Ding Ding’s performance belongs to a kind of feeding difficulties, for children without physical diseases, the causes of feeding disorders are mainly related to the child’s poor oral motor development and the feeding methods of the parent. Under normal circumstances, when the food is large or coarse food fiber, the tongue, lips and cheek need to be coordinated by a large movement, the main manifestation of oral motor uncoordinated bite a chewing a swallowing uncoordinated, refuse to eat solid and semi-solid food, or eating such food is very difficult. Oral function problems are often not recognized by professionals and parents, and are often treated from the point of view of disease, mainly by taking “appetizers”, which does not really solve the problem of oral function. The baby’s mouth and lips are born with the ability to seek and suck, but the completion of chewing action requires the tongue, mouth, cheek muscles and teeth to coordinate with each other’s movements, which must be obtained through repeated stimulation and continuous training of the mouth and throat. Therefore, babies need a process to learn to chew and swallow, and need to be trained in stages. Gradually increasing complementary foods is the best way to exercise chewing ability. Step 1 Time: 4-6 months Training focus: swallowing Supplementary food characteristics: paste, puree Optional supplementary food: rice paste, egg yolk puree, fruit puree, vegetable puree, fish puree Learning to swallow is an important prerequisite for future ingestion of solid food. 4-6 months is the initial stage of baby learning to chew and swallow, this stage is more suitable for adding paste-like food. From the age of 4 months, you can spoon feed your baby pureed food, such as rice paste, egg yolk puree, etc. At the beginning, mothers may find that their babies will more or less spit out the food. This is a normal phenomenon because the baby is used to sucking and has not yet formed the conditioned reflexes related to swallowing action, so the mother should be patient and feed more times. Step 2 Time: 6 to 12 months Training focus: biting, chewing Complementary food features: finer solids Optional complementary foods: minced meat, minced vegetables, minced fruit, sliced bread, finger cakes, small dried fish Baby starts teething around 6 months old, from this period onwards, mother can provide baby with some food that needs to be chewed, in order to develop baby’s chewing ability and promote the eruption of teeth. At this time, the food should be thin to thick, and the particles should be fine to coarse. Start by adding a small amount of solid food to the pureed food, and then slowly add the amount of solid food as the baby gets used to it. As the baby grows older, the baby’s desire to eat of his own accord increases and he likes to grab food for himself, so the mother can give the chopped solid food to the baby and let him eat it by himself to develop the baby’s interest in food and eating. In addition, you can also give your baby some small snacks specifically for teething, such as teething sticks and teething cookies. Step 3 Time: 12 months and above Training focus: swallowing after chewing Supplementary food features: coarser solids Optional supplementary foods: dumplings, wontons, rice, other less fibrous adult food With the eruption and perfection of teeth, the baby’s oral movements are also more and more abundant, chewing and swallowing movements are coordinated, and gradually you can bite and chew with your teeth. At this time should be given to the baby to eat coarser solid food, eat more coarse food. Parents should do a good job of modeling, using the baby’s love of imitation, often demonstrate chewing action to the baby, each mouthful of food should be chewed slowly, preferably more than 10 times per mouth chewing. Parents should gradually guide children to eat independently, do not parents feeding, or long-term bottle drinking, drinking milk. Exercising baby’s chewing ability has many benefits 1. It is beneficial to the secretion of salivary glands, so that saliva and food are fully mixed to promote appetite; 2. It makes the food finely ground, improves digestive enzyme activity, promotes digestion and facilitates nutrient absorption; 3. It helps dental development and growth. Chewing ability is not enough, the baby’s jaws do not develop well, and the teeth that grow out will not be aligned; 4, conducive to the development of the bones and muscles of the head and face, speed up the blood circulation in the head, increase the blood flow to the brain, so that brain cells get more oxygen and nutrients; 5, adequate chewing can train the coordination and flexibility of the muscles of the mouth, tongue, lips and other corresponding organs, and improve the clarity of the baby’s pronunciation. Critical period of chewing training 6 to 12 months is a critical period for babies to develop chewing and swallowing skills, and it will be relatively difficult to learn after the critical period. When the baby has up and down bite action, it means that he has the initial ability to chew food, parents should promptly carry out targeted exercise. Once you miss the critical period, your baby will lose interest in learning, and then train again in the future often with half the effort, and the skills will not be pure enough, often chew three or two times to swallow or chew in the mouth after reluctance to swallow. Therefore, parents who missed the critical period like Ding Ding’s mother should spend too much energy on chewing training, mainly by changing the way they add complementary foods and feeding methods to achieve: 1, gradually transition from softer foods to solid foods, to develop baby’s interest in food, parents should not be impatient and adventurous. 2, to cultivate good eating habits, regular rationing, regular diet, parents should deliberately lengthen the time interval between two bites of food when feeding, try to chew each mouthful of food more than 10 times, so that the baby fully chewed, experience the pleasure of eating. The impact of lateral chewing Some babies like to chew on the side, in the long run, will cause jaw and facial dysplasia, facial asymmetry, not only affect the beauty, but also aggravate the wear and tear of the teeth, but also hinder pronunciation, resulting in lisp, affecting language development, so once found that the baby like to chew on the side, should be corrected in a timely manner. In conclusion, parents should have enough confidence and patience to give their children the opportunity to try new foods repeatedly during the critical period of adding pureed foods. There is no need to pay too much attention to and be anxious about some reactions that occur during feeding, but to give children the opportunity to try new foods repeatedly, which not only allows children to enjoy a variety of delicious foods and make “eating” a pleasure. At the same time, the child will have access to a rich variety of taste, smell, sight and touch sensory stimuli, all of which are beneficial to the child’s early development.