Peaches and avocados, this was the concoction I was mixing. I found myself watching the puree seep through the tongs of the fork as the peaches turned green and oily. It became harder to keep a smile on my face to feign my excitement over what my son TT was about to eat. Suppressing my grimaces I wondered, how did I ever resort to making this absurd concoction. I recalled giving TT smashed avocados in breast milk out of pure desperation. Avocados the one vegetable I truly can't stand myself. However, some parenting article said, “avocados for babies.” Their baby loved avocados, so I mashed an avocado mixed it with breast milk and sure enough it was the one food TT finally swallowed. For the first time I saw TT enjoy eating anything other than breastmilk! Thus, continued my food chaining journey with my then 10 month old son.
What is food chaining?
Food chaining is taking a preferred food and adding a little bit of non-preferred food in hopes that the familiarity will hide the “unfamiliar”. This is done in a variety of ways. In fact, if you were a breast fed or formula fed baby yourself, your parents likely introduced you to rice cereal or other foods by mixing a little breast milk or formula in with the food. Thus, taking your preferred “food” and mixing it with a new “non-preferred” food. We take what our child is used to and we introduced slowly, not all together the new taste of rice cereal. Fast forward, I'm at the kitchen window peering out at the snow covered hills thinking to myself how am I mixing peaches and avocados again how could TT like this.
I started with the food he preferred avocado the one food he actually swallowed. I had mixed the avocado with the breast milk 1 part breast milk 1 part avocado (1/2 preferred (breast milk) and ½ non-preferred (avocado) and there it was, he finally swallowed his first solid food! The first puree that didn’t end up splattering across my face and our family table. He showed me what it looks like to have peaches, plums, nectarines, potatoes, yams come out of a squirt gun! We tried it all. Why did he take to avocados? I still don’t know, but what mattered is I finally had a preferred taste! It was something I could chain on to a new taste.
The next "chain" or new taste I choose for him was peaches. So, here I was mixing avocado with peaches. This was his second time trying peaches and avocados, he had done well with Step 1. Now, at Step 2 I was going with 1/2 and 1/2. Did he like it? Yep, he smeared it all over his face and plenty went into his tummy. He seemed to enjoy it. Eventually we were able to move to pure peach puree. It was easier for me to prepare and it was so enjoyable to watch him eat peaches! This time I didn't have to suppress any grimaces of displeasure imagining the sour taste of avocado and peaches. I will spare you all the other food chains I concocted during his "I will only eat avocados" at 10 months of age. For each chain I started and was able to successfully end with this recipe: Stage 1: 3/4 preferred 1/4 non-preferred, Stage 2: 1/2 and 1/2 and Stage 3: 3/4 non-preferred and 1/3 preferred to finally all (new!) non-preferred food. However, some children need a slower transition and may take more time on each stage.
My food chain recipe for success
Step 1: Think of one food your child prefers.
Step 2: Think of a non-preferred food that is only different by one characteristic a) taste b) texture c) consistency
Step 3: Mix ¾ of the preferred food (step 1) with ¼ of the non-preferred food (step 2).
Step 4: Determine how it went. You can decide to add more preferred or less preferred depending on how your child did.
Report back! I would love to hear what funny concoctions you come up with or better yet, what strange concoctions are successful! Need more help?
Contact Take Home Speech LLC for private in home food chain planning and treatment.
