Belle’s OT Corner

Self Care Season: Feeding Skills

• Belle • Season 5 • Episode 3

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The fastest way to make mealtimes calmer isn’t a new gadget; it’s seeing what’s really happening beneath the spills. In this week's episode We unpack how posture, coordination, attention, and sensory processing shape every bite, and why small, smart changes can turn chaos into progress without power struggles or pressure.

We start with setup and posture, how this can impact on our ability to access feeding. We chat through the importance of mess and simple strategies to bring into mealtimes. We also chat through restricted diets through a sensory lens, showing how unpredictable textures and smells can shrink a child’s “safe foods,” and how low-demand exploring—an extra plate, silly food art, cooking together—opens the door to variety.

You’ll learn practical, OT-backed steps for self-feeding. For spoons and forks, we use backwards chaining and tiny prompts to fade support. We share simple cues that can help kids to organise their movements. For knives, we build bilateral coordination with the knife in the dominant hand, soft foods first, and a clear rhythm—fork in, saw forwards-back, press down then back. We round out with some quick strategies to support drinking from open cups. Along the way, we keep meals playful and social so learning sticks.

If these ideas help, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s in the thick of mealtime challenges, and leave a review to tell us what worked and what you want next. Your stories shape the topics we dig into next.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone and welcome back to Bell's OT Corner. And wow, has it been a minute? I when it's just me on this podcast, sometimes I forget how fast time can fly. And you particularly at this time of year, and I'm sure you guys are starting to feel it too. I swear every second day I'm going, where is the year gone? How is it, you know, already October? And then it's not October now, it's November. And then it's almost Thanksgiving for those of you who think celebrate Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving or whatever it is. And then soon enough we're rolling into the end of year and Christmas time and Hanukkah time and all of the chaos of all the celebrations that come along with that as well. So time is just flying. But we will keep going and we will jump back into our self-care season. And today we're going to be talking about feeding. So all things feeding from, and we'll see how we go with this episode because it is quite a big topic. So if we're running long on time, I'll stop and we'll do a part two next week. But we'll start with what we want to get through today is looking at like general self-feeding skills. What are the kind of the component skills required? What's the piece behind, you know, what's the piece that's going on behind everything that we don't normally think about, but it's always important to consider. Looking at some of the sensory components of feeding and what can happen if we've got a really limited diet and some of the reasons why, and as always, some of the strategies that we can do to help with that. Looking at spoon and fork use, how we can build some independence there. Looking at drinking from a cup and how we can build strategies there, and then hopefully some knife and fork strategies as well. Which actually, now that I'm reading through my little plan, does feel like a lot. So we're gonna just jump in, see how we go, and if we need to do it over two, we do it over two episodes, and that's just fine. So, feeding the joys of feeding. Now, feeding skills take a really, really long time to build in independence. We can see, gosh, you start, and you just, you know, breast or bottle fed, and then you move on to pureees, and then eventually you can get into solids, and it gets really exciting, and then things get really messy. Well, I mean, they've already been messy, but even messier. And then we start to explore with our hands, and then we move on from our hands to feeding with cutlery. And how do I use a spoon? And how do I use a fork? And then how do I use a spoon and a fork together? And some of these skills can take up to at least seven years old. It is a really long process because it gets more and more complex the more steps that we add in. And if we think about feeding and we think about some of the skills that are involved behind the scenes, we need things like our postural control. So jump back into our motor skills season if you want to have a bit of a listen into that in terms of I need to be able to keep my body upright and organized to give me that really strong base of support so I can use my arms to do something. We also need our fine motor skills to be able to pick up the cutlery and how to navigate the cutlery. I need my coordination to be able to organize my movements, to be able to sequence the steps involved, to be able to, let's say we're using a spoon, reach out, grab my spoon, move my hand over to the plate, scoop some food onto my spoon, keep that balanced all the way to my mouth, put it in my mouth, bring the spoon back out with after taking the food off my spoon in my mouth. So if that's you using your tongue or your lips or whatever, bring that spoon back down, either place it back down on the table or bring it back down to the bowl to be able to scoop some more to repeat the action. What's going on there in terms of our coordination? So we have your postural control, our fine motor skills, we've got our coordination piece that's coming in. When we start to look at using a knife and fork together, you've got bits of bilateral coordination. So again, if these terms start familiar for you, please do jump back into the earlier seasons where we talk about them in a little bit more detail. Um, but using that kind of left and right side of our body for different jobs. And then on top of all of that, we've then got everything else that we need to think about in terms of well, am I motivated for the task? Do I want to do this? Can I persist and