It turns out that eating also requires learning!

Author: Lv Zhuo, deputy chief physician of Changchun Children's Hospital

Illustration: Zhao Yanling, Chief Nurse, Changchun Children's Hospital

Reviewer: Huang Yanzhi, Chief Physician, Changchun Children's Hospital

When it comes to eating, I think many people, especially the elderly, will take it for granted that this is a natural ability of human beings. As long as you have a mouth, you will naturally eat. Why do you need to learn it? There is nothing to pay attention to! In fact, this concept is not entirely correct. If a person does not learn to chew, that is, eat, when he (she) is a baby, he (she) may encounter some problems in the future. So, what problems will he encounter? How to learn to chew? How to practice chewing? Let us really understand the knowledge of "eating" together.

The process of eating

A normal person has the ability to find the nipple → suck milk → swallow milk from birth, and the swallowing ability gradually becomes coordinated and improved; slowly, the baby grows up, from liquid food → semi-solid food → solid food, their chewing requires the cooperation of more organs such as the tongue, mouth, teeth, facial muscles, lips, etc., so that more nutrients are taken into the body, and the baby will grow up healthily.

Baby's diet at different ages

At 4 months old, babies can suck and swallow liquid food skillfully. This stage is the period of tongue training for babies. They will try to use the movements of their tongue and mouth to swallow liquid or semi-liquid food in their mouths, but their movements are not very coordinated yet. At 6 months old, grown babies will use their hands to grasp food and try to put it in their mouths. Around 7 months old, babies who have just grown teeth will further strengthen their chewing and swallowing abilities. They will try to chew food up and down with their gums. At this time, babies will have a stronger desire to eat actively. When they see someone eating, they will make an expression of wanting to taste it. Starting from 10 months old, most babies have grown 4 to 6 deciduous teeth. Their chewing ability and oral movements are becoming more coordinated. Babies will try to crush or break food and then perform simple chewing movements. Over 12 months old, babies tend to handle adult food and are good at using their teeth to prepare for a smooth transition to ordinary meals. Around 1 and a half years old, babies are fully able to eat ordinary food like adults, but some food needs to be cut into appropriate sizes for them.

Consequences of eating late

Some parents are too doting on their babies, always thinking that more refined feeding is good feeding. Although babies can eat solid food, they are still fed with liquid food such as dairy products, ignoring the normal eating process of babies, resulting in the failure to timely train the chewing function of babies. When they reach the age of normal eating, they cannot chew coarse or hard food, causing problems such as difficulty in swallowing, unbalanced nutrition, picky eating, and anorexia. Malnutrition can occur because they cannot take in various supplementary foods to provide the necessary nutrients for healthy growth. At the same time, the baby's chewing is not exercised in time, which affects the development of teeth and delays the growth of deciduous teeth. At the same time, poor chewing is not conducive to the development of the mandibular and facial muscles.

How to exercise

Chewing ability requires a baby to practice the entire oral movement for a long time before it can be well developed. Below we will teach parents how to effectively train babies at different stages of their life to chew effectively.

(1) Starting from 4 months of age (6 months of age if the baby has allergies), give the baby food other than milk such as paste to give the baby a chance to train oral movements. The baby may spit out the food at first, but mothers should not be too impatient. As long as you keep trying, you will find that the probability of the baby eating food is getting higher and higher. You can choose a small spoon to feed. The supplementary food should be in liquid or semi-liquid form. Recommended supplementary foods include rice and wheat flour paste, applesauce, juice, vegetable soup, suitable teething biscuits, etc.

(2) From the age of 7 months, provide babies with more diverse complementary foods, and the complementary foods should be harder or thicker to promote the eruption of teeth. Because of teething, mothers also need to provide babies with some hand-held food, such as fruit bars or small toasts, or prepare several clean teethers with different sensations. In addition to allowing babies to grind their teeth, they can also help the development of their chewing ability. Complementary foods should be in the form of semi-liquid or semi-solid. Recommended complementary foods are vegetable puree, coarser fruit puree, fruit bars, bread slices, tofu and porridge.

(3) Starting from 10 months old, babies can choose adult foods that are softer and easier to chew, but not too greasy or difficult to digest. During this period, you can try to let your baby hold the spoon and scoop food to eat, which can also train the baby's hand-eye coordination and self-care ability. You can gradually transition from drinking from a straw cup to a duckbill cup to drinking from a cup. The complementary food is in the form of semi-solid or solid. Recommended complementary foods include soft noodles, vegetable porridge, meat porridge, meat paste, steamed eggs and boiled vegetables.

(4) From the age of 12 months, babies are fully capable of slowly processing adult food. As they have good imitation ability, mothers can demonstrate and teach their babies to bite and chew food, such as long pieces of fruit, cooked vegetable segments or slightly hard biscuits. As long as the babies are willing, adult-style easily digestible food can be provided for them to taste.

(5) Starting from about 18 months old, prepare foods that are easier to scoop or grasp for babies, so that they can learn to eat by themselves. At the same time, you can prepare some toys that train or stimulate oral movements, such as small trumpets and whistles. You can also teach your baby to blow paper and bubbles to better train oral movements. The supplementary food should mainly be solid. It is recommended that the supplementary food should be the six types of easily digestible food, such as fish, rice, cut vegetables, cut fruits, etc.

Benefits of chewing training

Through proper chewing exercises, babies can smoothly switch from supplementary food to adult food. The baby's gastrointestinal tract has been developed in time, which is beneficial to the baby's nutrient absorption and healthy growth. While exercising chewing ability, it also helps the development and arrangement of teeth, and the growth of facial and oral muscles. While chewing exercises, the flexibility of oral organs such as the tongue and lips is also improved, which also helps the future development of speech. In the process of practicing eating by yourself, the ability of hand-eye coordination is also improved. It can be said that chewing ability training is crucial to the healthy physical and mental growth of babies.

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I believe that after understanding the above knowledge, all parents will definitely abandon the old ideas and no longer think that the softer the rice, the better, and the finer the complementary food, the better. Master the correct feeding, exercise your baby's chewing in time, eat scientifically, and grow healthily!