Nutrition is one of the most vital processes for human life. Nutrition is a physiological action. However, due to cultural factors, emotional processes, and experiences with parents, nutrition has become a process that includes psychological factors rather than just a physiological action. While the mother is feeding the child who is still in the womb, she transmits her feelings and hormones to her, creating a common bonding area. For this reason, how the pregnancy process is spent is very important in terms of nutritional psychology. The mother feeds the child in her womb not only with "food", but also with her emotions and hormones. Later, when the child is born, he is introduced to the mother's breast or bottle. In this very meeting, nutrition is not just a physiological event, because while the mother is feeding the child, she also begins to form her personality. Babies look at their mothers from the corner of their eyes at certain periods while they are sucking. It is very important that the mother nourishes her baby with which gestures and facial expressions, what emotions or what she is dealing with. The infant's self begins to form from the relationship between mother and nutrition. For this reason, the diets of children and adults do not exist randomly. In particular, we need to approach children and their nutritional patterns with this sensitivity. While feeding a baby-child, we need to feed not only his stomach, but also his mind, self and emotions. For this, it is very important that the parent feeds the baby with soft and warm touches, that the mother's breast is open for skin-to-skin contact even if she is feeding with a bottle and that she feeds the baby in a sucking position, and that she is fed with warm contact with the parent rather than distracting stimuli for older children.
Babies and children want to enjoy food just like adults. For this reason, a healthy, warm contact pushes children to enjoy what they eat. Studies have shown that the mother's emotions change the taste, smell and color of milk. For this reason, healthy bonds and emotions are important when nurturing children of all ages.
It is a vital issue not to look at food as just food. Food is the first bond, the first contact between mother and baby.
Processes to Consider While Feeding Children
1. It is necessary to consider the nutrition of the child from the mother's womb. The first thing you should consider for your own child or another child is how the child is fed in the womb.
What the mother is fed as food is very important. Intensive and regular diet rich in carbohydrates, sugar and fat leads to food addiction. Exceeding the daily intake too much and maintaining it regularly will not only create food addiction, but also stimulate the reward center in the brain, which causes dopamine to be secreted in excess. When dopamine is secreted in excess, it causes serious damage. The baby of a mother with an addiction to food is born with an attachment to food. Food addiction causes similar damage to the brain as drug addiction. Therefore, nutrition is very important during pregnancy.
The mother's feelings during pregnancy are also important in terms of nutrition. Each emotion creates a different hormonal effect on the body. The fact that the mother is very stressed, experiencing intense fear, and feeling high levels of anxiety is passed on to the baby through hormones. For this reason, babies have different individual characteristics when they are born. It is very important that the baby is fed with which hormones in the womb.
2. It is necessary to consider the baby-breast relationship. The breast is not just a tool to feed the child.
The breast is a binding object for the baby to reach the mother.
The breast is the stimulus that calms the baby.
The breast is a way for skin-to-skin contact.
A breast is trust.
A breast means a lot to a child. Every baby and child should be able to reach the mother's breast, whether milk comes in or not. The breast is the most important means of reaching the mother, which replaces the cord after the baby leaves its first home. For this reason, it is very important to understand the importance of the breast apart from the importance of breast milk and that the breast is accessible outside of the milk.
The relationship of the baby with the breast is the relationship with the mother. If you observe the relationship of the baby and the older children to the breast, you will see that it goes hand in hand with their relationship with the mother. Especially for older children, you see that when they are angry with the mother, they bite the breast, if they are having a pleasant process with the mother, they are more affectionate.
Children want to touch their mothers' breasts, even after years of separation from the breast. For a child, breast is not just "milk".
3. Separation from the breast should not be separated from the mother. If all is well, it is desirable for children to suckle until the age of 2 for development. The new era of compassionate approaches advocates the importance of breastfeeding the child freely. It is very important for a child to leave the breast "healthy" regardless of age. The breast should always be accessible to the child.
For weaning from the breast, we must first get rid of the traditional methods that can cause trauma. Applying tomato paste, sticking tape to the breast, using a nursing stone, sticking gum, etc. methods such as these have a negative effect on the child.