problem solve through it? Do I have a wide range of foods that I like to eat? All of these pieces also come into play in terms of some of the skills behind. And then there's also the um swallowing part of eating as well, which is covered typically by speech and language therapists and dysphagia speech and language therapists. And so if you do have any concerns about your child's swallowing, then I would really recommend you reach out to a speech and a dysphagia speech and language therapist or a speech and language therapist who has experience with dysphagia to be able to chat to them about your concerns. But when we think about it, there are lots of steps, just like when we're talking about dressing, it's similar concepts. There's lots of things going on behind the scenes. And so when we look at having there being some breakdown within developing our independence and feeding, what we want to do is play detectives and go, okay, well, why? What is the piece that's actually a little bit tricky? Where is the piece that they're finding it a little bit hard? And what could we do to help and support them and build that independence? And so as we go through today, you'll start to see some common themes. I encourage you to think about your child or kids in your class around, oh, maybe that's what the bit that's tricky for them, and then try some strategies out to see if they help and support. Because as much as possible, we want to help them to focus on the bit that's tricky and put the supports in for everything else so that they can actually engage with the bit that's tricky to start to build those skills. Or it might be that we actually just change the bit that's tricky. For example, if there is a spoon that works and there's a preferred spoon, and I can eat with that spoon, then fantastic. We don't need to do anything other than get another one of those spoons. Or looking at do we need a different spoon that has a bigger grasp and bigger handle, or there's many an option, which we will get into, I promise. I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. But what I really encourage you to do as we chat through the episode today, is to think about the children in your lives, be them your children, kids in your class, your nieces, nephews, grandkids, whoever it might be, and start to think about well, where could the breakdown be for them and how could we make it a little bit easier? Or how could I support their independence as well? Because it's sometimes a fact of actually just doing a little bit less and allowing that little bit of extra time and allowing them to fail, to figure it out, to then be able to try again, so that they can start to build their confidence, start to build their skills, and ultimately build that independence as well. And trust me, I get it. Sometimes you just want to get food in, and so you just, I'm just gonna do it. It's just gonna be faster. And don't get me wrong, there is definitely a time and place for just getting food in. But we also want to make sure that we're looking at going, okay, well, do we need to allow a bit more time around mealtime so that we can have this extra time to be able to practice the skill as well? Alrighty. So if we think about feeding, and if we think about in particular, we're just gonna really quickly touch on a bit of positioning bits and pieces and some general strategies for feeding before we jump into the specifics of you know, using a spoon, using a fork, using uh cups and all those things, but uh general bits for feeding. So we did say that uh one piece that's going on in the background is this postural control. And so the more that we can make sure we're eating in a supportive position, the easier it is for our body to organize our movements to be able to have all of our focus on feeding itself. So, and now individual differences may impact upon this, but this is just kind of general guidelines that we like to look at is looking at can we have feet supported so they're not swinging their feet around and they've got that really strong base of support and that stability as they're eating. You know, where are they sitting in terms of how close are they to the table? Are they nice and close so they don't have to lean or reach out of their base of support? Or are they actually a little bit far away? So every time that they're having to reach for that, they're leaning forwards and then they're having to manage that balance whilst they do the tricky thing of scooping to then lean back to be able to eat. Being able to have their forearms on their table can be really helpful as well, and so just think about what position is going to be best for them. And it's the same if your child accesses some specialist seating, is looking and chatting with the occupational therapist about what is the best position to be in, and how can we make sure they're in a position where they can access the most movements possible to be able to support them with their eating as well. So just some little bits to kind of think keep in mind in the back of your head, and I find the biggest one can sometimes be the distance from the table is the one that gets missed because everyone does such a good job going feet supported, sitting back in the chair, really nice, and then you go, Oh, actually, all of that's great, but then we're having to lean so far to get to the table that then things get a little bit tricky. So just things to think about. All right, general strategies for feedings, it can be a very frustrating process, it can also create a lot of mess, and mess is a good thing, and we'll chat about a bit more why mess is a good thing when we chat about some sensory differences in feeding. But mess is a really, really good thing, and I really encourage you to allow the mess. Let it go everywhere, all over their face, on their nose, in their ears, wherever they decide to put it as they're learning to self-feed. It's really important that we allow them to do that piece of exploration. Part of that could be because they're still building their motor skills and their coordination, and so they go to aim for their mouse, but they