Steps to Eating + Learning Plate
Steps to Eating
It is so important to offer food in a low-pressure environment, with no emphasis on what is eaten vs what is not eaten. However, what we can do with food at meals, particularly with little people that are struggling with some foods, is to gently encourage interaction with food.
In the Picky Eating Masterclass, I referred to the “Steps to Eating”. You can download a copy here. This document outlines the 32 steps required to eat a food. I find parents find this document really reassuring because it emphasises how complex of a skill eating is and demonstrates how, quite often, children are far closer to eating a food, than their parents first thought.
In addition to the above, it provides parents with some strategies to encourage interaction and engagement with food, in a low pressure and fun way.
The further training, I have undertaken with the SOS Approach to Picky Eating, is based on a program in the US. It is a feeding clinic that uses play with food to reverse picky eating and problem feeding. Their programs run in 12 week blocks, an hour at a time, and every session is food based play, utilising the Steps to Eating as part of their framework.
When using these strategies, I don’t want you to be doing this every mealtime as this can be really overwhelming for your little one. Instead, pick a meal each day, or a few meals each week to engage in this type of interaction, then use other opportunities to simply expose your little one to those less preferred foods.
As a first step, I suggest having a look at where your child sits on the steps to eating currently, with the less preferred food in question. Then see what the following steps are. This gives you a starting point as to where you can head with your food based play.
Example:
Less preferred food = roasted pumpkin
Current step = will happily poke the pumpkin with their finger
Food based play = can you encourage your little one to pick up the food with their hand and place on a different part of the plate?
Food based play ideas
Picking up food and placing on another plate
Place food on their open palm
Walk food up their arm
Spit food into the bin
Blow food into the bin
Learning Plate
We can also use these steps when using a learning plate. I also discussed the use of the learning plate in the masterclass and suggested that it isn’t necessary for all families and children, but for those who really struggle with non-preferred foods being on their plate, it can be a helpful strategy.
Once food has been placed on the learning plate, and the meal is over, I suggest asking your toddler to take the learning plate over the bin (or a bin they can reach etc). Then using these steps to eating, see if they will engage with the food in some capacity to dispose of the food. This will depend greatly on where your child is currently sitting on the spectrum of pickiness and their behaviour around less preferred foods. This strategy works really well as it is incredibly low pressure – your little one is at the bin, disposing of food, they feel no internal or external pressure to eat, so may be more open to engaging. Oftentimes what can also happen is that a little one actually feels such little pressure that they will eat the food. Some ways you can use the steps with the learning plate include:
Tipping the food into the bin, directly off the plate (interact)
Picking the food up with fingers/hands and placing in the bin
Placing food onto head and “head butting” into the bin
Placing food between lips or teeth and blowing into the bin
Placing food in mouth and spitting into the bin
The ultimate goal is interaction, not consumption of foods. This is a fun, light hearted means of interacting with food. What I discourage you from doing is excessively persisting with this. We don’t want mealtimes to become “lick the food, touch the food, spit the food, now let’s use the learning plate”. It is simply attempting to use a play strategy at meals, if your little one isn’t keen, that is ok, instead have that food there as exposure.