When we decide to wean a child from the breast, we must first look at our relationship. How is our relationship with the child? Do we have skin-to-skin contact other than the breast? Can he easily reach us whenever he wants? How are emotion regulation skills? Can we regulate the child's emotions without additional stimulus? How are our living conditions right now? Has there been or will there be a significant change in the life of the child or the life of the parents? Is there anything special that is pushing the child right now? Does the mother feel ready for this?
After all conditions are met, the child's sucking should be observed. At what time interval, under what conditions, for which emotions does he want to suck? First, it is necessary to observe this over a long period of time. In the meantime, it is very important to increase the parent-child play, to offer the child more skin-to-skin contact, to talk about their feelings. After all this is achieved, it is important to gradually reduce the frequency of sucking. For example; For a child who wants to breast 4 times a day, it is important to first offer 3 sucking, to offer skin-to-skin contact without distracting or distract him for the 4th time, or even to offer the breast, but it is important to note that it is not suitable for sucking at this time. This frequency can be gradually reduced. Reducing daytime sucking first, then applying the same routine for night sucking
The most important part of weaning is to offer skin-to-skin contact with the child. Because after children switch to supplementary food, they suckle not to fill their stomach, but to feed their souls. While trying to reduce night sucking, it is very important that the mother offers contact during the reduction processes.
It is necessary to know that stopping sucking can be a very difficult process for some children and to embrace the feelings that may arise.
Please get support when you feel stuck in this process.
4. Not making the supplementary food process an issue. The feeding of a baby-child does not indicate the competence or inadequacy of the parent. For this reason, it is important to be sensitive especially during the first supplementary food process. It is necessary to accept that this will be a different experience for the baby and that it will be a process that will get used to it over time.
It is important to give babies-children control over food. Keeping the baby-child in a highchair and constantly giving food to the mouth causes resistance. It is very important for the baby-child to have control over the food in order to eliminate the "uncontrolled eating" behaviors in the future. It is important to put some of the fed food on a separate plate and let the baby touch it. All living things want to eat by feeling their food. Uncontrolled eating or resistance occurs in foods that are not eaten by feeling. BLW is particularly important for establishing a healthy eating pattern. For older children, eating with their hands, touching the food is important both for pleasure and for feeling their body sensations.
Babies-children love to move. It is necessary to offer them "limited" range of motion while eating. Especially for older children, it is important to be fed with a cover instead of a high chair or a different table where they can move more easily, giving as much freedom of movement as possible. This freedom of movement must be within certain limits. For example, it would be valuable to lay a cover on the floor, to have this cover wide enough for the child to move, and to be free to spill on this cover.
In the supplementary food process and larger� For young children, deceiving, forcing, watching something at feeding time are processes in which children lose their control and cause nutritional patterns to be problematic.
Again, when feeding children, it is necessary to focus on their biological clocks. Every child has a biological clock. Every child likes to eat in different time zones. It is necessary to determine the time periods when the child needs to eat. In order for us to make the child feel that food is a physiological issue, it is important to feed him when he is hungry. This does not apply to newborns.
Some children are hungry as soon as they wake up, some children cannot eat when they just wake up, some children are very hungry at noon, some children like to eat in the evening. It is important to observe and respect the biological clock of children. We, adults, developed eating so that our mouths would not be empty even though we were not hungry, because our biological clocks were disrupted in childhood and because we had to eat constantly.
5. Children have “general” food preferences. First of all, there will be dishes that children like and dislike like us. Just as we choose to eat what we love, children have the right to do so. It's not just food that raises children. The perception that he will not grow if he does not eat from everything is not real.
Children prefer foods with a stable appearance and average taste that they can eat anywhere on average. For example, meatballs. Meatballs are a food that is generally preferred by every child, with a similar taste and appearance everywhere on average. When we look at the foods preferred by children in general, you will notice that they are similar on average. Meatballs, potatoes, hamburgers, chicken, pasta, rice.
Children do not like foods with mixed appearance and heavy smells. For this reason, it is important to present foods to the child in different forms, especially to bring them into the form they prefer. If he doesn't eat the broccoli when you give it directly, such as pureeing, making meatballs.
Preparing the meal with the child and his/her contribution makes the food more acceptable.
Children don't want to eat as much as we think.
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