miss instead. Maybe they got distracted until they turned to look at something as their hand was coming up, so all of a sudden it's ended up in their hair. And maybe sometimes you just look at them at the end and you go, I don't know, I don't know how you got food there, but it's okay because we can clean it later. And I really encourage you to make sure we're not cleaning it in the minute, in that moment, but we're actually cleaning it later when we finished feeding, getting food all through our fingers, over our cheeks, because all of that is just helping them figure out what's happening, what does that sensation feel like? Well, I missed my mouth, so I need to do something different next time. Mess is a really, really good thing, even though it's frustrating because you then have to clean it up. And so some of those, you know, I've worked with parents that go, I get it, and I understand, but that's just it stresses me out so much. And I understand that I do. And so there's lots of really great like aprons around now where they can um like it's a full bib and apron thing, clips up behind their neck. Um, they've got sleeves to it as well. It's typically got a little pocket to it which catches half the food that falls off the tray or the table. Um, and they can be a really nice option as well because they can still explore it all on their hands and their wrists, they can still explore it on their face, but then you can just pull that one off. So, you know, we don't need to add stress as well. So if that is really tricky for you, there are options that you can look at to make it a little bit easier and also make the cleanup a little bit easier as well. I mentioned it before, but we want to allow lots of time when we're looking at feeding, lots of time for them to have a play, have an explore, maybe have a mouthful, get a bit distracted, get a bit frustrated, try again. Having the time is going to be really, really helpful for them to be able to continue to explore. And it might be, depending upon where they're at, it's that time together as well. And so they can, you know, do a couple scoops, but they're getting a bit frustrated. So you might help with a scoop so that we actually are eating and so we're not hangry and trying to learn how to feed, and then you go, okay, I'm busy, or I'm gonna be over here having mine, and you're modeling how to have it and modelling how to use the spoon, and then they can sit there and have another turn as well. My other biggest tip if you take one thing away from today is we talk about all the different strategies and things that we can do. The biggest thing, always, always constantly think, could I do a little bit less here? Could I wait a little bit longer? Could I give them a bit more time to try it for themselves? And if I can try it. It may not work, they might get a bit frustrated and you go, Oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot, or I need to help you, or you'd like some more help, that's okay. I can help. But giving them the opportunities to have a go and do that little bit more and you do a little bit less, and we're not talking big changes, it's like, you know, maybe instead of scooping for them, you hold but you wait for them to put their hand on top of yours and help you guide up, or if they're starting to do the guiding but they, you know, maybe get a little bit stuck and they want your help, could you guide and help them from their elbow? Or could you just put like two fingers on the edge of the spoon so that they think you're helping, but really they're doing most of it themselves. These are the little bits where you can start to drew a little bit less and do a little bit less and help them do a little bit more each time as well. Alrighty. Let's dive into sensory impacts around feeding. So often, often, often, often, I will see kids who have a restricted diet or have a very limited range of foods that are safe foods for them, and it becomes quite a big parent priority to help them broaden the range of foods that they might want to eat and might want to experience. Now, we're going to talk about some of the reasons why this can happen, and we're going to talk about some of the simple strategies that you can do to support this, and it could even be just supporting, you know, more variety in veggies or more variety outside of pasta, because I mean, can't blame them. I love pasta too. But if you do have concerns about your child's diet, um, or you know, they're maybe being called a fussy feeder or they might have a really restricted diet, I really recommend you do reach out to an occupational therapist to see if they can provide some specific guidance and help you do the breakdown for your specific child. Um, as some of as these strategies then do become a bit quite individualized, but just we'll do some general bits and pieces today. But for more specific bits and individualized recommendations, I strongly encourage you to reach out to an occupational therapist. But why is sensory and feeding so intertwined? Well, A, it's using many of our systems all at the same time. So if we think about all of our different systems from an introsceptive perspective, so again, if these um systems aren't familiar to you, jump back into our sensory season. But from an introspective perspective, we've got all the sensations around feeling hungry and the cues of feeling hungry and feeling full and all of those good things. And so if I'm not even feeling hungry, why do I care about food? We've got our vision, and so we'll be able to see the food and go, oh, that looks good, that looks interesting, what shape is it, what colour is it? Are there things that are mashed together or are they all separate on the plate? We've got and then is the smell. Oh, does it a smell that I like or a smell that I don't like? Example for me, I really, really don't like the smell of eggs, and I find it really like it actually makes me want to throw up. If there's so many strong egg smells, and so when I was growing up, I would, you know, leave the kitchen or sit outside for five minutes because everyone else liked eggs, and that's