Encouraging your toddler to play with food
Letting your toddler play with their food can help pave the way to a healthy relationship with food for life. Find out how.
Playing with food and making a mess at meal times is all part of
your toddler's attempts at self-feeding and helps to foster a
positive attitude towards eating.
It also encourages aspects of your toddler's development. By
examining their food and trying to pick it up and put it in their
mouth, your toddler is developing and refining their finger skills
and hand-eye co-ordination.
Remember to always supervise your toddler when they are
eating.
The importance of food play
At first when they are learning to feed themselves, babies will
grab food in the palm of their hand and put it into their mouth.
But any time from about nine months old, they begin to master the
pincer grasp, using their finger and thumb to pick things up.
Letting your toddler play with their food will help them
practise and perfect their pincer grasp as they try to feed
themselves small pieces of
food, such as chopped-up pasta, cubed vegetables or
cheese and slices of fruit. From there, it will not be long before
your toddler is able to use a spoon and fork.
Keep meal times relaxed
- Be prepared for, and relaxed about, any mess. Showing your
anxiety may make your toddler less keen to eat.
- Leave extra time for meals so your toddler has plenty of time
to experiment with their food.
- Protect the surrounding area with a mess
mat or newspaper so that you can keep the
cleaning up afterwards to a minimum.