselves in broccoli puree to squelching their finger foods in between their hands. In fact, there are eight different senses that your baby has to integrate and coordinate in the correct way in order to eat.
Here are a few tips for encouraging a sensory weaning experience:
1. Introduce a range of different foods with different textures, so your baby’s sensory weaning journey can really start. Try soft and wet foods that squelch and slip and slide between fingers.
2. Experiment with easy to scoop wet foods like yoghurt – not only is this a great one to dunk hands in but also provides a great opportunity to start some early spoon practise.
3. If you are introducing a new food, put it alongside a food they’ve already liked and accepted, you’ll have a better chance of them going for it.
4. Try soft foods like pre-cooked vegetables, cheese and toast or Little Dish’s Mini Cod Goujons which can be broken up, played with, passed from hand to hand and sucked on, disintegrating into little pieces to be feasted on later.
5. Take your time with mealtimes, don’t rush the fun your baby can have with playing and exploring foods, it’s all part of the process.
For Weaning Week 2020 Tidy Tot has released easy to follow flash cards to give helpful tips on how to follow sensory weaning. Download them here.
For more weaning advice, recipes and support, or to find out more about Tidy Tot’s range of products, please visit www.tidytot.com.