totally fine, but I'm not coming close to an egg. Because then there's the other part of it of the texture, right? So that touch side of it, they're slimy and they're goopy, and uh just there's so many reasons why. But and the list can go on, but someone else could say this for so many other foods, right? So we can touch foods both in our hands and then with our lips and then in our mouths as well, and then we use our tongue to move it around our mouth to different parts of our mouth so that we can chew it, and then the texture changes. Or do I have one texture in the sense of if I'm eating chips, for example, they're typically a bit of crunch on the outside and pretty soft on the inside. They're gonna be relatively consistent, but then even if you think of chips, they're gonna change from a fat chip to like a thin Macca's chip or a McDonald's chip. And so you can start to see your texture changes, and then we add more complexity if you're thinking like a spag bowl, for example, or a spaghetti bolonnaise. Well, then you could have like some mints in there, you're gonna have pasta, you're gonna have sauce, maybe you have some veggies, maybe some are more cooked than others, so some are crunchier than others, and all of a sudden we're adding m lots and lots of complexity that our brains have to be able to differentiate and figure out to go, yes, this is safe, I'm okay, we can have this food. Or does it add additional stress to our body and we go, whoop, that doesn't feel safe, I'm not coming anywhere close to that. No, thank you. So yeah, we've got our vision, we've got our tactile, we've got our smell, and we also have taste as well. Yeah, so do I like the taste of this or not? And that's very individualized. And then sometimes um you can have some hearing less frequently, but sometimes you can have hearing impact on it all, particularly if you're eating something really crunchy, or is it actually that meal times are a really big stressor because not liking the sound of everybody else chewing their foods? Do people chew with their mouths opened or closed? And so meal times in themselves are very, very sensory-heavy experiences. And on top of all that, if we're thinking within the school environment, you've then got all the noise of other kids and all the busyness of all the other children as well. So you really can't quite separate your feeding and your meal times from your sensations and your sensory experiences. So when you look at having a restricted diet, as I said, I really recommend you would speak to an occupational therapist to start do that. Okay, so why? What is the bit that's going on? Did they have a bad experience with a food, which can be quite common? For example, fruit's my favorite example. Everyone's like, oh, but fruit's fantastic. I'm like, yeah, fruit's fantastic when it's good. But if you think of like you could be eating through a punnet of strawberries and they're great, and they're great, and they're great, and then one of them is just not. And how can I prepare myself for the one that's gone a little bit off? Or maybe it's gone a little bit too ripe, a little bit too sour. Same with strawberries, you know, they don't all taste the same. So how can I get myself ready for what I'm about to taste if I don't know exactly what it's gonna taste like? Whereas bread, bread's gonna taste the same, particularly if I'm getting the same brand of bread and the same type of bread, that's going to be a much more consistent taste and a much more consistent texture experience than say something like fruit. So, how can we look to help someone who might have a more restricted diet? And what we again, these are very, very simple, very, very general strategies to think about. But we want to make sure it's low demand. We are not forcing someone to eat something. If we have the preferred foods and the safe foods, then they can come out at mealtimes. And maybe it's at other times of day, like cooking can be a great one, that we can explore it. Or maybe they could have an exploring plate next to what they're eating that is that this is what everyone else is having, or this is what mum and dad are having, and would you like to explore? And when I say explore, it could just be looking at it and talking about it. And talking about it in terms of, well, oh look, it's a bit soft. Oh look, if I squash it down, it all little bit of the juice squirts out. Hmm, that's interesting. I wonder if that would happen if it was in your mouth. Talking about what it looks like, what it might feel like, maybe it's building and touching the food together, you know, making faces with the food, building towers with the food, all of these things can really help to start to explore it before we're even putting it anywhere near our mouths. Just kind of looking at talking about it, what it might feel like, what it might, what you think it tastes like. Oh to me, this tastes like this. And acknowledging that it's gonna taste different to everyone, and it's okay if you like or don't like things. And so that messy part of food and messy play and messy food prep can be really helpful. And even if it's you know, you might be feeling it, and they have a spoon to be able to look and explore it, that's great. Building up towards touching it and exploring it. These are little steps that we want in a nice, playful way, so involving them can be really, really powerful. Involving them in cooking, involving them in shopping. Come down and walk down, and ooh, I don't like this one, and that's okay, no problem. We can try it later if you feel like it, but we don't have to try it right now. Looking at um I just said that one. Sorry. It's happened sometimes. I have my notes, and then I like in terms of vague plans for the episode, and then I go off on a bit of a tangent, then I've looked back at my notes and go, I've done that one, I've done that one, I've done that one. So we really want to have positive associations with our food and having that time to get used to a new food before we even try to eat it, and so doing things slowly, not changing too much all at once, and just having that time