Introducing solids to your baby’s diet is beneficial for nutrients and growth and a way to set your baby up for a great lifetime relationship with food. Mealtimes are an exceptionally sensory experience for your little one, and there are multiple senses your baby and child will use to learn about food. Our brain absorbs information through our senses; for this reason, meals are a time when your little one is introduced to new textures, colours, and flavours that they have yet to explore.
Read more on ways to introduce solids HERE.
Everyone processes sensory information in different ways. For example, some of us are more sensitive to certain senses, and others have big responses to others. Keep in mind that if your little one seems more responsive or less responsive to certain flavours and textures.
As you may already know, there are 8 senses in total, and each one can influence your child or baby’s mealtimes and eating development. Knowing these senses and how they affect your baby’s eating can be beneficial while your baby is transitioning from soft to solid foods, and when your child is eating family foods. Continue reading to learn the different types of senses and how they impact your little one’s mealtimes!
Smell – Olfactory Sense
The first sense that dramatically impacts your little one’s mealtimes is smell, also known as the Olfactory Sense. This sense suggests how food might taste without yet eating it—for example, walking into the kitchen and smelling fresh-baked cookies. As Marsha Dunn Klein says “smell is taste at a distance”. The way something smells can even affect us positively or negatively. When your little one is first introduced to new foods, they will use this sense with or without realising it.
Sight – Vision Sense
The following sense is sight, which is responsible for giving our brains information about food shapes, colours, how food looks, and how its arranged on plates. The atmosphere and lighting at mealtimes can also impact our sensory system. How you present food to your little ones will affect their eating experience.
Touch – Tactile Sense
The sense of touch gives our brains information about our world by feeling with our skin (including feeling in our mouths). For example, our hands, skin, and mouth can feel the different textures and temperatures of foods. Although some people may enjoy some textures, others could feel extremely sensitive to these sensations.
Taste – Gustatory Sense
It’s no surprise that the sense of taste is the most utilised during mealtimes. This particular sense is how our brain processes the specific flavor of foods, like sweet, salty, sour, or bitter. We can taste foods with our taste buds, which develop and change over time.
Hearing – Auditory Sense
The next sense we all regularly utilise during mealtimes is the sense of hearing. Each sound we hear while we eat, such as chewing, biting, smacking, crunching, and the sound of our cutlery on plates, all impact our sensory system.
Body Position – Proprioception
Another sense used during mealtimes that your little one will use is body position/proprioception. This sense tells us how to hold foods and apply pressure where needed. For example, how hard to hold onto a banana without squishing it or how much you have to grip onto a spoon to keep it upright.
Balance and Movement – Vestibular Sense
Our vestibular sense is the ability we have to move around and keep ourselves balanced. This includes how to keep an upright posture and how to focus on our eating and breathing. It’s important for babies to have supportive seating during mealtimes for this reason, as mealtime posture is something they will need to know as they develop.
Internal Body Signals – Interoception Sense
The final sense that is utilised every day and will impact your little ones mealtimes is the interoception sense. This sense gives our brains information about how we feel and what’s happening inside our bodies, including the feeling of hunger, fullness, pain, anxiety, and more. Each of these sensations can significantly impact your baby’s mealtimes.
Each of our eight senses greatly impacts our eating and helps us decide what kind of foods we love, like and are learning about. So, it’s essential to understand how each of these senses relates to our sensory system, as it will impact how your baby eats as they discover new foods and textures. We hope this sensory system explanation helps you better understand your baby’s senses at mealtime!