3 More Ways to Help Your Baby Want to Eat – Part 3

If you have been following this series, you already know that removing pressure, avoiding grazing, and serving new foods alongside familiar favourites can make a big difference in helping your baby want to eat. In Part 2 with the Baby Feeding Dr, we added tips about keeping a mealtime routine, encouraging exploration, and supporting sensory comfort. Now, in Part 3, we are building on those foundations with more proven strategies to help your baby or toddler develop a healthy and confident relationship with food.

Make Mealtimes Social

Children learn a huge amount about eating by watching others, especially people they trust. When you sit down and eat the same food alongside your child, they see eating as something enjoyable and shared. Family meals, eating with siblings, or joining friends at the table can help toddlers feel safe enough to try different foods. If your child eats more at daycare than they do at home, social modelling is often the reason. At daycare, they see a group of children happily eating the same thing, which helps reduce fear and build familiarity. Try to replicate that atmosphere at home by eating together whenever possible and letting your child watch you eat and enjoy a variety of foods.

Support Good Seating and Posture

One of the most overlooked barriers to eating is poor seating. If your child is slouching, their feet are dangling, or their hips are not in a stable position, eating can feel uncomfortable and tiring. Good posture supports both comfort and safety. Ideally, your child should be in a supportive highchair or booster seat with feet resting on a firm surface such as a footrest or stool, hips, knees, and ankles at roughly ninety degrees, and a stable seat back to help them sit upright.

When children feel secure in their body, they have more energy and focus for exploring food. Poor positioning can make eating uncomfortable, increase choking risk, reduce their ability to learn to chew efficiently and safely, and cause them to become tired more quickly which means they may eat less overall. Supporting your child’s posture supports both their safety and their appetite and can make mealtimes more productive and enjoyable.

Involve Your Child in Food Preparation

Helping to prepare food can be a game changer for picky eaters and cautious toddlers. Even very young children can participate in safe and simple tasks such as washing fruit, tearing lettuce, stirring ingredients in a bowl, or sprinkling cheese. This hands-on involvement helps children feel more in control, reduces anxiety about unfamiliar foods, and gives them a chance to explore new textures, smells, and colours without pressure to eat. It also makes food feel fun and interesting, rather than something that just appears in front of them.

Keep the Environment Calm and Positive

If mealtimes feel like a battle, children can quickly link eating with stress. Create a relaxed mealtime space by turning off screens, avoiding arguments, and keeping the focus on connection rather than how many bites are eaten. Calm conversation, laughter, and gentle encouragement help your child tune into their own hunger and fullness cues, which is essential for developing healthy eating habits.

By making meals social, supporting good seating, involving your child in preparation, and keeping mealtimes calm, you create an environment where your child can feel safe, curious, and motivated to eat. Progress can take time, but every positive exposure counts towards building a healthy and confident eater.

Follow @babydfeedingdoctor on Instagram and join the Baby Feeding Village group on facebook for more advice.