and space to explore, and ultimately having mealtimes being fun. But also, and it's a catch 22, where possible, you are gonna be the biggest and best role model. And so if you can role model for them how to explore or trying things that you're not sure about and going, oh, this is a bit different, okay. Well, let's try it, let's see. You know, talking to your kids about what you like and what you don't like, and that, oh, that one was really, really crunchy and it got a bit stuck in my teeth, and I didn't really like that. I'm gonna go and brush my teeth to get it out. You know, chatting through the fact that it's okay to not like things, but also that you can still try things to see if there's something else that you do like. Being that role model and having that time together can be really, really powerful. I mean, the reality of life is you can't always have every meal together. Things get busy and that's okay. But looking to go when we can, we're gonna do it together, and I'm gonna use that time to be that role model of trying things I don't like, or just talking about the food that I'm eating and talking about it in terms of those textures and things that I was mentioning before. Also, choice and control is really, really helpful when we're looking at foods as well. You know, that they don't have to, they have choice over what they eat and what they don't eat, and they can tr look to explore and we can try together. But where possible, if you go, well here, this is the food tonight, what would you like? Would you like, you know, the piece of beef or would you like some um chicken? You know, would you like some rice or would you like some pasta? Slowly building it up so they can know what to expect. And what which food would you like to explore today? Which bit from mum's plate or which bit from dad's plate would you like to explore today? And so we're framing it as that they have that control. And the biggest thing that you can do, and this is actually to support all types of feeding, but also can support when you know you've got some um difficulties with diet and some restricted diets and things, but make mealtimes fun, make it enjoyable, do things that are a bit silly or a little bit, you know, to lighten the mood, have chats at dinner so it's not all about the pressure of the food. We're talking about other things and we just happen to be eating, or make it all about the food in a really silly and playful way. You know, you can use ketchup to paint on top of your sausages, or you can use, you know, no plates today, and we're just gonna put down some baking paper on the table, and we're just gonna eat off the table, and that's gonna be a little bit different and a little bit silly. You know, there's lots of ways that you can get creative with how you can make dinner time fun. You know, you can oh gosh, there's just so so many. Um you can, you know, make pictures with your food on the plates, and you can talk about what you've you know, what you've made or how your um, you know, little trees instead of calling them broccoli, like, you know, I've got my little trees and I've got my little this and you know, eating your way through it, talking about it openly, but just doing it in a really light-hearted way. The more we can make it fun and playful, the easier it is for kids to engage with it. And also, it doesn't always have to be all about the food, as I said, it can be just dinner time where we talk about other things. But as much as possible, limiting other distractions of having TVs in the background is gonna make it easier for the focus to be on mealtimes and also just on hanging out together and being that role model as well. But let's jump into thinking about some cutlery use. So, so we think about using a spoon or a fork, so we'll do those ones together if we start to think about exploring some cutlery now. There's lots that's involved in cutlery use, as we kind of talked about before from the motor organization side of it to be able to maintain my grasp on the cutlery. Um, and so there's lots of things that we can do to help build a bit of independence. Number one, when we're looking at spoons, use things that are gonna stick to the spoon when we're starting to learn. There is nothing more frustrating, and same with when we're using forks, use things that are gonna be easy to stab. There is nothing more frustrating than when you're trying to scoop something like you know, even I have it sometimes and I'm trying to scoop the peas up, but I don't have a knife, and I really just don't want to have to go and get a knife. And so, nine times out of ten, I'm just gonna end up using my fingers to push them on because I've tried to scoop them three or four times and they keep on rolling away, and I'm like, that's it, I've had enough, or I'll just use my fingers. And so on that, if you see your kid and they've tried and they've tried, and they then go to use their fingers, that's okay. Because they've done the problem solving, and we also need to go that I'm actually hungry and I also want to eat. Sometimes for some parents, they can find it really helpful, and I frequently recommend for like mum and dad to do maybe the first three mouthfuls. Get a little bit of food in, hit that hunger curve, and then go, great, your turn, you can have a try now. Because also what we've done in that is we've modeled the motor movement, we've modeled how it's supposed to happen. They can, you know, guide it with their hand on top of yours as well if they feel like it. And then looking at as well, we talked about a little bit in the last episode around backwards chaining. So this is where you do everything but the last step. Now, this is a bit trickier within feeding, and so you want to think of about it more as that kind of fading of support. So, if it is that they're gonna do the last bit, then you could load the spoon, bring the spoon all the way up to their mouth, they can open their mouth, you can help them guide the spoon in, and you're gonna wait for them to try and get the spoon, the food off the spoon. Now you might tip the spoon a little bit to help, but that