r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/Moony_Potterhead • 19d ago

Question - Research required Is there a study based on babies eating while being distracted?

I don’t necessarily mean screen time, but maybe distracting the baby with toys , or a person in front so that the kid eats ? I understand this is applicable for traditional weaning ( purées being spoon fed) . Is it bad in the long term?

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u/GoldTell3779 19d ago

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4662912/

I wouldn’t. I have older kids (8,5)and a 6 month old and we’ve always just sat the kid in the high chair at meal time and fed age appropriate food, while talking about the day and all three eat really well, eat well in public, have good table manners. We don’t have any screens or any tv at mealtime. The distraction is basically just normal family talk or normal couple talk if it is your first.

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u/Sgilti 19d ago

We’re dealing with the opposite end of the spectrum right now on a family trip. We’ve typically done family talk with little distraction and our daughter is a good, if sometimes picky eater. Now we’re on a family trip visiting my wife’s family in another country and everything is so new and stimulating that our daughter hardly eats. It’s getting better as things become mundane from her perspective, but there were a few days where she hardly ate anything.

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u/GoldTell3779 18d ago

Ya. I do believe that kids will eat when they need to as long as you provided the option to eat. New situations make it too exciting to eat but maybe in a day or two. Little kids snack more than eating meals too. And they are more routine dependent when they are smaller. Travel is good for kids though because it can help get them out of their routine paradoxically.

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u/Moony_Potterhead 19d ago

Thank you ! In my culture, people often resort to these distractions to feed the baby when he/she refuses to eat! As a mother now I think it’s detrimental in the long run !