If your baby is trying new food, it’s recommended that you give more than a variety of food from the four major food groups: dairy, starchy carbohydrates, fruit and vegetables, meat, pulses, and other protein. Getting your baby used to a variety of food is essential for healthy eating. This article will be discussing how to help your baby enjoy new food.
Take Your Time
When you’re feeding your baby food, you must allow enough time for eating, especially when it’s their first time. Forcing your baby to eat can lead to feeding issues. Go at your baby pace and stop when they show signs that they have head enough. To make the mealtime less messy and more fun, you can consider weaning bibs from Bibado for your baby.
Offer different food but less sweet vegetables
Babies like it when they select their food themselves and sometimes takes their time when eating new food so they can get used to it. So offer them a wide variety of foods and introduce new foods to them gradually. In addition, when offering them different food, ensure that you introduce them to less sweet vegetables like spinach, cauliflower, and broccoli at the beginning.
Finger Foods
Another way to make new food fun for your baby is by encouraging them to feed themselves using their fingers. You can help them create a small piece of fist-friendly food in various sizes and shapes and allow them to savour the pieces for the complete sensual experience. Don’t try to feed or correct them. The entertaining part will encourage them to eat at their own pace.
Make a Mess
Messy eating is an important part of a baby’s food development. Don’t be scared to let your baby get dirty. Letting them play with their food isn’t just enjoyable, it’s beneficial. The strategy is part of the baby-led weaning. It will teach them how to eat and enjoy a wide variety of foods. You can cover the floor with a mat to make cleaning easy.
Focus on Faces
Suppose your toddler is more interested in flinging food around instead of eating. Now is the time to make the food more fun that they will hesitate to throw them away. Most babies are fascinated by people’s appearance, so fashion a face out of the new food you want them to try – new faces every time. They can never get tired of seeing new faces.
Use Animal Shapes
Making your baby’s mealtime a trip to the zoo is another way to make new food fun for them. Your baby might be familiar with furry friends during bedtime story, so they’ll be glad to see them in their bowl. If you’re serving them pig pancakes, you can divide it into two different sizes – the big size down and the smallest size on top to form a nose.
In addition to that, you can make use of blueberries or chocolate chips to form nostrils and eyes. On the other hand, you can make a cheesy lion by using a flower-shaped cookie cutter. If you want an easy way to form different creature, you can get several animal cookie cutters, and you can use them to shape anything from cooked potatoes to sandwiches.