could be the first bit that they're working on. Yeah? And then it might be that you load the spoon and you bring it up and you're gonna hold it close to their face, and yes, maybe they might just try and lean forward to open their mouth for it, but encouraging them to, you know, use their hand to even if it's on top of yours, guide your hand into their mouth. And then it might be that you load the spoon and you leave it on the table. Or you load the spoon and you but you hold it out to them in a position that's easy for them to grasp, so they can then bring it up to their mouth to the last bit. Looking at each of these steps in terms of which bits can I start to fade out, you know, and then it might be that you load the spoon and you leave it on the table, or you load the spoon but you put it back in the bowl. So then they're starting to build the association with the bowl. And maybe once we got all of this, you're then helping them learn how to scoop, and you can use modern mnemonics, I always stumble on that word, to help them figure it out. Like it could be out, in and up to be able to reach out and over the bowl, in towards me, and then up, or whatever words come to mind, because the reality is the word doesn't matter as much. But where possible, if you think back to our motor season, if we can explicitly label the movements that they need to do, that can make it a little bit easier to organize themselves. But you know, I've had some kids that go out, squash, and up because they're having to squash all the food against the side of the bowl and having to like tip that spoon to get the right angle. And then it might be that once they're starting to get that back, we then need to help them be able to bring the spoon back down as well. Now, this might happen naturally for some kids, and other kids we didn't need to go, okay. I've got my spoon. How do I come back down to the table to do another scoop? And so it's looking at, okay, well, where's the bit of a breakdown and how can we help support? Also, thinking about what cutlery your kids are using. So there's some really, really great um cutlery that has different indents for different things. There's some that have got like arced spoons, there's some that are just bigger to hold on to in terms of like a bigger handle, but also sometimes. Going on and getting some kids' cutlery is really helpful because their hands are small, and so smaller things can be easier to hold. Well, not necessarily smaller things can be easier to hold, but things that match the size of their hand that still have enough that they can hold their grasp around it. When you're thinking about cutlery and things as well, it's looking at how are they picking it up and does it really matter? When they start with it, they might pick up their cutlery and just bang it on the table, and you sit there going bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and you want to pull your hair out because they're just going bang bang bang bang bang. Okay, that's fine. It's part of the exploration process. And you can go, oh, spoons aren't for banging, they're for scooping. Let me show you. Scoop, scoop, and they're up. And they might take it back and go bang bang bang, and they're more that we can remodel and reframe, but also allow that time where they can start to explore it a little bit can be really, really helpful. If you're looking at sort of specialist spoons and things, that's when I would recommend you chat to an occupational therapist to look at exactly what's going to be right for your child. But there are some fantastic ones out there where they're like anti-tremor ones. And so if you know your child that has difficulty or has a tremor, the spoon itself stabilizes, even if you're shaking the handle of the spoon a little bit, they're phenomenal. There's heaps out there, which is just fantastic. Now there's more and more accessible equipment, which I am just loving. So if we think about it, we're looking at pulling back support as much as we can. We're looking at making sure they are given the time to be able to do as much as they can. Looking at times outside of mealtimes as well that they can explore spoons, you know, can they use them in with Play-Doh and in play and in water play? Water play is a great one. Um, you know, have some in the bath and scoop up some water and splash it everywhere. It's fantastic fun. Um, or even in cooking as well. So the times where there's less pressure, less hunger, which can be a stressor. And so we're going, I'm already hungry, I'm already a bit angry because I'm a bit cranky, because I'm already hungry. And so actually having to do all the thinking on top of that's really hard. And so, how can we, you know, look to manage and do different times that we can explore sponsors as well? Or forks. Same, same for both. Um, and then you can look at like, you know, the plate that you're using and the um tray that you're using, or you know, there's like great non-slip mats, and so if you're finding that your child's doing really well, but every time they try, they're knocking the thing over, non-slip bit of non-slip mat underneath will keep the bowl in place and give them that little bit more resistance, or you can get um bowls that have a bigger curve to them, so you can come up and against the side a little bit easier. There's lots out there, and again, if you're getting a bit stuck, I'd recommend you reach out to an occupational therapist for which one's gonna be right for your child. But there's also some that aren't that expensive that you can just um have a try with as well. Amazon is fantastic for some of those things. And it's the same sort of process with a fork in terms of you know, it would be the kind of next step after we look at our spoon, but it's a bit of okay, well, which bits can they do? Can we, you know, do I need to help them stab, particularly if it's something that's a little bit tougher because we need to go push and use those big muscles. Come on, we need to s oh got it. And then how we can help them guide it up to their mouths, and then you know, that process is a little bit the