Parents with toddlers and young kids, we are sure some of you may have experienced this problem: Your child is a food-storer. You find that your baby or young child holds food in their mouth and won’t swallow.
No, she doesn’t hoard food and hides them in odd places around the house like she’s worried that World War III will break out and she’ll run out of food. Instead, your child stores food in her mouth… for ages!
Understanding the Frustration
When a baby or child holds food in their mouth and won’t swallow, the whole exercise of feeding and mealtimes can be very frustrating and stressful for parents.
When this happens, mealtimes can potentially drag on for hours. Parents may lose their temper, and the child may end up in tears or refuse to eat.
We spoke to Clinical Psychologist Rachael Tan about this common childhood eating issue.
For Rachael to address the specific problem, we identified a common (hypothetical) scenario and presented the issue so Rachael can provide her expert opinion.
When you child doesn’t eat his meals or stores food in his mouth without swallowing, it can be stressful for both parents and child alike.
Here is the hypothetical scenario of when a baby holds food in their mouth and won’t swallow:
During every meal, my 3-year-old daughter stores food in one side of her mouth like a squirrel! I don’t know how to get her to swallow.
She will wait like this for ages, and I must constantly remind her to chew and swallow. I have tried eliminating all distractions and getting her to sit at the table during mealtimes, but she just daydreams or fidgets and continues to hold the food in her mouth.
She can often take over an hour to get through a meal because of this habit, and mealtimes have become quite stressful because of this.
When I tell her I’m going to take her plate away after a certain time, she gets very distressed and doesn’t want me to do that either.
She seems to prefer softer food, but now she is big enough to eat more varied textures, so I don’t want to give in to her requests for soft food all the time. She often needs to drink water to swallow her food.
What can I do to help teach her how to chew her food and swallow it in a reasonable amount of time?
Expert’s opinion on the topic
Here is Rachael’s advice and opinion on the hypothetical case study presented previously:
“As a general rule of thumb, and if, as outlined in the case study, the child prefers foods with softer textures and needs to drink water to swallow her food frequently, I recommend first having the child checked by a qualified professional such as a General Practitioner or Speech Pathologist.
This will assist in identifying if the child’s difficulties are physical or otherwise. If your assessing clinician determines them to be physical, he or she will be the best person to provide you with a course of intervention to manage those difficulties," she said.
If, however, it is verified that the child is perfectly healthy in this regard, the following information may be useful to you before you seek additional assistance from a qualified professional.
Why It’s Important to Remove Distractions?
Firstly, it is very important to make sure that distractions are removed, for the following reasons:
- It teaches your child early on in life that mealtimes have a certain structure and that there is a time and place for everything.
- It provides a context to practice important things like focus and impulse control. For example, not having the TV on in the background or giving your child an iPad to play on whilst eating means they have to direct their attention to the mealtime process fully.
- When a person (adults included!) is mindful of what they are doing, they can take in and process information better, which leads to more effective learning.
TV can be a big distraction during mealtimes, forcing your child’s focus away from her food.
If your child is paying more attention to Dora on her iPad whilst trying to feed herself, she is probably not paying much attention to her food intake.
Thus, she is not learning what it’s like to gradually feel fuller as she eats more or to control her spoon when scooping up food in preparation for her next mouthful, so the food doesn’t spill over the side of her bowl.
Before you decide the best way to teach your child to chew and swallow their food promptly, you need to identify why your baby or child holds food in their mouth and won’t swallow rather than eat it.
The best way to gather clues for this is to look closely at what’s happening before, during and after mealtimes.
Is Pocketing Food a Sign of Autism?
Pocketing food is a common behaviour among children with autism. It usually occurs when the child is engaged in an activity that he or she enjoys such as watching television.
The reason behind this behaviour has to do with the way that children perceive the world. Children with autism often have difficulty understanding how other people think and feel, making it difficult to interact with others and understand social cues.
For example, if a non-autistic child sees his mother eating an apple, he might realise that if he asks for an apple from her. She will most likely give him one. But an autistic child may not be able to understand that when someone eats something tasty like an apple. They may want more of it later. So if they eat someone else’s apple before that person has finished eating it, they’re unlikely to get one for themselves later on because it’s gone!
Pocketing food is not necessarily a sign of autism itself. Instead, it is a symptom of the difficulties with social interactions that are common among those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Teething and Holding Food in Mouth
Holding food in your mouth and then swallowing it is a skill that develops over time. It’s one of the things you’ll notice your baby learning to do once she starts teething.
Holding food in the mouth and swallowing it is a complex process that involves coordinating many different muscles and nerves, including those in the tongue, lips, cheeks, and jaw. Teething can make this coordination more difficult. Especially if your baby is in pain and trying to eat more frequently than usual.
You may find that your baby has trouble holding food in her mouth while she chews it. She may also have trouble coordinating her tongue movements with swallowing. This can make eating very frustrating for both you and your baby! The good news is that as she gets older and better at coordinating her movements, these problems should resolve themselves.
Why Your Child May Be Choosing to Prolong the Eating Process
Do you praise your child when she actually does swallow her food?
Before Mealtimes
If your child typically has a snack between meals, she may be too full of ingesting any more food at mealtimes comfortably. If you feel this may be the case, try to limit your child’s intake before meals.
A good place to start is to halve the number of snacks you normally give her, so her routine is not entirely disrupted. See whether this makes a difference at actual mealtimes.
During Mealtimes
When you are trying to get your child to eat, does she get lots of attention due to your many attempts to get her to finish her meal?
Just like the TV, constantly talking to your child can also significantly distract the task. Your child may also enjoy all her attention and be motivated to keep engaging in her squirrel-like eating behaviour!
Try sitting with but only speaking to your child when she swallows her food to see whether this may be the reason for your child’s behaviour. Then give her lots of praise when she does this.
If your child’s behaviour is motivated by attention, she should soon learn that swallowing promptly gets her lots of it. But storing food doesn’t!
This will also teach your child that talking only happens when the mouth is clear of food. Remember the “no talking with your mouth full" rule!
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After Mealtimes
Is there something that usually happens after meals that you think your child may dislike doing?
This could be naptime, a bath. Or perhaps this is the time when expected to spend time on their own while you wash the dishes.
Lengthy mealtimes are possible means of avoidance for your child.
If this is the case, try planning for something less aversive and more enjoyable after meals. Let your child know that they can engage in that activity as soon as they finish eating.
You may want to provide the preferred activity in short bursts of time. Then you can use this same activity to encourage your child to comply with other tasks. Especially those she would prefer not to do, for example, having a bath.
Termed positive reinforcement, this process will motivate your child to want to follow your instructions. When the routine becomes a habit, you can start decreasing the reinforcement level. It’s usually, after about two weeks of being consistent with it.
Doctor chec-up
When Nothing Seems to Work…
Do you find that your baby or child still holds food in their mouth and won’t swallow?
If you are having trouble keeping your child from throwing food on the floor or spilling it, you should see a psychologist. It’s time to ask for help.
We hope you found Rachael’s advice useful. Does your child store food in his or her mouth too? How do you deal with the issue? Do let us know by leaving a comment below.
theAsianparent would also like to thank Rachael Tan for her expert opinion on this matter.
Updates from Pheona Ilagan
Here at theAsianparent Singapore, it’s important for us to give information that is correct, significant, and timely. But this doesn’t serve as an alternative for medical advice or medical treatment. theAsianparent Singapore is not responsible for those that would choose to drink medicines based on information from our website. If you have any doubts, we recommend consulting your doctor for clearer information.
Edited by Pheona Ilagan