same, but it's also then looking at, well, how are we gonna hold it? Because we're gonna hold it a little bit differently to a spoon, maybe not initially, and maybe that's a bit of exploring that we do together. Because don't forget there is so much power in figuring things out together. Just like we've been talking about in almost every season now, is that the more that we can problem solve together, the more that it's gonna be easier to start to figure out how to figure it out for myself. So it could be that you're not you've got the spoon, and again, this is making it fun and making it silly, right? So you've got the spoon and you're gonna go, it's not working, and maybe you're using the wrong end of the spoon. Now, this is more likely gonna be if you've got someone who's a little bit older and you can be that little bit silly, no, you've got to turn it around. Oh, okay, turn it around. And then you might hold it in a really silly way. And again, you could do this with your own things at mealtimes, or the way you can make meal time silly is going, right, everyone has to hold their cutlery in a silly way today. Or you have to try and use your fork to eat things that are supposed to be eaten with your spoon. You know, play around with it because then it gets more focused on the doing something silly, but actually you get really good incidental practice and really good problem solving that you can start to do. Oh, this bit isn't working, so let's do it this way, and then you start to um build some of the skills that you're gonna need for that persistence within using the piece of cutlery itself. It's a really, really fun one. Um, but the more that you can model the problem solving, and the more that you can also sometimes just wait and give them time, like you know, you see them and they're banging their spoon and they're trying to scoop it, but they've got the spoon at the wrong angle, and so they keep on trying, and it's not quite working. Now, obviously, you know your kids best, but you know the kids in your class best. But if you can give them a couple of seconds and see if they'll do it, and then maybe you just go and give the tiniest bit of help. I might not even talk. I just might go I just did a gesture and of course none of you guys can see it. But I might just help on the end of the spoon and turn it just a little bit and go and draw the attention to what I did, but not have to tell them, oh, you need to turn it and don't do it this way, and because that's gonna be so much language that they're gonna have to stop and think about. But actually, if we can just use a bit of our facial expressions, fix it, draw the attention to whoop, I turned it around, and then off they go and they can try again. And then giving them that time the next time it happens, because it's gonna happen a lot because we're learning, and the next time they have it at the wrong angle, give them a bit of a time. Can they do it? Nope, okay, we're just gonna whoop turn it around and up we go again. Um, and so allowing that time for that problem solving is so so powerful, and something that I really encourage you guys to do. Alrighty. So that's looking at spoon and fork, that's looking at sensory considerations, that's looking at some of the component skills required. Whew, do you know what? We're gonna keep going. And it might be a slightly longer episode, but that's okay. So when we start to think about, I'm gonna do knife and fork next, and then we'll go back to kind of drinks and cups and things. But if we think about knife and fork, this is gonna be when we're a bit older. And this is when we're having to look at coordinating two sides of our body, and so it gets tricky for a whole range of different reasons, but how we're gonna help is quite similar. So if we look at okay, well, how can we figure out what the motor movements are that we need? Right? Do we have a rule for our fork and a rule for our knife? And so once we've figured it out, and maybe you know they're starting to learn their knife, okay. So I'll do the fork and you do the knife. And what does the knife have to do? Is it gonna go forwards, backwards? Is it gonna go swash swash? Is it gonna go up and down? Is it just gonna push down? And giving the time to problem solve through how it's gonna go. And again, you can do this in cooking times, you can do this with Play-Doh, you can do this in so many different ways, but figuring out well what movements do I need to actually use my knife. Now, I really do recommend that you put the knife in the dominant hand that's a little bit stronger, and the fork in the non-dominant hand, just because it's gonna help with a little bit of the organization. And so, you know, your simple progressions of start off with something softer, move up to something firmer. You know, bananas can be a great one. And when we're starting to learn how to cut, we can do it by holding something with our hand, or you using the fork and them using the knife, and then when we start to build in the next bit, you know, they go, okay, so right, we need to get the fork, stab the food, then we need to get the knife and cut, cut, cut. And where are we gonna cut? You know, do I cut so far away? And again, this is where you can be really silly and playful with it, and then you can move up more and more to okay, what's next? How can I oh that didn't work? Oh no, you know, I've used the back of my knife for cutting so that we can figure out that actually we need to use the other side. I've used the wrong end of my knife trying to cut something. I've shaken my knife and just stabbed down at the food. Because then we go, well, that didn't work. Play around with the things that are a little bit silly and then start to figure it out together. You know, have them put their hands on top of yours and they can push your hands to do it. Talking through each step and thinking about what actually has to happen is a really, really helpful way to start help them start to figure it out. And you can use those motor mnemonics again every time. Motor mnemonics, there we go. Um, to be able to go, okay, so fork in, knife, forwards, back, down, back. Because also the other bit that's quite tricky that often we need to explicitly teach a little bit is the fact that the knife is moving forwards and backwards, but we actually need to push down and forwards and pull down and back, push down and forwards, pull down and back, and it gets more complicated. So if you start to think about and watch and have that curiosity when you're looking at your kid, or if it's a kid in your class that you're helping and you're, you know, working with the parents really closely and go, okay, well, what is the bit that we're seeing is really tricky? Because you'll pick it up quite quickly. Is it that the fork gets held around the wrong way and then we're putting the knife on the other side of the fork? Okay, well then that's what we can figure out and we can problem solve together. Is it that we're using the wrong side of the cutlery consistently? You know, I had one kid that ended up going, well, their fork has to make the end of the rainbow because it's got the arch in it every time. They made the end of the rainbow first and then they cut, and then they were great. And so just having that little bit of playful curiosity and going, okay, well, what could we, you know, how could we figure this out together? And well, I do it like this, and this seems to work, but we could also do it a different way, and again, it's that shared problem solving to figure things out. You can see there starts to be a bit of a common theme in some of these. Alrighty guys, that is all of our cutlery then. Just some simple tips and tricks of what you can do to support with bits of cutlery. Last bit we're gonna touch on. I'm very aware that this has gotten to be a bit of a longer episode. Um, so if you need to pause it in the middle, I hope you have. I really should have said that earlier. Um, but by all means come back to it. Fast forward to the bit that you need. I am gonna start to try and figure out how to put little chapter markings in. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, but hopefully it means you'll be able to kind of find the piece of information that you're looking for when you do come along to these. Okay, so thinking about helping kids start to use cups. Try variety is always really good. Look at, you know, cups with handles, cups without handles, um, cups that are gonna have a little beaker or a little spout to them that have a lid to start off with, because all the thing that we're doing first is being able to coordinate, holding something, bringing it up, tipping it back, and tipping my head back a little bit, but not having it go everywhere. So lids with cups to start with. When you start to move into open cups, so when I say open cups, it's a cup without a lid. So um sometimes they might be with handles, sometimes they might be without handles. It doesn't really matter if you find your kids having a lot of difficulty with one without handles, maybe try one with handles. But equally, we can kind of persist with those with what we have as well. My biggest tip for this is again allow the mess, allow the problem solving for making a mistake, but also be really considerate of how much water or how much liquid you're putting into a cup. Because if you put a lot of liquid into a cup, yep, as they start to bring it up, it's going to be a little bit heavier and it's gonna hit their face and hit their lips before they've actually tipped their head back a little bit. And sometimes they need that full movement because that's what they're used to. Likewise, on the opposite, if you put a little bit of water, they're going to go so fast and tip it so back so much that it's probably gonna end up going too fast and all over their face. If you kind of find a nice little sweet spot in the middle and you'll start to figure this out as you kind of do some trial and error, then there's enough that they get a little bit of weight to the cup and they can might start to slow and grade their movements. And again, if you notice they're going really fast, you might go, we need to go slow, slow, slow, slow, otherwise it splashes and we don't want splash. And so looking at, you know, if you go that kind of middle piece, then they can actually organize themselves enough. They're getting that little bit of weight, so they're getting that little bit of proprioceptive feedback, that sense of where their body is, to then be able to organize themselves to tip their head at the right time. So if you're noticing that they're always, always, always spilling it all over themselves, I'd try just a little bit less or a little bit more, depending upon if you have a really empty cup or quite a full cup. Um, and otherwise, all the other strategies are the same as the things that we've got. Look at where you can help and how you can guide, how you can step back bits and pieces as you go, which bits you can, you know, guide from their elbows, maybe sit behind them so that they don't necessarily look like you're doing it, and that way your arms can kind of guide their arms in the same movement, so you're really doing it together. Alrighty guys, well, that brings us to the end of our feeding episode in our self-care season. Next episode is going to be so I didn't end up having to split it, which is great. Next episode, we're going to be diving into bath and shower time, why these can be tricky, how we can make it a bit easier, ways to make it a bit fun and playful, and also ways to start to build independence within washing as well, which is a later skill, but I think it's a really important one to start to think about. So I also wanted to let you know that I have some fun bits going on in the background that I will hopefully be sharing next episode because obviously there's always things happening, um, and it is just me that does the podcast, and so sometimes things take a little bit longer. Um, but hopefully there'll be some exciting things to share with you guys next time, which will be great. So I will see you all soon. Have a great week. Hopefully, find a little piece of calm some point in your week, and otherwise chat soon. Bye guys.